Finally Saturday

Finally is Saturday!!! The last day of my working week and I get to relax, even though my way of relax is mostly experimenting with chocolates and confections!
I almost never rest, even when I think I am, my mind is always engaged in creative thinking. Right now i am thinking about the Easter production, I want to make lots of cute bunnies, filled with caramel, nut butters and marhsmallow fluff, maybe raspberry, as well as small and medium eggs, making a combination or something like that. I am also been tickled by the idea of making couple of egg scupltures for dispay at the store, I will see into that. Unfortunately as always my time is limited, and I have to pick my battles carefully. Production for the stores is a priority. Especially now that I have picked up few more places where to sell my chocolates, this is an exciting news and I am looking forward to expand, with my vegan line as well.
The new place where my chocolates are going to be featured its called Piece, Love and Chocolate, a lovely all chocolate thing shop, located at 805 Pearl St. Boulder.
I am very excited about this because it will give me the change to work closely with three very talented women, that with their journey into this new venture, inspire me to become a better chocolatier and confectioner.
Well few new things and more to do, I am ready and scared at the same time, mostly because I am tired and I wish again and again that I could do this full time :-) maybe some day, soon?!

The alternative

It's been almost a year since I have made the switch to a vegetarian diet, strictly vegetarian I would say. I have been battling with the idea of slowly ease into a non dairy line and do a total switch, but I now think I would just add a line of non dairy products and expand the already existing business. There are plenty of options and opportunities to explore and I am excited about it.
The main thing is I will be making my own chocolate, so I can create a milkless "milk and white chocolate". Point? I want to be able to replicate some of my flavors but dairy free. I dont like to be limited to a dark chocolate only option for my confections, dont get me wrong I love dark chocolate, but some flavor combinations are best with a lighter chocolate or even white.
So next step is to buy the equipment, not much for now I only need to be able to make the chocolate I need for my own production. Later I will probably buy something that will allow me to sell the dairy free alternative chocolate to the public and professional. The idea is also to do a soy free milkless chocolate, so this is going to be a challenge just for my easily bored mind :-)
I am still working on the vegan nougat as well, I keep going back and forth with the results, small adjusts need to be done, flavor wise I am already there, the texture needs some tweaking, I am up for that.
My regular DesiderioChocolate lines will remain the same and I think is the right thing to do, at least for now.
I will be working this week on the Valentine's collection, Hearts and hearts and then some more.
Meanwhile I keep dreaming of chocolate making and formulations.

Super easy yummy recipe for MeatlessMonday.

Cannellini bean soup;

2 cans of cannellini beans drained, one piece of celery chopped, half small onion chopped, one small carrot chopped, 2-3 tbsp of tomato sauce or paste, pinch of dry sage, 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 2-3 of cups of vegetable broth ( u can use powdered veg borht and add water) also u can find the already chopped veggies (carrot, celery and onion, in the frezeer section of the supermarket, called soffritto or mirapoux or something like that :-P).
Put the chopped veggies in a pan with evoo and 1 tbsp of water, cook for 10 minutes on low until the veggies are translucent, add tomato, sage and veg. Broth & beans, cook for 20 m. Salt to taste or use bragg aminos, using a hand immersion blender mash some of the beans in the soup to ur liking, the more u mash the thicker the soup will be, add more veg broth to make more fluid if u like. Serve hot with a drop of evoo, enjoy, it is super yummy.

Colorado Spirit box. The perfect gift for the beer and whiskey lover, local is good :-)

It's almost 6 and I just sat down. Haven't stop for two weeks, now I ran out of chocolate! All orders are ready to be delivered and shipped first thing tomorrow. If I could do this full time it wouldn't be so exhausting. I am looking forward to my long weekend next week, first in a long time.

Display refilled for today, always feels good :-) Thanks to all my lovely customers for their support & appreciation <3

In the kitchen again this morning, theres no rest for chocolatier :-)