ChocolateBet: September 29, 2009

Chocolate of the Day:

~1 oz.
MarieBelle - New York
Very Good - Very Good +
Weight: 1 oz. (28.3 g.)/3.1 oz. (90 g.) total bar
Calories: ~150 calories (estimate)
Cost: $8.50
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, in San Francisco, CA

This bar was a very skillful blend of dark chocolate and banana. There seemed to be a nice, slight crunch to this as well, perhaps due to strategically mixed in grains of potato starch.

Happy Confucius Day. This Asian philosopher is quoted as saying "With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bent arm for a pillow -- I have still joy in the midst of all these things." Throw in some chocolate, and maybe a good book, and I'm there. Simple things are best, yet I always seem to want to add a few more items.

ChocolateBet: September 28, 2009

Chocolate of the Day:

1 pudding cup
Lucerne Foods, Inc.
Eating Right Kids - Artificially flavored Chocolate Pudding (cups)
Good +
Weight: 3.5 oz. (99 g.) in one pudding cup/14 oz. (396 g.) in package of 4 cups
Calories: 80 calories in 1 pudding cup
Cost: $?
Purchased from: Safeway?

I knew I was making a good choice when I bought these pudding cups, because the Tasmanian Devil* is eating a huge spoonful of this pudding; and (on the back side of this package) Bugs Bunny is trying to hand me a carrot.

No, I'm not suffering from chocolate hallucinations. These are the characters on the pudding cup packaging, geared toward getting kids to eat fat-free pudding I'm guessing.

I liked the relatively small serving sizes. I ate mine with a small handful of toasted walnuts. This pudding does contain cocoa, so I was a bit puzzled about why the artificial flavoring was needed.

*The Tasmanian Devil was a personal cartoon favorite of mine when I was little.

ChocolateBet: September 27, 2009

Chocolate of the Day:

1 bar
Melzy Enterprises, Inc.
Figamajig Raspberry Dark Chocolate Covered Fig Bar
Very Good
Weight: 1.41 oz. (40 g.)
Calories: 130 calories
Cost: $2.50
Purchased from East West Bookstore, Mountain View, CA

Today, during a walk along the San Francisco Bay, I spotted a small fig tree growing out of the marsh grasses, thistles and assorted non-native plants and weeds, several yards from the water.

To honor this lone little tree by the Bay, I ate a Figamajigs raspberry flavored, dark chocolate covered fig bar from Melzy Enterprises (Sonoma, CA). It was very rich and satisfying after a long walk.

ChocolateBet: September 26, 2009

Chocolate of the Day:

1 straw
Bridge Brands Chocolate
"got milk? chocolate flavored straws"
Good + - Very Good
Weight: .35 oz. (10 grams) (estimate) + 1 cup milk
Calories: 23 calories for 1 straw + 140 calories for milk = 163 calories total
Cost: $0.99 for one straw
Purchased from: Z. Cioccolato, San Francisco, CA

I love chocolate magic. In this case, you "just stick a chocolate straw into a fresh glass of milk and sip." That's what I did, and the straw turned my glass of plain old, low-fat milk into chocolate milk.

And to think, a few centuries ago, people were wasting time on alchemy, trying to turn straw into gold.

ChocolateBet: September 25, 2009

Chocolate of the Day:

1 small bar
Kshocolat
Honeycomb and Vanilla - Milk Chocolate
Good
Weight: .35 oz. (10 grams)
Calories: 52.5 calories (estimate) for 1 bar
Cost: $5.00 for a package of six small bars
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, in San Francisco, CA

This little milk chocolate bar from Kshocolat (Scotland) certainly tasted sweet, but it was hard to pick out the honey flavor amongst all the sugar molecules.

Three of these Honeycomb and Vanilla bars were packaged together with three Kshocolat's Orange and Cardamom dark chocolate bars. Both were good, but the latter also had wonderful citrus and cardamom notes.

ChocolateBet: September 24, 2009

Chocolate of the Day:

1 small bar
Kshocolat
Orange and Cardamom - 72% dark chocolate bar
Very Good +
Weight: .35 oz. (10 grams)
Calories: 52.5 calories (estimate)
Cost: $5.00 for a package of 6 bars
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered in San Francisco, CA

If you like fragrant spice items, like gingerbread and chai tea, you should try this Orange and Cardamom dark chocolate bar from Kschocolat (Scotland). I enjoyed it very much, and started fantasizing about melting a few of these dark chocolate bars into a gingerbread cake recipe. This small bar is a perfect size: large enough to satisfy, and small enough to prevent chocolate overload. (These bars were packaged with Kshocolat's Honeycomb and Vanilla Milk Chocolate bars, featured earlier.)

ChocolateBet: September 23, 2009

Chocolate of the Day:
1 Tablespoon
Fudge is My Life
Ginger Chocolate Sauce
Weight: ~.7 oz. (20 g.)/10 oz. (284 g.) in total jar
Calories: 80 calories in 1 Tablespoon
Cost: $8.00 for 1 jar
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, in San Francisco, CA

I tried this ginger chocolate sauce with a wheat-free lemon cheesecake I bought from IKEA. In the future, I'd like to try this fudge sauce heated, over vanilla ice cream, or cherry vanilla ice cream.