Here's one of Teri's favorite 'desserts'. She loves chocolate, and is satisfied by one or two of these little gems. She uses a dark chocolate since there's less sugar, and recent research suggests a variety of health benefits.

You can adjust the ratio of chocolate to almonds if you like more chocolate, use fewer almonds. If you like almonds more than chocolate (that'd be me!) you can reduce the chocolate to 'just enough' to coat the almonds...

It's really simple, and Teri says you don't need a detailed recipe.

For those of us who enjoy using a recipe anyway, here's ours:

Ingredients

• Two 4.25 oz. Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate bars (or your preferred brand of dark chocolate).
• Approximately one cup of roasted almonds (adjust quantity as necessary).

Directions

First, you need to have some dry-roasted, unsalted almonds (cooled to room temperature) on hand. We buy large bags of raw almonds (available at local grocery stores, but we buy ours from Costco to save a few $$$).

Roast the nuts

• Preheat oven to 325°F.
• Spread the almonds out in a single layer on a shallow baking pan or cookie sheet (one with sides, to keep from losing almonds in the oven).
• Roast almonds for 20 to 30 minutes until they just start to darken a bit.
  Do not overcook! I've been told that if you can smell the almonds outside the oven, you've already overdone it, so keep a close eye on them during the last 10 minutes or so.
• Remove from oven and cool to room temperature.

Assembly Instructions

• Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave oven in a microwave-safe bowl. If using the microwave oven, heat the chocolate 15 seconds at a time, monitoring constantly to ensure that you aren't burning the chocolate, and stirring each time. The chocolate must be completely melted and stir easily.
• Add almonds to chocolate a handful at a time, stirring to ensure even coating.
• On a clean, very lightly greased (or nonstick) cookie sheet, spoon about a tablespoon of the chocolate and nut mixture onto the cookie sheet so that individual piles do not touch.
• Place the cookie sheet with clusters in the refrigerator for about an hour.
  You can eat them sooner, but they may melt a bit when you pick them up.
• Remove hardened clusters from sheet using a thin spatula.
  Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Makes about 2 dozen clusters.

Variations

• If you prefer other kinds of nuts, you can substitute them for the almonds in this recipe. If you are going to roast them, you need to adjust the roasting time accordingly - different nuts require different roasting times. Experimentation is called for, but be careful not to over-roast the nuts.
• Add Craisins (or plain, dried cranberries) to the melted chocolate before you add the nuts. Adds a nice chewy texture and a bit of tang to the treat.