Review: Pure Barre

This is my first Tuesday morning not waking up at the crack of dawn to write a Bach-cap in 9 weeks. RIP Bachelor Ben. Hope you and The Bee are having a grand old time. 

Despite my sadness at not having a Bachelor episode to review, I'm up. I'm coffee-d. I'm ready to review my experience yesterday. 

Pure Barre. 

Dun dun dun. 

Boy Meets World, anyone? 

Boy Meets World, anyone? 

Only joking. I actually had a really good time! I had some concerns going in, so I thought I'd tell you what my hesitations were initially vs. how I ended the class feeling. 

Concern: I don't have the right thing to wear. 
This may seem shallow, but to me, Pure Barre has always seemed like the "cool girl" workout class. There's a lingo and a dress code that everyone seems to intrinsically know before going. I had seen pictures of women in Pure Barre workout clothes, and most of them had on some version of long, dark pants and a tank top. I was worried that I would look weird in what I had on (Lululemon High Times pants and a Nike racerback workout top), but that ended up being just fine. The reality is that once you begin the class, you're way too worried about staying alive to look around the room at outfits. 

I bought the "sticky socks" there, and I really did feel like I fit in. The major thing they want you to do is cover your legs and midriff so that your whole body stays warm throughout the workout.  

Concern: I'm not a ballerina.
A few months ago, I had a terrible experience at a yoga studio here in Asheville. I have a yoga background (not a crazy-intense one, but enough), so I was surprised when the instructor introduced a move I'd not only never seen, but never heard of. When I attempted it, she walked over to me and LOUDLY corrected my posture. Then, when I recoiled a little at being called out in front of the entire class, she said, "Well, if you can't laugh at your own mistakes, you have bigger problems." 

...so basically what I'm saying is that I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. 

Needless to say, I was a little skeptical of group classes after that horror of an experience. 

When I walked in yesterday, I was very nervous that I'd be super behind (and that I also may or may not be publicly shamed for it). I didn't grow up dancing, so the concept of barre is really 100% new to me. 

Thankfully, right when I got there, the instructor (Christina) welcomed me, walked me through all the gear, and explained the terminology she would use. Once the class started, she shouted me out on the mic (Haaaaay!) and encouraged me the whole class. She did correct some of my movements, which I found really helpful since, as I mentioned, I'm about as comfortable at the barre as I am skydiving. But when she corrected me, it was quietly, with a smile, and she always found something to praise me for later. I'm a sucker for a compliment sandwich! 

Concern: It's going to be too challenging.
Everyone I know who's ever taken a barre class (including Jordan, who took one when they had a "Bring On The Men" class and he was DATING A PURE BARRE TEACHER. I know. Holy inferiority complex, you guys. It's cool, I have other talents.) has said that it is extremely difficult. 

The concept of barre is that you're making tiny movements, as opposed to big sweeping exercises or pounding a treadmill. The theory is that by working muscle groups in very focused, intentional ways, either using your own body weight or very light hand weights (like 1 - 2 lbs.), you'll not only strengthen, but you'll get long, lean muscles. 

I will admit, the class was very fast-paced. Once it got started, it was a non-stop 55 minute ride. The instructor uses a Britney Spears mic to talk through the movements and to be heard over the pop music that's pumping through the studio. The class advertises that your "personal life will melt away," and it definitely did. 

While in the beginning it seemed like I was the only one who wasn't sure what was going on, before long I realized that every class is different, so all the women there were picking up the moves along with me. 

The class is broken into four parts, with a warm-up and a cool-down at the either end: arms, "seat" (meaning your butt), thighs, and abs. I found the arms and the seat sections to be the most challenging - the arms because there was a lot of tricep work, which I don't normally do, and the seat because there was a lot of side-butt/hip work, which, again, is not part of my workout normally. Lately, I've been doing cardio 3-4 times a week in an online workout class, so I'm not out of shape, but I'm certainly not in THAT kind of shape. I definitely "found my shake" as Pure Barre likes to say, which means holding a position that makes your muscles tremble. 

