Perry's Plate: Dishing up real-food recipes and really good desserts ...

January 7, 2013

A fill-in-the-blank for you:

My least favorite thing about winter is ????????????????????????????????????????? .

Did you say the cold? The snow? Lack of good tomatoes and watermelon?

My least favorite thing about winter is socks.

(Followed very closely by lack of tomatoes and watermelon.)

I don?t like socks.
I don?t like wearing them.
I don?t like putting them on the baby over and over and over and over after she kicks them off 482 times a day.
I don?t like seeing kid socks all over the house.
I don?t like finding 25 little girl socks without mates in one load of laundry.

(That last one was not an exaggeration. It really was 25. I counted.)

Know what I do like? Hot chocolate. Especially hot chocolate that isn?t 99% sugar.

This hot chocolate is dairy-free and naturally sweetened. I like the recipe the way it is, but feel free to add more sweetener if you like.

Just a word of caution: don?t drink this with marshmallows. It?s very good as is, but once you put in a few of those corn syrup bombs it makes the hot chocolate taste bitter and weird in comparison.

It?s like trying to enjoy a bowl of strawberries while sucking on a piece of candy.

This probably seems like a Blendtec sponsored post, but I promise it?s not. It?s not my fault that they plaster their logo all over their blender, which, by the way, spins so fast it actually heats up your hot chocolate to the perfect temperature for a 4-year-old to drink. True story.

If you don?t have one (or a Vita-Mix), just pour it into a saucepan to heat up. Whisking it in the saucepan is also an option, but I don?t promise that there won?t be cocoa bubbles floating around and maple syrup stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Yield: About 1 quart or 4 generous servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1 can of coconut milk
about 1 1/2 cups of warm water (use the empty coconut milk can)
1/2 cup pure maple syrup, a smaller amount of honey, or Stevia
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Combine all into a blender and run the blender for a minute or so until everything is combined.

If using a high-speed blender, process until the chocolate is hot. (For Blendtec, run the "Soup" setting twice.)

If using a regular blender, transfer to a saucepan and bring to the desired temperature over medium heat.

Nat's Note:
I noticed a few minutes after the hot chocolate was blended that it began to separate. Just give it another whirl and it will be back to normal.

Source: http://www.perrysplate.com/2013/01/blender-hot-chocolate-dairy-free-and-naturally-sweetened.html

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