Mexican Hot Chocolate

In this episode, we're doing Mexican hot chocolate. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles, where I help you take control of your high life.\

00:35 I am your host Marge, and I'm very thankful that you're here lending me your ears today, and it's gonna be a good one.\

00:40 People, this hot chocolate, I have been literally dreaming about. Before we get into today's recipe though, I just want to mention quickly over on the Good Pods app, if you happen to use that app for listening to your favorite podcasts, I do recommend it.\

00:54 It's a great spot to see what other people are doing. It's sort of like a social network. For podcast episodes and I happen to be ranking number 11 in the top 100 indie how-to charts.\

01:09 So I'm pretty excited about that and for any of you that are using that app to listen to your podcast, it's thanks to you that I managed to get that high up the charts.\

01:18 And I really appreciate it. The one thing I really do like about listening to podcasts over there is they do feature a lot of independent podcasters and you can find a lot of great shows from people just like me who are podcasting out of closets and offices and rooms all over the world.\

01:34 And you might find your new favorite show over there. And if you haven't found Bite Me The Show About Edibles over there too, you can check it out.\

01:41 And of course you can find me on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and all your other favorite podcasting, listening apps. And if you haven't shared an episode with a friend lately, this is probably going to be the one that you're going to want to share.\

01:53 So this Mexican Hot Chocolate. Not to be too Canadian, but I'm going to talk about the weather for a minute.\

01:59 It's been cold. It's been mild. It's been snowing. Like a m*********** here. And I use that word deliberately because I'm not a fan of snow shoveling.\

02:09 And while I can take pictures and enjoy the beauty of the blanket of snow that casts its glittering glow upon the earth, uh that shit is a real heavy stuff to shovel.\

02:21 And we've been getting so much snow this winter. Just the other day we got another dumping of snow and my husband Chris goes out and he shovels it and it's pretty light and fluffy at this point.\

02:33 He's shoveling away and gets the job done and I'm pretty thankful that he took that upon himself because neither of us are big fans of snow shoveling.\

02:41 And of course we both leave the house and I come back before he does. I know he's gonna be out for a while and I come back to find that the snow plow had been by and all that hard work that he had done shoveling the driveway had been undone by the plow coming by and pushing all the heavy gross salt late\

02:58 in snow at the end of the driveway. So it was no longer the task of the light fluffy snow being cast into the air.\

03:04 No it was a back breaking job of trying to remove this heavy heavy snow from the end of the driveway so we could get the car into the driveway because if I hadn't have done that and then we would have had to park on the street which are not supposed to do this time of year and blah blah blah.\

03:19 Yeah snow is pretty. But it's a pain in the ass and of course today it's it's warm. Let me have a look at my my weather app because that'll force me to put down my pen and stop playing with it which is something I love to do.\

03:33 But we have a chance of flurries in the next hour even though we were forecasted to get rain it looks like we're actually going to get rain all afternoon uh through too much.\

03:41 of the night and it's going up to plus seven today and tomorrow and of course it's going to freeze overnight so it's going to be a f****** mess and I'm getting pretty sick of winter.\

03:55 It really has been a weird winter. I mean it's maybe been more of a classic Canadian winter when you don't throw me.\

04:01 And some of that uh, rain days or the really mild days but other than that it's probably been a pretty classic Canadian winter.\

04:09 But it's been making me think of heading south. We had talked about going south December 2019. Well that trip never happened.\

04:17 And here we are a couple years later and we're thinking about it again. It's been one of the those long cold snowy winters.\

04:24 It's been stressful with everything that's going on in the world and with a pandemic and you know life just always seems to throw you curve balls.\

04:33 And it would be really nice to finally take that vacation and enjoy some sunshine and some beaches and some good food.\

04:43 Needless to say we've been thinking about going to Mexico. I've never been to Mexico and I'm pretty interested because of course they do offer all those things.\

04:50 Beautiful beaches, culture, amazing food, warm sun. I've been thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm trying to see if I can find some edibles or edible chef's one.\