This morning? The soreness. Is. Real. 

I'm hobbling around my house with new muscle groups that are sore springing to life with every movement: triceps screaming when I reach for the coffee, side body aching when I try to pick something up, butt and thighs on fire when I sit down or stand up. 

But this tells me that I got a killer workout yesterday. So I'm all for it. 

Concern: This is expensive.
Well, sorry to say, this one is just true. 

Right now, I'm in the middle of a new member package in which I get a month of unlimited classes at $100. I'm taking 4 this week, then I'll set my schedule for next week. 

As far as normal memberships go, the classes only get more expensive from there. If I continue with barre, it'll definitely be something Jordan and I would have to budget for. But, as my friend Meredith says, "Money is a tool." Where you put your money should be a reflection of where your priorities are, and one of my priorities is definitely living a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Healthy meaning I take care of myself and balanced meaning I ate a package of Cadbury Mini Eggs last night for dessert. 

...that's what healthy and balanced means, right? 

So. In summary, I will admit, Pure Barre is a little bit on the pricier side of the workout classes I've done. But I also have to acknowledge that they're on to something, and I am really hooked. As a (very slow) runner, I appreciate that Pure Barre is zero-impact on my joints, but that I still feel like I got an incredibly intense workout when I left. I think a huge part of my good experience was my teacher, and I'm rotating through a few teachers this week. Hopefully all of them will be as encouraging and awesome as Christina! 

Have you guys tried it? I'm very curious about what other people's experiences are. 

Gonna go pop some Advil and stare at my newly sculpted arms. 

5 Things: Life Lessons I've Learned from Gardening.

I am new to gardening. Ask my neighbors. 

Growing up, my grandmother Nonnie always kept a beautiful flower garden. Once we moved into their house and they moved up the road, the garden, unfortunately, became a little bit of a disaster area. 

In Jordan's and my house now, we have three tiers to our backyard; all three feature lovely landscaping, and two have raised beds. I decided that this was something I was going to take on. 

In the last three days or so, Jordan and I have had lots of "real life" things hit us between the eyes. Family members dealing with cancer diagnoses or surgeries, friends passing away from long-suffered illnesses - the kinds of things that always make us take a step back and look at life in a new way. At a certain point yesterday, amidst lots of this news pouring in, I felt the need to be outside for a while. So I started working in the garden, and because the "Big Questions" of life were weighing on my heart, I started realizing just how many parallels there are between gardening and life. 

1. For everything, there is a season. 

"This, too, shall pass." I remember hearing that quote for the first time and thinking, "...what??" But man, how true it is. Standing in this same spot in front of our house only a few months ago, everything around me was blanketed with over two feet of snow. And now, there isn't a trace of cold weather left - only beautiful blooms and signs of spring. The natural rhythm of the world - the growing, dying away, growing, dying away - is such a beautiful reminder that nothing physical is everlasting.

And it's hard to remember, while we're living in a specific season, that another one could ever happen. It was hard to believe, when I had snow up to my knees, that I would ever feel overheated again in the summer sunshine. But seasons change. It's an inevitability. 

Good times should be cherished and savored, bad times can be endured, and every opportunity should be seized, because we don't have forever to decide. It's just that simple.

2. In order for some things to grow, other things must be cut away. 

Pictured above is the peach tree we inherited when we moved into our house last July. I love peaches, and I was real happy to get to have fresh peaches as often as I wanted - peaches on top of my vanilla ice cream? Hello. Yes, please. Once the peaches came in, I remember walking out to the tree with a little basket to gather them, only to discover they were hard. As. Rocks. 

