I made this up for a party at my house, thinking I had dried cherries. I did not, so I substituted fresh pear and changed up the recipe somewhat.

• 1 bag chocolate chips
• 1/3 c. half and half
• 1/2 stick butter
• 2 bosc pears
• blood orange rind
• vanilla cognac (Navan)
• World Spice Mayan Cocoa Mix (about three tbs)

melt chocolate over low heat with butter. Add half and half and cognac when nearly melted. Zest the blood orange and chop the pear into little squares and add to chocolate. Spoon onto waxed paper and put in freezer for a couple of hours.

Here’s a rather fancy version of cheese-stuffed peppers you can buy at fast food joints or in the frozen section at the grocery store. It really isn’t much more effort to quickly stuff these instead and they’re far superior!

• jalapeños capped and cleaned, keep caps
• marscapone
• good salt
• sweet red dried pepper
• prosciutto

mix in dried pepper and salt into marscapone to taste
stuff jalapeños
skewer them so the caps stay on
wrap in prosciutto

bake at 350 for thirty minutes