05:01 I've been there as well just to see what the scene is like even though I think it's still kind of underground because the weed is quasi-legal down there.\

05:08 It's not, I do believe it's decriminalized. They have talked about legalizing in Mexico as well. I'm not sure where they're at with that.\

05:16 I'll have to look for some articles on that. Perhaps link to it in the show notes if I can. But, It would be pretty interesting because they obviously have cannabis culture down there.\

05:25 Why not see what they have as far as animals go? This recipe from Nourished Kitchen and I do subscribe to her emails and I recommend her site quite a bit.\

05:34 She's really uh I believe the author of all the recipes in the site over there is Jenny. She is a- and Jenny is a slow food advocate.\

05:42 I think that's the best way to put what she is doing over on her website because her recipes tend to all fall into the same category of I mean slow food is sort of a misnomer because this particular recipe was actually pretty quick to put together so don't think that this is a long and lengthy hot chocolate\

05:59 that's going to take 1200. ingredients and all kinds of specialty equipment and time and energy and all this kind of thing definitely not the case for this particular one but she just tends to use whole foods she's not using package stuff more of a focus on fresh seasonal ingredients whenever possible\

06:19 and I really love her website one of the things I actually really like. about it too is uh she doesn't have any ads on it ever been to a food food website and I'm sure you have we all have I've I sometimes have to admit I get kind of annoyed when I'm trying to look at a recipe I'm trying to enjoy the\

06:35 website and learn about what I'm going to be cooking and I have like a Chrysler ad pop up like really it doesn't really vibe with me so that's one of the other things I love about her website and I have featured many of her recipes on this show before because I just tend to like the things that she does\

06:53 I think I think she does a great job and I have two of her cookbooks as well so that's the other thing I'll link to those cookbooks in the show notes because they're pretty fantastic I've made several of her recipes the piece from there and some of the more non-traditional ones like I've made some of\

07:05 the sauerkraut from her cookbook I've made beat kavas which is like a fermented beet drink I've made other types of sodas and kombucha and all that type of stuff by using her cookbooks so some of her recipes are kind of non-traditional for sure the water kefir delicious I used to make that all the time\

07:21 as well you help. All right, we'll you next and so a lot of the stuff that she does is more uh traditional but non-traditional at the same time because most people when I say water kefir like what the hell are you talking about so in any case this Mexican hot chocolate recipe landed in my inbox is it\

07:36 to say large. Be patient. You'll get to Mexico. I know the weather sucks but in the meanwhile enjoy this hot chocolate and enjoyed I did.\

07:47 It was so decadent. When I looked at it briefly I thought it was gonna take a long time to make you know you look at it I just sort of scanned it I was like all those ingredients and then pour milk and blah blah blah and I was just like ah it's gonna take a while but then when I actually went to go do\

08:01 it I was just like it's super easy. If you can measure out stuff and put it in a pot then you can make this recipe so.\

08:07 And this is for the non chef out there who's looking for something really warm to enjoy. If you have a fireplace that would be so perfect.\

08:18 This is the kind of thing you want to curl up with in front of a fireplace. You feed to the fire a nice book.\

08:25 Some nice music playing. Maybe even some candles or some shit. You know that kind of thing. That's that's the that's what conjures in my mind when I think of this hot chocolate recipe.\

08:36 I really wish I had some right now to be honest because it was so good. I've thought about it every day since I made it.\

08:41 This was. at the time of this recording probably a week ago and I use the last of my milk. We're not big milk drinkers in our house.\

08:49 Kids are all grown up in the house and all that kind of thing. So we're not we're not big milk drinkers.\

08:54 I usually tend to have some milk in the fridge at some point because I do tend to have milk in the fridge because I do enjoy having that as an ingredient option but I use the.\

09:03 The rest of it to make this particular hot chocolate. I have not had a chance to go out and get more since and I'm really really actually fighting the urge to text Chris right now because he's out and be like pick up some some more milk while you're out because I really need this in my life right now\