Seasoned gardeners will already know why this happened - it's because the former residents of our little cabin didn't prune the tree before spring. In order to grow full, juicy peaches, you have to crawl up in the tree and cut away most of the buds that are sprouting. Otherwise, the nutrients in the tree will be so split among all of the peach buds that none of the peaches will get enough, and none will grow to their potential. 

Good grief - that's an easy lesson, right? We can be anything we want, but we can't be everything we want. Things in life must be pruned away in order for other things to get the attention the deserve, so that we can grow to our full potential. Whether it's people, activities, habits, hobbies - there are some things that must be cut away so that other, more important things, get all they need to thrive. 

3. Good things are worth hard work. 

With the exception of the grace of God and the unconditional love of our families, there is no good thing in life that comes without hard work. When we moved into this house, the garden was overwhelming. The previous tenants didn't care for it at all, and so it had become wildly overgrown. Weeds were ruling the roost. 

As much as I feel like I've weeded, sprayed, rearranged, weeded, etc., weeds continue to persist every so often, and I find myself back on my hands and knees shoveling out the roots and piling the weeds to be thrown out. 

This is such a major lesson for me. If I'm being really honest and vulnerable, the truth is that there are a couple of things that have always come naturally to me. Because of that, early in my life, I was able to rest on the laurels of my natural abilities and didn't throw myself into working as hard as I could have. What a mistake that was. Not only did I cheat myself out of learning the value of work hard, but I also will never know what I could've achieved had I actually applied myself.  

Disciplining myself in order to achieve a goal is something I had to really learn, and it's a skill that I don't take for granted. Now, there is little in life that feels better to me than being disciplined - setting a goal and chipping away at it - and that is exactly what this garden project is to me. In order to keep a beautiful garden, I have to be constantly disciplined and attentive. And that's okay, because for me, this is something worth working hard on. 

I used to think: If at first you don't succeed, it wasn't meant to be.
But now I know: If at first you don't succeed, it's because you haven't earned it yet. Keep working hard. 

4. Don't jump to conclusions.

Two days ago, I was weeding around a little rock bed we have, and as I reached for the next clump of weeds, I saw a tiny bit of movement. That movement turned out to be the teeniest tiniest garter snake that I've ever seen. 

Having not encountered many snakes in the wild, and certainly not less than an inch away from my hand, I was very heebie-jeebied by this little fella. In my mind, this 5 inch (or less, really) snake was about to somehow Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger into an anaconda and eat me, my dog, and my entire house. 

So I used my snake safety (meaning I immediately fled). But first, I took pictures. After researching it from a safe distance, I discovered that garter snakes are non-venomous, and are actually helpful in a garden, because their diet consists of tiny bugs that can eat away at your plants! 

I'll give myself a little credit here, since snakes can definitely be scary, but the lesson still rings true: there are SO many examples of when jumping to conclusions is a bad idea. Sometimes things that to be appear scary aren't scary at all. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction is a bad one. Sometimes first impressions are flat-out wrong. 

Oh, to have the wisdom to remember that in the future. :) 

5. We are small, but we are special. 

I've heard people say that being out in nature makes them feel insignificant, and reminds them just how small they are compared to the big, wide world. 

And I get it. I know what they mean - when presented with the vastness and the scope of ALL OF NATURE, all of the universes and galaxies that surround our little tiny planet, it's very easy to feel like our lives are just vapors. Because we are small. Here today and gone tomorrow. That part is true. 

But I also think that each one of us is so special. Such a singular creation. In the same way that every flower in my garden is new, and fresh, and will never quite bloom the same way again, so are we, and so do we. 

Get ready for me to sound like one of those motivational posters in your 4th grade classroom. 

Every one of us is unique, like a fingerprint of our Creator, a perfect creation that has never been and will never be again. All living things have this in common. The gift of life is so precious - so fragile - and it demands that we plant our feet firmly and, with every breath, that we make good use of every daily jog, of every belly laugh, of every bolt of inspiration. 

