Valentine’s Day Treats with Frontier Co-op

A few Valentine’s Day treats for your sweet, including heart-shaped no-bake energy bars, pink cranberry muffins, and a chocolate yogurt fruit dip.

Last night we invited friends over for dinner. The older children arrived both by bus and on foot with my own, traipsing into the house and kicking off snow-covered boots before disappearing to the back bedrooms. In the kitchen, Kiera and I finished filling lip gloss tubes and tins with pink-tinged gloss for her friends.

Before long parents showed up, carrying bits and pieces of the meal we would be putting together, and the cooking commenced as a bottle of wine was uncorked. Caesar dressing was made to cover the bowl of romaine and baby kale sitting on the counter, freshly chopped. French onion soup simmered on the stovetop, and potatoes got to roasting in the oven.

The meal in progress, the kids were called back to craft Valentines. Hearts were cut out and pencils laced through; foam was slit to accommodate bubbles. Names were scrawled in black and blue and red ink, and then they were packed away in used paper bags so the table could be set for dinner.

Eleven heads around the table makes for a loud dinner, the type where everyone elbows each other as they reach for their drink, where kids stuff extra potatoes in their mouths or have conversations regarding their excitement upon realizing Brussels sprouts are on the menu. It’s also the closest we’ve ever come to having an all-out Valentine’s Day meal, unintentionally.

I am not a Valentine’s Day type. I do not believe that my love for my children or my spouse needs a special day of recognition where my deeds on said day are measured. If you know me, this should come as no surprise, for it seems that I am continuously eschewing the predetermined roles that society has laid out for me.

Instead, I believe that it’s the everyday acts – the folding of underwear, the forehead kisses on their way to the bus each morning, the bedtime stories read curled up in a ball on the couch, the wiping fingerprints from the walls – that more adequately sum up what it is to love someone. It is in the things you do not because you are told to do them, but because you want to do them or you are led to do them for the important people in your life. Perhaps you are led to celebrate Valentine’s Day with pomp and circumstance. I commend you for your personal choice.

In line with that, when creating a set of Valentine’s-themed recipes for Frontier Co-op, it was the everyday recipes with a pink-tinged twist that I gravitated towards. They are the sorts of recipes that will carry you through your everyday with a bit of color or craft to remind you you’re special, and because of that, they are timeless.

You can get all three Valentine’s Day recipes over on Frontier’s site: the heart-shaped energy bars kissed with white chips and goji berries, cranberry and orange muffins made naturally pink with cranberry powder, and chocolate yogurt which doubles as fruit dip, but it delightful on its own as well.

Frontier Co-op is an online cooperative that offers a wide selection of herbs, spices, essential oils, and more at great prices. They have a selection of body-related products that will help you stock up for making your own personal care items like body butter or shaving cream, and they carry some harder to find items for your cooking and baking needs. I’ve been really impressed by their quality and the team there is wonderful to work with, which makes adding them to dinner dishes and desserts an easy choice.

I provided recipe development and photography for Frontier on a freelance basis.