09:17 and I didn't exactly make it the way she suggested because again that's what I tend to do I improvise and I use.\

09:23 I use what I happen to have on hand but this recipe is pretty simple you're going to need whole milk you're going to need two ounces of fair trade 70% dark chocolate bars broken into small pieces.\

09:36 You're going to need vanilla extract, ground salon cinnamon, chili powder, cayenne pepper, salt, and then if you are so inclined you can oh shit if you're so inclined you can add whipped cream and additional chocolate shavings on top.\

09:53 So here's why I did where I diverged a little bit I didn't have whole milk in the fridge. What I did have however was whipping cream or your heavy cream and I used that instead.\

10:05 So it did probably take this recipe from however many couple hundred of calories per cup that it was to like a gazillion but I don't care it was worth it.\

10:16 So the whole milk would probably just be fine I would go for like homogenized I guess that's what that means but go for homogenized milk and in a pinch you could use something a little creamier than that like the full fat cream like I did to just know that that's going to change the nutritional component\

10:31 of it pretty significantly but worth it. The next thing was it called for the two ounces a fair trade 70% dark chocolate bar.\

10:41 Or you can use a quarter cup Come on. So I had the chocolate chips. I don't think mine was 70% dark chocolate.\

10:49 They were like a semi-sweet because that's again all I had in my cupboard but I used it and it was great so probably to make it a little bit sweeter.\

10:54 I'm sure it'd be really nice with the dark chocolate. I do however always buy fair trade organic chocolate chips myself because that's important to me.\

11:03 So if- you can, you spend a little bit of extra money and then you know the people who are making this wonderful chocolate for you are getting paid fairly for their efforts.\

11:12 Next you're going to add your vanilla extra or you're going to need the vanilla extract. That was really the only two changes I made.\

11:17 I had everything else on hand and if you didn't have something you could probably leave it out. The The pinch of cayenne pepper was optional.\

11:23 I did, I did add that pinch because I do love a little bit of spice with the chocolate. I just find that mmm.\

11:28 So delicious. So good. And yes I added whipped cream to the top even though it was made with whipped cream.\

11:35 So this was probably like a thousand calorie a cup of hot chocolate but it was worth it. Now I am going to be getting this milk if it kills me and going to be.\

11:44 I'm making it again and I'll just go out and buy whole milk and not the whipping cream because I still have some whipped cream left that I can put on top.\

11:52 And if I have a chance I'll get some of the dark chocolate just to try it this way but. It was pretty easy to put together.\

11:59 You basically pour the milk into a pot. You put it over medium heat. You add in the chocolate and you stir- it till it's combined and you're gonna let that chocolate melt into that milk.\

12:08 And then you add all the other stuff. It says vanilla, cinnamon, chipotle powder, salt, an additional sweetener which I found pretty interesting because she doesn't actually list that in the list of ingredients.\

12:20 And in my mind, completely unnecessary. The chocolate was I guess if you're using more of a dark the darker chocolate you may find that you need something a little extra.\

12:30 But I didn't find that I needed that. And then the pinch of cayenne pepper if you're using which I do recommend if you like.\

12:35 And it wasn't like oh my god this is spicy. It just had really nice flavor. So you're going to mix that all together and when the chocolate is melted and everything.\

12:43 thing. It suggests if you have an immersion blender you can give it a quick word before stirring. I added it to a blender and blended it on high.\

12:52 And this is where I added my my infusion. So of course you're like well where do you where do you infuse this?\

13:00 I just added some coconut infused coconut oil. And simple. I put it in at the end in the pot with the other ingredients and then putting it in the blender helped to make sure that it emulsified and it seemed just fine and it was quite nice.\

13:14 And I didn't really notice it wasn't separated or anything like that but probably because I was also using like a full fat milk which or cream which with that high fat fat content would emulsify quite nicely.\