Every flutter of our eyelashes. Each night as we finally crawl into bed. Every mundane lunch. All of it. It's all part of what's wrapped up in a life that can only be ours. Life is happening right now, every day, in every little action and every moment, for as long as we're on this planet. 

So we have to answer the question, "Who are you? What do you have to offer?" Some days, we might answer in whispers. Others, we might answer in a roar. But being alive means that every day, we are living into that answer We're only one person, and we're only here for a short while, but we're the only "us" there will ever be. 

So we have to bloom.

Myers Briggs Personality Test.

You. Guys. 

I need to confess something to you: I am obsessed with the Myers-Briggs personality test. If you've taken it, you probably have dabbled in obsession, too! If you haven't, get ready to have your mind blown. 

I love so many things about the Myers-Briggs test. The fact that it was invented by a mother-daughter team (shout out to my laaaaaadies), the fact that it exists to help organize "seemingly random behavior" into codes that allow the way individuals interact with the world to shine through. 

"But Mary Catherine, isn't this just some weird voodoo astrology where people just see a description and are like, 'THAT'S TOTALLY ME, OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY NAILED IT!'" 

No.

This test is extremely effective and used in businesses all over the world to help people better understand each other. The questions are designed to learn about you, not to pull some whack stuff together about how you were born in January so you must be stubborn and career-driven. 

Once you know what type you are, you can also research what celebrities match your type, what careers you would be best in, and some typical behaviors of yours in friendships, romantic relationships, and as a parent.

FASCINATING, right?! 

I love this test in particular because I lo-o-o-o-o-ve to deep-dive into people's personalities. I am obsessed with figuring out what makes people tick. It's the latent writer in me. I want to know your deepest, darkest, grizzliest, most interesting layers; I want to know why you said what you just said; what motivates you to get up every morning, etc. Love it. Can't get enough of it. (Freak.) 

In MB, there are four categories of personality, each with two options: 

1. Introvert v. Extrovert. This is probably the simplest one to diagnose. The easiest way to determine what you are is to ask yourself, "Where do I get my energy - from alone time or from groups? Do I like to focus on the world around me, or the world inside my head?" 

2. Intuitive v. Sensing. This category is a bit more nuanced. Here, you decide whether you're a person who likes to focus on and remember the bare-bones details around you, or if you're someone who likes to zoom out and add meaning and inference to the situations you encounter. 

3. Thinking v. Feeling. Important to understand that if you're a "T," that doesn't mean you don't have feelings, and if you're an "F," it doesn't mean you're a dummy. T v. F simply means: are you someone who is more logical and consistent, or are you someone who takes people and circumstances into account? Are you more ruled by your feelings, or more detached from them? 

4. Judging v. Perceiving. The best way I ever heard this one described was, "If you were to go on a European vacation, would you sit down ahead of time and have every detail, monument, and hotel stay planned? Or are you a person who would arrive and ask the locals where the best places to eat/drink/stay are?" 

To actually take the MB test, you have to shell out some cash, but there's an off-brand site that has created a test that's almost identical, located here. 

I myself am an "ENFJ." My personality description on the Myers-Briggs website looks like this: 

 

Warm, empathetic, responsive, and responsible. Highly attuned to the emotions, needs, and motivations of others. Find potential in everyone, want to help others fulfill their potential. May act as catalysts for individual and group growth. Loyal, responsive to praise and criticism. Sociable, facilitate others in a group, and provide inspiring leadership.

 

Now here's where it gets interesting. Jordan, who is very similar to me in many ways, but VERY different in others, is an INTJ. That means our biggest differences are that he gets his energy from being alone, while I get mine from being in groups; he is "Thinking," more detached from being ruled by his emotions, while I am, OF COURSE, "Feeling" every single feeling all the damn time. Here's his type description: 

 

Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance - for themselves and others.

