Chocolate chip caramel bars

OK.  Here's one last chocolate-caramel recipe for the month.  I think all the Valentine's Day chocolate recipes on the Internet were too good to not to try.  I found this recipe for chocolate chip salted caramel cookie bars from Two Peas and their Pod.  It was super easy; the hardest part was taking the wrapping off the caramel candies!  My husband said he liked these bars, but he didn't think the caramel was necessary.  But I think the caramel is what makes these bars so unique.  They're not just your ordinary blondie.  Again, these bars would be perfect for a church coffee or treat day at work.  Give them a try next time you have a chocolate craving!

HBin5: Red Beet Buns and Chocolate Tangerine Bars

In honor of Valentine's Day, this week's Healthy Bread in 5 project was a fitting selection of two recipes: Red Beet Buns and Chocolate Tangerine Bars.

Have to admit, I didn't have high hopes for the Red Beet Buns, and I guess it shows in my fuzzy picture.

I'm not a big fan of beets, but I thought maybe I wouldn't be able to taste them when they were baked in the bread.  The rolls turned out a beautiful red color.  The dough was sticky to work with, though, so I couldn't shape them as well as I would have liked.

I took my first bite...

...and I didn't like it.  I could still taste the beets.  I'm not sure why, but beets just taste like dirt to me, no matter how much I wash them off. And it was a pain to clean up all the beet stains.  Not worth the effort for me, although my husband didn't seem to mind them.  He thought it just "tasted like bread."

On to the next project, another unusual recipe, chocolate tangerine bars.  I mixed up a batch of Chocolate Expresso Bread and used the dough for these bars.  I was a little worried at first, because the dough didn't appear to rise on the counter or in the fridge overnight.  And they didn't look to pretty after I baked them.

But I ended up liking these bars.  Hard to resist the little pieces of chocolate. The bars were surprisingly soft considering that they didn't rise much.  I also had to improvise the recipe and use semi-sweet chocolate, since I couldn't find bittersweet in our little grocery store.  And I thought I had dried cranberries in the cupboard, but couldn't find them, so the bars went without them.

Would I make the chocolate bars again?  I'm undecided.  They were OK, but if I want a chocolate fix, I'd rather make brownies, not chocolate-studded bread.  Maybe if I paired the bread with something, like a raspberry spread.  Looking forward to reading how the recipes fared for the other bloggers.  Please check out Big Black Dog to see their results.