You Know You Have a Chocolate Addiction When...

1. You require a square of dark chocolate after breakfast.

2. You immediately go to the grocery store to buy more chocolate when you see that you only have one bar left.

3. You always have chocolate in your carry on luggage during trips in case you can't find any vegan dark chocolate during your layover.

My name is Liz. And I have a chocolate addiction.

Fortunately for me, the one holiday that condones this addiction just passed. So, in order to get this out of my system, I must purge my Valentine's Day recipes.

This is the first time in six years that the A-man and I have spent Valentine's Day together and we celebrated with cooking, eating, talking about our future together and... doing yard work (he's going to give me hard time for pointing that last one out). But truly, I felt grateful that we were able to spend the day, and the weekend together and that we were both able to bask in the glory that is chocolate goodness.

We had a wonderful chocolate souffle:

The recipe for the souffle was downright easy. While I was attempting to put together an eggplant tartine, I asked the A-man to prep the egg-whites and yolks for the souffle. He did that, and because the eggplant dish took so darn long to make, he finished the souffle for me. We used Sara Moulton's recipe verbatim and what do you know -- it's naturally gluten-free and if you use vegan chocolate, dairy free as well. It was light, yet decadent. Just sweet enough. And the perfect ending to our hours-long to make meal. We topped ours with fresh raspberries.

The next night we enjoyed delicious chocolate covered strawberries:

This is the simplest dessert out there. Because of my addiction, I dip a lot of things in chocolate, so I've become pretty in tune with what works and what doesn't, and strawberries -- they're at the top of the list. I usually take the easy route and place my chocolate (in this case 3/4 cup dairy-free chocolate chips) in a glass bowl and add about a teaspoon of shortening. Then I microwave for one minute and stir and continue to microwave at thirty second increments. Be careful because once it burns, it's gonzo. The shortening seems to give the chocolate a better gloss and makes it less likely to turn chalky once it hardens. Then I dip the strawberries (make sure they are super dry or else the chocolate won't stay) in the chocolate and place on parchment paper and place in the refrigerator for at least twenty minutes.

And then I eat them all.

I'm working on that last part.