 

The way this manifests in our marriage is fascinating to me. One of the biggest ways is that when it comes to things that are trivial, like dressing up for an event, Jordan's mind works like an efficiency robot - only the things that will be beneficial and effective in a long-term way are truly, deeply important. Otherwise, it doesn't matter too much and he doesn't get that worked up about it. 

A sample conversation between us: 

Me: Honey, you have to put on a collared shirt to go to this restaurant.
Jordan: Why? 
Me: Because there's a dress code! People would stare at you. 
Jordan: Mary Catherine, when are we ever going to see these people again? Why do you care what they think? 
Me: Because EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT SO YOU HAVE TO.
Jordan: So you're telling me that just because somebody somewhere came up with the idea that collars = formality, that's what is expected of me? I wear pajamas to work. Collars hurt my neck. I really don't want to. Do I have to? 
Me: I know that this doesn't make sense to you, and I understand that this is ultimately not that big a deal in the scheme of life. But the reality is that we're late, and I do not have the brain space to get into a conversation with you about the history of formalwear in the United States. Yes. You have to. I love you. 
Jordan: Ugh. 

....aaaaaand scene. 

Another great example is that Jordan is SO helpful at pulling me out of an emotional tailspin because he won't let me take him down with me. Observe: 

Me: UGH I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE. 
Jordan: Baby, you have so many things you love to do. Let's talk about them all. What do you think you would love? 
Me: I LOVE TOO MANY THINGS I CAN'T EVEN START DOWN A ROAD OR I'LL BOX MYSELF IN OR MAYBE I'LL JUST BE PARALYZED BY FEAR FOREVER AND NEVER EVER MAKE ANYTHING OF MYSELF AND THEN JUST DIE. 
Jordan: Well that's probably not going to happen. I'm going to go run a bath for you and we can talk about what to do next. You're writing a blog! I'm so proud of you for that. And you have time to figure out the big stuff.  
Me: NO I DON'T I'M BASICALLY 30 WHICH MEANS I'M BASICALLY 60 MY LIFE IS OVER.
Jordan: You know how sometimes when it thunders outside, dogs get freaked out, so their owners put them in compression shirts? Come here. I am going to hug-thundershirt you. It's all going to be okay. Your life is good. You are sweet and smart. You're going to be fine. 

I include these little snippets for this reason: for me, knowing that Jordan operates in a totally different way from the way I operate in some situations is super helpful for me. It allows me to take a step back and understand that for him, some things are just trivial and they always will be. It's the quality that enables him to be so great at his job - he is hyper-efficient, detail-oriented, and does not allow anxiety or fear to overwhelm him. You wouldn't really want someone like that performing surgery on your mouth. Which is why there are a lot of doctors who are INTJ's. 

In the same way, knowing that I am wired the way I am allows him to be able to shepherd me through my most vulnerable moments with care and grace, because he's aware that it'll pass, and that I probably just need to emotionally vomit all over him and then everything will be fine. 

ANYWAY. All of this to say, Myers-Briggs is FASCINATING to me for so many different reasons. I am on a mission to diagnose everyone in my world, so I've made a whole bunch of people take it. 

Have you taken it? 

What are you? 

I'm dying to know. 

Meat.

Normally on this blog, I do my best to talk about things I think will be universally interesting or agreeable. This, though, I know will put me in the squarely in the Southern minority. I just watched a docuseries on Netflix (Episode 1 of "Cooked") and it inspired me to come clean about a couple of opinions. So I'll lead by saying: 

I'm Mary Catherine ("Hi, Mary Catherine"), and I'm almost a vegetarian. 

"Mary Catherine, did you move to Asheville and become a hemp-wearing, vegetarian weirdo?" 

Nope. (Well, the weirdo part is questionable, but that's always been the case.) 

Let me start at the beginning. 

I have never been a huge meat-eater. From an early age, I gravitated toward complex carbs (haaaay mashed potatoes/mac and cheese/biscuits/chips/etc.!) way more often than the protein on a plate. 