13:24 So that is probably the easiest way to infuse this. Another way would be to use some of those powders that are available on the market but then you have to go buy that and if you already have coconut oil.\

13:34 Or you could probably add a little bit of butter too if you had if you had that too um as well.\

13:40 And because you're this actually lays it out it's. see up. A recipe for one cup and I drank the whole thing when I made it so it was like that was enough for a single serving so you're just going to be dosing it for that single serving so you don't need a whole lot necessarily depending on your tolerance\

13:59 and how strong your infusion is etc. So you can just add a right into the. Pot, let it melt and then adding it to the blender is just going to help make sure everything's beautifully emulsified before you pour into the cup and add your whipped cream.\

14:11 I should have add the additional chocolate shaving because that would have been nice but I didn't but it doesn't matter because it was so so good.\

14:19 So good. I just want more. And like I said you could add the powders if you wanted to. I do tend to have a few of those in the cupboard most of the time.\

14:28 I don't use them very often but in a pinch sometimes they're kind of nice. The powders that I have of course in Canada they can only be up to 10 milligrams in the states.\

14:37 You probably have a lot more options than I do as far as those go. But they are handy to have in the cupboard.\

14:42 So if you are ever out at a disb- and you see some and they're on sale it's a good time to pick them up.\

14:48 Because honestly when they first came out on the market I think in the dispenser I was working at these powders.\

14:53 They're single serving. You're buying one 10 milligram powder basically for about 7 bucks plus tax. They have since come down in praise.\

15:01 I think now we sell them at the dispenser of like $5.50. you give or take plus tax. That is for one single serving.\

15:08 One single 10 milligram serving. So if you're making your own fusions you can do a single serving for far less money than that and a little more efficiently but again if you can get if you can get them on sale that's when I like to pick them up and then I just have them in the cover for when I need them\

15:22 for something like this. Although. Hello. So again your coconut oil or your butter work quite nicely here. And I had tossed around the idea of trying to infuse the milk or the cream for this.\

15:35 Umm that is another way you could do it as well. I'm not sure. I might try it again that way just to see because sometimes I do have cream in use up and it might really affect the taste and I would have to try it out to see.\

15:49 There might be a worthwhile time to test it out but then you also have to watch the dosing on that one pretty carefully because it does call for a whole cup of milk.\

15:57 Of course you could always do a ratio of the infuse to not infused but that just makes it more long and time consuming and part of the beauty of this thing.\

16:04 Thank you. Umm is you come in from shoveling the driveway or you've been outside maybe building a snowman or you've gone skating or some other winter activity or you just feel a little chilled to the bone and you want something.\

16:15 You want to treat yourself because you've had a tough day. You want this to be quick and easy to put together.\

16:20 So skip the infusing the milk because I find that's a pretty specialized and fusion sometimes. And unless you really know what you want to use it for that that one does not last.\

16:28 It doesn't keep long like many most of your other infusions. Another way you could infuse this as well is if you had infused chocolate.\

16:38 That would be a simple way to do it too. You pick something up from somewhere and you want to throw some of that infused chocolate in with it or maybe that's another way to boost.\

16:44 We'll next week. The potency without adding too much more coconut oil because adding too much may make it the flavor and the texture a little bit different but that's another way you could do that as well.\

16:55 But just know it doesn't have to be complicated you can just keep it pretty simple. And yeah once you've done all that you've put it through the blender and whipped it up you're just going to .\

17:05 Serve it. And drink it. And enjoy it. And you're welcome. Seriously you're going to love it. I think anyway. So I think that's it for this week my friends.\

17:15 I am on the hunt now for more milk out there in the wild and that's what I'm going to be doing probably later on today.\

17:21 Is making some more of this and maybe even make a double batch. That I can share some with somebody special.\

17:27 That would be something I'd recommend as well, doubling up the batch. I mean you could easily do that. And you will find all the notes and the recipe and the link to the website and everything else all over on the website as per the use.\

17:42 Until next week my friends. Stay high.}