Surviving the Cold When You are Dairy Free

Eileen said good-bye to dairy at the end of August.  Needing to now embrace a gluten free, dairy free, egg free lifestyle has been an adjustment, but I've met the challenge head on.  It's been a mixture of success and failure and something in between.

It has been a cold winter by Puget Sound standards, and an even colder winter for the rest of the US. As someone who naturally gravitates towards the cozy, my thoughts go towards snuggling up with a hot cocoa by the fire.  My kids are like minded.  Unfortunately, traditional hot cocoa is pretty much a delicious dairy and milk chocolate concoction.

Determined to give my daughter the childhood she deserves, I searched for decent non-dairy hot cocoa recipes.  We tried the non-dairy cocoa mix with the polar bear on the front (meh).  Other methods that involved melting down dark chocolate were somehow not quite right, lacking creamy richness.  Adding a layer of difficulty, we are trying to avoid soy as much as possible.

Finally, with a decent hot cocoa recipe in hand (I admit it was for regular red wine cocoa), I visited many grocery stores to find just right ingredients.  I discovered Guittard semi-sweet chocolate baking chips.  They are peanut free, gluten free, dairy free.  Even better, it uses sunflower lecithin instead of soy lecithin.  When I first made the hot cocoa, something was missing--the creamy richness.  At the suggestion of my sister, I added vanilla almond milk yogurt (Kite Hill brand).  Success!

I served it recently at a baby shower I hosted and it was a big hit.  I shall share it with you.

Charlotte's Vegan Hot Chocolate Perfection

Cook time: about 5 minutes
Servings: about 8 small servings ( little goes a long ways)

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup Guittard semi-sweet chocolate baking chips
1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 individual yogurt of vanilla almond milk yogurt

Instructions:
1.  Combine all ingredients in saucepan over medium-low heat.
2.  Heat, stirring constantly, until chocolate chips are melted and the mixture is hot.
3.  Remove from heat.  Pour into mugs and serve.
4.  Try adding orange zest if you really want to take it over the top.

*I like to make several batches and put it in a crockpot to keep warm.
*If you want to add red wine, use 1 1/3 cups.  Wait to add until you remove from heat so as to not to lose its alcoholic effect.

Happy drinking everyone!