I think some of this was textural, some conditioned, and some of my own neuroses. 

Meat has never been a particularly appealing texture to me. I loved McDonald's cheeseburgers and ground beef - otherwise known as "meat that doesn't resemble meat anymore." 

For school lunches, a pretty sugary sandwich was usually featured as as the main event. Jordan likes to rib me that I grew up on "sugar and butter sandwiches," and the truth is not far off. I ate my first sandwich that included meat in high school (thanks, Subway!), and I remember it vividly. Meatball sub. Delicious, in case you were wondering.

My own weirdness came into play when my mom got back from a trip to Israel when I was in elementary school. She described some of the streets they walked being lined with beef and chicken hanging in the street, covered in flies and (sorry to be gross) dripping blood into the gutters. I remember where I was sitting at the table when she said that, and it's strange now to recall that that moment was so significant. That freaked. Me. OUT.

After I heard that story, I remember being at friend's houses whose parents were cooking out, and trying my best to be polite and eat the burgers (because #manners and #theSouth). But with every bite, I was thinking, "I'meatingananimalI'meatingananimalI'meatingananimal," to the point that I'd psych myself out enough that the meal was over. I remember one particularly grueling experience when a friend's precious grandfather served filet mignon cooked rare. I ate every single bite of that steak because I loved and respected this man so deeply. And then I wanted to die. 

All this to say, I've always had an interesting relationship with meat. 

It's only been since I got Tom Hanks, who I joke ruined my life on this count, that I started to worry about the ethical component of meat-eating. 

I didn't grow up with pets, so having this dog has changed my heart completely when it comes to animals and the quality of their lives. Growing up, I didn't wish animals ill-will, of course - but I certainly wasn't terribly worried about their welfare. My aversion to eating meat was for all the reasons I listed above: the gross-out factor. But now, when I think about my dog having anything less than the spoiled rotten life that he has, it breaks my heart. When consider that other animals do live those lives, it's very difficult to sith with for too long without getting emotional. 

In America, we consume more meat than most other countries on earth. We've learned, thankfully, to eat a bit less red meat in recent years (I say "thankfully" because of the health risks associated with too much red meat), but we still eat more than most. Think back on your week - how many meals contained a meat component? 5? 10? More? It's not unusual here. We are wired to expect the protein in our meals to come from a meat product.

And that in itself? Not a bad thing! But this is what I want to talk about: 

Where our meat comes from is really important.

This is a mantle I've taken up recently and something that I feel pretty passionate about, given my life-ruining dog's hold on my emotional state. 

This next paragraph is upsetting, just in case you want to skip it! 

The majority of livestock in America is raised in pens or slaughterhouses that have conditions so poor you wouldn't even dispose of your waste there. Cows are often kept in pens that are too small, and corn-fed until they are shot between the eyes to be rendered braindead before they're bled to death. Chickens are overfed to a weight that can break their legs, but they still live (smashed against other chickens) until they're butchered. Pigs are raised in tiny crates and sows forced to breed over and over - the piglets still have an instinct to nurse, so they suck on each other's tails and get infections to the point that their tails are cut off. 

YIKES, PEOPLE. 

It's hard to even write about that. It's certainly hard to think about. 

And therein lies the rub: As a culture, we don't like to think about where our meat comes from. We don't like to consider that what's on our plates had a terrible, short life that was full of unpleasantness and suffering. 

But why don't we want to stop to consider it? I have a suggestion that might make you mad at me: 

It's because we know deep down that if we considered it long enough, we'd be forced to change our choices. 

I think that, given the information and the opportunity to think it through, most of us would feel pretty rotten about the idea of tacitly participating in an industry that treats animals so poorly. Nobody thinks to themselves, "YES! Yes, please. Take my money, slaughterhouse. I love how you do business. You guys rock." 

But changing our choices takes a lot of extra work that we don't want to do. We'd be forced to reconcile our conscience and our actions, and we don't want to do that.

