Easy Healthy Valentine's Day Snack, plus Heavenly Dip Recipe

Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.
-Victor Hugo

I always hated V-Day until the kids came along. But I love doing stupid little things for them on this day.

(You can read my previous rantings about the dreaded day of romance here. Seriously, you want to click on that link, there’s a dirty picture of bugs. One of my favorites.)

This year I’m showing some lovin’ with food… although really, don’t all mothers show their love through food every day?

We’ve got kiwis and strawberries and Pink Ladies… organic lemonade with organic pomegranate juice ice cubes… and healthified Heavenly Dip.

I don’t know if everybody calls it Heavenly Dip. That’s how they label it at my grocery store, and its cream cheese sweetness is one of my weaknesses. I will eat fruit all day and night as long as I have this dip on hand.

I’m fairly certain the stuff at the grocery store is full of sugar and preservatives, so I trial-and-errored my way to a fresh homemade version.

As always, I played it fast and loose with the measurements. Taste test to your heart’s desire.

Homemade Heavenly Yogurt Dip

warm some cream cheese (in the microwave at half power for 30 seconds). I used about 1/3 of the bar.

add plain kefir (it’s low fat, full of calcium and protein) until smooth and stirrable

add sugar to taste (I didn’t use much, didn’t want to overpower the sweetness of the fruit)

splash with vanilla, because everything tastes better with vanilla

attempt to refrain from licking bowl clean.

I looove organic lemonade with pomegranate juice. Usually I make juices fizzy with carbonated water from our SodaStream (it’s a great way to stretch your juice dollar, esp when you’re shelling out for the organic versions; but it cuts down on sugar intake too. Just tell your kids it’s soda!).

For V Day I show the love with full-flavor lemonade; the pomegranate gets frozen in candy molds to make heart-shaped ice cubes.

When the ice cubes melt, you’ve got pink lemonade 🙂

(In the summer, freeze the lemonade into cubes… drop them into water or iced tea for a bit of sweet zing.)