I was trying to explain to my 10 month old what Christmas tastes like. It was a fairly one-sided conversation but I’m pretty sure she got the gist of it.
I was cutting pomegranate seeds in half for her like the paranoid mom that I have become and she was mmmm-ing as she swallowed fistfuls of them whole. These had been preceded by some sage-y buckwheat with mushrooms, all flavours that seem very Christmassy to me.
I’ve never thought of Valentine’s Day as a particularly romantic holiday. Thanks to TV and Archie comics, I knew that it was supposed to be, but that’s not ever how it’s seemed to me. I think it’s because we celebrated it as a family my whole life, even back when boys were gross.
It represented love for sure, we all loved each other and had a special dinner together that night (fondue, most likely) (have I mentioned how much my Mom ruled?) and my Stepdad would bring us all home chocolate and cinnamon hearts. So it has always meant love and chocolate, not too far off what Hallmark is telling us, but I kind of love it.
This is meant to warm you up, down to your toes, but a side effect is happiness, it’s made of chocolate, after all.
I was reading about ‘Champurrado’ in Lucky Peach magazine the other day. I had never heard of it before, but it is a chocolate version of ‘Atole’, a masa (corn)-based drink that they drink in Mexico to warm up ). Because apparently it gets cold there. As it turns out, this will warm you up whether you are Mexico-cold or Canada-cold.
The recipe in the article was created by Rick Bayless, and whenever I see his name I pay attention because his specialty is traditional Mexican cuisine, a cuisine I don’t know very much about, but find really interesting.
I would have pictured a warm chocolate drink from Mexico more like warm chocolate drinks that I’ve had in Europe, basically melted chocolate ganache (not that I’m complaining), but this is more like a mixture between hot porridge and a smoothie. That’s why I’ve called it breakfast hot chocolate, because it doesn’t resemble the hot chocolate that comes in the rip open packages with little dried marshmallows that you may or may not have enjoyed beside a roaring fire after a chilly summer night time swim. It’s actually pretty healthy, even if it leans towards the sweet side (chocolate without the sweet would taste more like black coffee).
I had you at ‘healthier’, didn’t I? Not the best word for describing any delicious food, but it’s an important part of this recipe. Yes, it’s still tiger butter in all of its smooth, sweet, nutty goodness, but you need to know we have made it without any of the refined sugar, dairy or aflatoxin-y peanut butter. Hooray…..!
It’s also really quick and easy to make, which might be a better sell for a recipe. The trickiest part can be finding the cocoa butter but if your local health food/gourmet shops don’t have any, there are many websites that will. Order some today, you want to make this!
