Using Nutella, a chocolate hazelnut spread, and chocolate chips Giada has created an easy chocolaty pizza dessert that’s sure to hit the spot after any meal. This would be a lot of fun to have the kids help out with and after the pizza has cooled you could easily decorate the top with seasonal or holiday-colored sprinkles and candies.

Chocolate Pizza
from Giada De Laurentiis

1 pound homemade pizza dough or purchased pizza dough
2 teaspoons melted butter
1/4 cup chocolate-hazelnut spread (Nutella)
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons milk chocolate chips
2 tablespoons white chocolate chips
2 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts, toasted

~ Position the oven rack on the bottom of the oven and preheat to 450 degrees F.

~ Line a heavy large baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll out the dough to a 9-inch-diameter round. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet.

~ Using your fingers, make indentations all over the dough. Brush the dough with butter, then bake until the crust is crisp and pale golden brown, about 20 minutes.

~ Immediately spread the chocolate-hazelnut spread over the pizza then sprinkle all the chocolate chips over. Bake just until the chocolate begins to melt, about 1 minute. Sprinkle the hazelnuts over the pizza. Cut into wedges and serve.

[image: flickr]

Post from: Chocolate Bytes

Anyway, surprisingly they all wanted peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches for lunch, and I cut them into little star-shaped “puzzles” using the Lunch Box Builder that Tracey posted.

Now I need to go get some cleaning done (because now it’ll stay that way longer than 15 minutes!) but make sure you stop in tomorrow — the entire Home and Dining channel has something really fun planned!

Also, my b5 email address in the sidebar is incorrect! If you need to get ahold of me it’s heather.raw@b5media.com. I hope to have the sidebar corrected soon!

And don’t forget the contest!

Post from: Chocolate Bytes

In The Lunchbox

The most obvious is chocolate in the lunchbox. Mass Recipes has a Lunchbox Chocolate Banana Snackin’ Bar that looks pretty good.

My girls also like the regular old mini candybars for a post-sandwich treat. Just make sure you pack it close to the ice pack for a little while longer.

I came across this Charlie & the Chocolate Factory old-school style lunchbox from Lunchbox.com. I didn’t even know they made the metal boxes anymore.

Another fun way to mix things up a little: Instead of plain old peanut butter and jelly, spread peanut butter on one slice of bread and Nutella on the other.

Chocolate for Teachers

I haven’t met a single teacher that doesn’t love chocolate. My faithful stand-by for all things gift-giving is a See’s Candies gift card. I started off giving Starbucks cards a couple of times to my kids’ teachers and in the thank you notes they always mentioned using it on hot chocolate. I decided coffee is apparently more hit-or-miss than I thought and that chocolate is the universally appreciated gift. So that’s what they get and you can bet there have been no complaints! The gift cards can be used for anything in the shop, including pre-packaged boxes or pack your own.

If a gift basket is more your style Velvet Ribbon Baskets has chocolate-themed gift baskets ranging from $18.95 to $69.95.

Chocolate Electronics

Chocolate electronics? In a probably not-so-weird way when something is named “Chocolate” it makes me want to check it out that much more. Case in point: The Verizon LG Chocolate phone. I don’t need a cell phone but this one’s pretty and shiny and with the 1.3 megapixel cam, microSD slot, and a bunch of music features this is perfect for the high school or college student.

And how about the new colorful Dell Inspiron laptops? They have a brown one named “Espresso Brown” which is really calling my name. Maybe for Christmas 2009.

Post from: Chocolate Bytes