Let me clear some things up about where I'm coming from: 

Do I think we should all be vegetarians, or that vegetarianism is the only way to be a morally sound person? No. 

Do I think we should all start to care more about where our meat comes from? Yes. 

Do I think that all animals have the same level of intelligence as my dog? No. 

Do I think that all life is equally sacred and should be treated as such? Yes. 

One of the things that Jordan says often is that we're stewards of this planet, not commanders. We weren't "given dominion" over the Earth to mistreat its creatures. If we want to be meat-eaters, and I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with that, then we have to be responsible about the kinds of meat that we choose to buy: how it was raised, and how it was killed.  

For now, I'm not in a period in my life where I want to consume lots of meat. But I know life is seasonal, and I know that if/whenever I do want to eat more meat, I'll only buy it from farms and from folks I can trust. The farmers who say their animals have "one bad day," but otherwise, lead happy lives.

So let's eat meat if we want! But let's invest in a product that was raised on a farm, and came from farmers and butchers who respect and value the animal's quality of life. Or, hunt, kill, and dress the animals yourself! I'm down with that, too. Because the truth is, animals who were lived in natural conditions are just better for you. They taste better. They are healthier. And best of all, those animals were happier.

I think it's the least we can do. Because living things deserve dignity.

And every pig's biggest problem should be that there's a baby goat jumping on its back. 


If you're interested in this subject and want to learn more about responsible meat-eating, watch: Forks Over Knives (streaming on Netflix); Food, Inc. (available to rent on Netflix); or episode one, Fire, of "Cooked" (a Netflix original series). 

Gorgeous, No-Bake Valentine's Dessert

If you're like me, your first reaction when thinking about Valentine's Day is food. Because #gluttony. 

But Valentine's, unfortunately, has gotten to be one of those holidays like New Year's Eve: people get excited for it, they plan for it, and then, because it's so full of expectations, it's kind of always a bummer. 

To guard against this, Jordan and I established a Valentine's tradition called "pizza and board games." Bet you can't figure out what we do. 

...you guessed it. Order a big giant pizza, watch movies, and play board games. Aren't we SO COOL?? 

This year, though, thanks to my friends at Two City Vegans, we're going to be adding these treats to our tradition. Why? Because they are easy, because they are two ingredients, and because they are already done. 

Note: I bought non-vegan chocolate chips, so my recipe doesn't include the almond milk or coconut oil that TCV's does. Equally delicious! 

Ingredients: 
1 bag of dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
Your filling of choice
This silicon heart mold, or a cupcake tin lined with parchment paper

1. Pour your chocolate chips into a a bowl. Temper your chocolate 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each trip to the microwave, until smooth. 

2. Carefully spoon the chocolate into the molds until they're about 1/3 of the way full. 

3. Spoon in your filling! I would recommend using a larger dollop of peanut butter than I did, but even a smaller amount was SO. GOOD. 

FullSizeRender.jpg

4. Fill the rest of your heart molds with chocolate under the peanut butter (or filling) is totally covered. 

The first three are milk chocolate and peanut butter, the three closest to us are dark chocolate and chili powder! 

The first three are milk chocolate and peanut butter, the three closest to us are dark chocolate and chili powder! 

5. Pop these bad boys in the freezer and wait a couple of hours. Then, enjoy! 

We ended up with milk chocolate and peanut filling, dark chocolate and chili powder (just mix it in to taste), milk chocolate and sea salt, and dark chocolate with homemade raspberry jam filling. (To make the jam - a carton of raspberries, 1/2 cup of water, 1/4 cup of sugar - bring the mixture to a boil, then cover, simmer, and cool.) 

Y'all, these were so yummy, so pretty, and so easy. Perfect for an office party, for your sweetheart, or to make with your kids. Happy Valentine's! And thanks again to Two City Vegans for this fabulous idea!