Blueberry “Glosettes”

I was just surprised to find out that “Glosette” is an exclusive Canadian brand of confectionary!  Who knew!  I thought that Cadbury made them, but apparently Hersey bought them in 1987 from Nabisco so I wasn’t even close!

Basically a glosette is bit of dried fruit or nut dipped in some glossy chocolate.

So over the holidays I had a young visitor who for health reasons is not supposed to eat much sugar.  I didn’t want him to feel left out while everyone else was pounding back the sugar cookies and shortbread, so I tried to make him some healthy items so he would feel like part of the gang.

One thing I came up with was to make my own blueberry glosettes.   It was a bit labour intensive, but worth it in the long run.

I also made up some of these :  CLICK HERE

But for the glosettes I had to first dry out the blueberries!

Out came the trusty Excalibur dehydrator which really hadn’t been getting it’s fair share of use lately.

Start by thoroughly washing and picking over your blueberries, discarding any dodgy ones.   And then I put them into a clean tea towel and  try to dry them the best you can.

Then onto the dehydrator try and in they go.

If you don’t have a dehydrator……..and I understand that many people don’t!  You can just put them on a parchment covered baking sheet and pop them in the oven on super low.  Like 200 degrees if you aren’t trying to make them “raw”.

Which ever method you use, leave them until they resemble raisins.

Once they are done, let them cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, in a double boiler, melt some good quality dark chocolate.  I used the 70% cacao bars.

Melt the chocolate until it is just runny enough but still quite viscous.

Toss in your blueberry raisins , coating well, working quickly.

Now I’m sure at the Hershey factory they have some sort of fancy conveyor belt thing that makes them come out perfectly round, but at home you have to make due.

I tried letting them harden on a fresh sheet of parchment but will admit they came out flat on one side.

Or I tried putting them on a baking cooling rack with small squares, that seemed to work better, but it was a bit of work getting them off.

Perhaps you might have an even better idea of how to cool them and keep their shape??

Which ever the case, once they hardened they were a delicious, NOT so sugary treat!!

Here’s something you should know about!

Now, if you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll know that I am an advocate of healthy eating!

But I also realize that people have to live in this world and need to enjoy life too.  So it has always been my philosophy that if people are well informed and can make the best choices for them, at least 80% of the time.  Then you should do okay.

By the same token, I am a great champion of “real” food!  Even if it is “oohy gooy” sweet or high in fat, I still think that if you made it yourself and know EXACTLY what is in it, that it is better than the processed version!

But ALL that being said, sometimes, life presents realistic situations, where unless you have a charmed life where you can spend all of your time preparing every last morsel of your own food, you are going to HAVE to eat something that came from a package!

It is just a fact of life!

So I was very happy when the nice people NATURALLY SAVVY approached me to have a look at their new book:

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“UNJUNK YOUR JUNK FOOD“

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And I think it couldn’t have been better timing what will Fall upon us and people getting back to their busy school and work lives where every now and again, packaged food is inevitable!

What they have done in this book is gone though an extensive list of “junk food” items and on one side listed the “undesirable product” with strong case evidence as to WHY you should NOT eat this particular item.  And then on the other side, listed a comparable product, i.e. a different brand of ice cream, with evidence as to WHY this one IS a much better choice!

But what’s really good is it is teaching you just WHAT you are looking for and how to recognize the “bad” ingredients from the “good”.

It is well organized and very easy to understand.  It has pictures of each product so you can recognize them when shopping and explains in easy terms the ingredient labels and shows the comparison between each product.

It is also chock full of explanations, definitions, tips and other helpful information, all in quick, easy to read format. 

And it is a great little size to put in your reusable shopping bag to bring along to the store as a great reference book while shopping!

And kids will love it because they will be able to play along in the grocery store!  “Buy THAT one Mommy not THIS one!”  Which might distract them from all the other activities they often get up to at the store!

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Here are some of the things you should keep an eye out for and to try and avoid when making YOUR choices!!

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For more information check out Naturally Savvy on FACEBOOK and TWITTER!

 

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