I used to think that people were either really into Valentine's Day or really against it, but now I know that you can just be happy to eat chocolate and drink wine with someone you like a lot (although let's be honest, I think that's what life should look like every day of the year).

To celebrate Valentine's Day without being too cheesy, I decided to make some chocolate truffles (sounds impressive, super easy--exactly what I'm looking for in a recipe) and put them in cute little handmade bags for a festive truffle trade! It's like a cookie swap, but a little more lovey-dovey.

Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients:

• About 12 ounces of semisweet chocolate chips
• One cup of heavy cream
• 4 tablespoons of butter
• Toppings: cocoa powder (sweetened), powdered sugar, melted white chocolate

For the package:

• Tulle
• Tissue paper
• Ribbon

Instructions: 

1. Place the chocolate chips in a large bowl.
2. In a saucepan, heat the cream and butter over medium heat and stir until it begins to boil gently.
3. Remove from heat and pour the cream mixture over the chocolate chips. Stir until completely melted and smooth. Cover and place in the refrigerator until it hardens (overnight is fine).
4. Remove the truffle mixture and use a spoon or melon baller to scoop out bite-size truffles. If you want, you can use your palms to roll each one into a smoother ball, or you can just leave them uneven.
5. Cover with powdered sugar, cocoa powder, or a drizzle of white chocolate. Keep any extras in the refrigerator.
6. You can pack them up in cute little bags by using some tissue paper and tulle--I cut two pieces and crossed them before putting the truffles in the center. Then I bunched it all up and tied everything with a red ribbon.

I love chocolate and red wine--it's such a classic pairing. I'm really into Matanzas Creek's Sonoma Coast Merlot these days. If you make some truffles this Valentine's Day, let me know!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Matanzas Creek. The opinions and text are all mine.

"I just feel sad today," I said on Tuesday afternoon, and he replied with an uplifting "Oh, you know what we should do? Celebrate Valentine's Day early! Let's go on a little date somewhere close."

So I got off the couch and put on a dress and curled my hair, thinking about how far we had come as our new dog napped on the floor of our bedroom. And we went to dinner and sat at a high top in the bar of our favorite neighborhood restaurant and drank martinis and ate goat cheese and I looked at him in the fading sunlight, wondering how in the world I ever got so lucky.

I don't know if Rob ever imagined that anxiety and overwhelm would make its way into my life at age 22, but it did and sometimes I just feel too swamped to think straight. And on days like those, he finds a way to make things better--like coming home Tuesday after work with dinner plans, a bar of fancy chocolate, and the microwave popcorn I had been fantasizing about for days.

Maybe he didn't mean or plan to be cut out for this, but he certainly is everything I never even knew I needed.

Six years ago my husband asked me to be his valentine, and since then I have encountered new things to be grateful for every single day.

When I was in Roanoke last weekend, my friend Raquel came over for an afternoon of crafts, catching up, and a couple glasses of La Crema Pinot Noir. It was the perfect early Valentine's (or should I say Galentine's) Day celebration!

We put together some homemade valentines using dip-dyed card stock. The end result was really lovely--and even kind of professional-looking! I was pretty proud of them.

This post is brought to you in partnership with La Crema. Be sure to stop by their blog today for my dip-dyeing tutorial!

Photos by Sarah Gatrell of Photo + Love for Freckled Italian.