I learned long ago that it is important for your relationship to celebrate the small things. Even if you don’t go all out its important to find little moments in life to celebrate and appreciate your partner. Valentines day may be over rated but it is definitely one of those days where you can show your partner how much you love them. It doesn’t mean you have to spend thousands of dollars to prove your love but rather spending time and putting effort into your relationship. Personally I’ve never loved Valentines day. In fact during my school years I dreaded it because I never got anything from any of the boys.

When I started dating it was a mission to buy presents because they always had simple gifts in store that my boyfriend never really liked. A few years ago however I made him a nice home cooked dinner that we ate on our porch and it was more romantic than anything else I could buy him. This year I’ve decided to theme-up my valentines dinner so for the following 3 weeks I’ll share some of my valentines ideas with you, with a different theme each week.

This weeks theme will be Vampires, not any specific genre of vampire but just vampires in general. Now bare in mind, vampires don’t eat anything other than drinking blood, but we’re still human and this is only a theme :p

For today we’ll be making a Vampire inspired drink. I have an alcoholic and non-alcoholic version.

INGREDIENTS ( 1 serving)

• 80 ml  coconut water
• 2 tablespoons chocolate syrup
• 1/2 cup (125 gram) cherry pie filling (check below for substitute)
• red food dye
• 1 drop yellow food dye
• Pinch of salt (optional but its pretty sweet so the salt helps to reduce the sweetness)
• 1 cup red semi sweet red wine ( for the alcoholic version)

METHOD

Mix everything together in a food processor and serve. You could even heat it up

Instead of cherry pie filling you can make your own but its very sweet. Take a cup of fresh cherries pitted. In a pan boil 2 tablespoons honey with 4 tablespoons sugar over a low heat. Add the cherries and stir. Cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes until the cherries are nice and soft. Use same measurements as described above.

Notes: for the alcoholic version of this recipe you can mix 2 tablespoons of the mixture  to 1 cup of red wine, mix well and serve.

I really hope you like this idea 🙂