Happy (almost) Valentine’s Day! I am sure all you couples are making plans, dinner reservations and the whole lot. Mark and I work in the service industry so we dread every February 14th on our calendar. We rarely do anything for the occasion since we are both fairly sick of it post-Valentines madness but I wanted to make us a special little something to share.

Sometimes I don’t give him enough credit and I can be a real gump with him when he tries to be kind when I am in a bad mood and I just blow him off, a real dick move. I am trying to be more patient, more relaxed when things don’t go my way and appreciate him for all the very sweet, wonderful, and loving things he does for me. He gave me the extra shove I needed to get up the courage to make this site and stick with it despite many failed recipes. When recipes don’t go as planned, we have a little dance party in the kitchen to some good/bad music (favourites include Shake It Off and Miami which he knows all the words to both) just to keep in check that I don’t take myself too seriously. This recipe had a downfall before it was published.

Now Mark “says” he doesn’t love chocolate but once I made Chocolate Chip Brownies from Kristy Turner’s “But I Could Never Go Vegan!” Cookbook he was ringing a very different tune. I wanted to adapt her recipe for this Valentine’s Day post and make it gluten-free. My first batch tasted great: rich, chocolately and with dots of nutty pecans but I couldn’t get them to stand up on their own; the batter was way too soft. Mark and I ate them straight from the baking pan so I knew I had the flavour bang-on. The chocolate was still melted in the middle and the batter was still a little undercooked. This recipe loosely reminds me of a Molten Chocolate Lava Cake from chain restaurants but vegan, gluten-free and not pre-baked then microwaved. I halved the adapted recipe and baked the batter in these gorgeous ramekins I got for Christmas. Chocolate heaven came out of the oven. Though these brownies did not turn out as those fudgey squares I had expected, you just got to make it work and go with it.

For this chocolate sauce, I used Fork and Beans Raw Chocolate Sauce and I topped this dessert with Coconut Bliss Salted Caramel and Chocolate Ice Cream, which are both gluten-free.

There is still time to enter my giveaway for a copy of Kristy Turner’s But I Could Never Go Vegan! 125 Recipes, Zero Excuses. Current fav recipe: BBQ Cauliflower Salad with Zesty Ranch Dressing. An awesome gift for your Valentine?? xoxo

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