Mexican Hot Chocolate

Today is "one of those days".  I started my third job this week and it really is taking its toll.  Having 11 hour work days plus whatever driving children around I am required to do all while taking a 3 credit course (albeit online) is actually just as overwhelming as it sounds.  For some reason I thought I could keep my sanity and overload myself with work.  As it turns out, I was wrong.

I am so tired I'm nauseous, and I am so nauseous I can't drink coffee without destroying my stomach lining.  I showed up to my first job and left and called in sick to my second.  I just can't today.  So I'm working from home.  I'll nap in a bit.  Hopefully.

In the mean time, today seems like the perfect day for some hot chocolate.  (I know it's June, it's also freezing cold and raining.) I need just enough sugar to keep me going for the next hour or two until I finish this report, but not so much that I cannot then crash and burn and sleep for a solid two hours.

Mexican hot chocolate is my life solution for today.  It's spicier than regular hot chocolate and gives it an extra kick and, to be honest, I'm tired of drinking that artificial chocolate shit from Starbucks.  This is hot chocolate done right.  The way the Mexicans intended it.

The smaller you chop it the faster it melts

Ingredients:
1 cup milk (whole, 2%, skin, doesn't matter)
1 square of semi-sweet baking chocolate, finely chopped OR 1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon sugar
pinch of salt
pinch of cayenne pepper
two pinches cinnamon

Recipe:
1. Pour 1/2 cup milk into a small saucepan with the chocolate, sugar, and salt and stir over your lowest heat setting until the mixture is smooth.

It kind of looks likes vomit right now, but keep stirring and it'll smooth out.  Promise.

2. Pour in the rest of your milk along with the cayenne pepper and cinnamon.  Stir until smooth.
3. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it is hot enough to serve

Actually have two beaters this time....

I then splashed some heavy whipping cream into a bowl and beat it with a blender until I had some homemade whipped cream, but that's optional.

Mmm life saver!

Hope your day isn't sucking!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Chai

I love to bake.  I do.  I find it relaxing and it makes me think of Potions class from Harry Potter.  You mix a bunch of random shit together, add some heat and you magically wind up with something totally new.  It was awesome when I was a kid and it's awesome now.


The problem with baking is that when I bake a batch of cookies, there are just so many fucking cookies.  Same goes for pie, cake, creme brulee, you name it.  And if you're like me and have ZERO self-control, you wind up eating everything you made within the next 24 hours.  And then feel disgusting.  And swear never to bake again.  And wind up baking raspberry tartines the next day.  Such is life.


Solution: bake less!  I decided to bake my absolute favorite kind of cookie tonight: oatmeal raisin.  There's just so much more texture and crunch than chocolate chip -- and if I'm in the mood for chocolate it means I want a whole bar or a slice of flour-less chocolate cake... not chocolate chips in something else.  I found this awesome recipe for Chai Oatmeal Raisin cookies at Amandeleine -- a great baking blog that you should definitely check out when you get the chance -- so I adapted it so that it makes only FIVE cookies.  (Or more or less, depending on how big or small you like your cookies to be). 

Only five!  And I clearly shmushed mine all around, but they're still yummy

Ingredients:

1 cup oats (you can also just use 2 packets of oatmeal -- I used Quaker Oats brown maple oatmeal)

½ cup of raisins

5 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/8 cup of white sugar (eyeball it in a ¼ measuring cup – and remember! You can never have enough sugar!)

1 egg

smidge of vanilla

½ cup flour

½ teaspoon of baking powder

pinch of salt

1 chai tea bag

2 cups boiling water

pinch of cinnamon

pinch of ground cloves

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of ground black pepper

** Remember, with the spices it’s all to taste, so if you want more of a kick to your cookies, add more spice – it’s your food after all.

You can use any kind of Chai tea, but I like Twinings

Recipe:

1. Add chai tea to boiling water and let it steep until the water is dark.  Add raisins and lower heat and let them absorb the tea for about 10 minutes.  Drain.  Raisins will be fat and saturated (kind of like when you make vodka gummy bears... which are so nasty, by the way)

Better than vodka gummy bears

2. In a small bowl, beat together the brown sugar, white sugar, and butter until smooth.  

3. Beat in egg and a splash of vanilla extract to the sugar and butter mixture.

4. In a separate, small bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients excluding oatmeal: pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, flour, baking powder, salt.

I think the spices make it so pretty

5. Add dry ingredients into the wet ingredients slowly, beating all the while.

Conveniently enough, one of my stirrer blade-thingies (what are they called?) fell out and refused to go back in.  As you can see, I had to settle for just one to combine the dry and wet ingredients.

6. Gently fold oats and raisins into the batter.  

7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

8. Cover bowl and place in refrigerator for 15-20 minutes.

9. Spoon out cookies onto baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Mine spread out a lot -- be careful to keep them far enough away if you don't want your cookies to touch.  Not that it actually matters, it all still tastes good -- I promise you!  

Quinoa Stuffed Pepper

That's right, I said "pepper".  "Pepper" as in singular, as in one, as in just one for just you.


It sounds daunting, I know, stuffed peppers are usually a specialty found in restaurants [...which I am too broke to eat in], but I promise you this could not be easier to make.


The most "difficult" part of this recipe is the stuffing -- and it really is impossibly easy.

This recipe was adapted from the one given on the back of this box.

Ingredients:
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 large pepper (I used yellow)
1/2 a small onion, diced
1 tablespoon crushed garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup black beans
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced into fourths
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 - 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on how spicy you like your food)

I love Goya beans, and the tomatoes are from Trader Joe's.

Recipe:
1. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Cut the pepper vertically so you shave off just the top with the stem, and scoop out the seeds.  Place pepper in a baking dish and place in the oven for about 10-15 minutes so that they get soft, but not soggy.
3. Put quinoa and water in a saucepan.  Bring to boil, then let simmer for 10-15 minutes until all the water is absorbed.
4. While the quinoa is cooking, in a skillet, add olive oil, garlic and onion.  Cook until just starting to brown.
5. Add black beans and tomatoes to the skillet and cook on medium for 5 minutes.  Lower heat and cook for an additional 10 minutes.
6. Fold quinoa into the black bean mixture and add salt and both peppers.
7. Take stuffing and fill pepper.  (If there's extra -- which I had -- save in the fridge overnight: it'll be awesome in a salad for the next day!)
8. Place stuffed pepper in the oven and cook for 30-35 minutes.
9. Remove and enjoy!  Personally, I like a little presentation even though the meal is just for me.  I added a basil leaf and one cherry tomato to add some color.

In a brief fit of dementia, I cut my pepper in half, instead of just shaving off the top part with the stem.  Decided to make two halves instead of one large stuffed pepper.  Tasted just as good.

Cooking for Just One

Let's be real: it's stupid that all the recipes you read make servings of 4 or 5 or 37.  Who are these other people cooking for?  If you have a family, I get it.  But I live by myself.  I only cook for me.  And I am so sick of having to divide my favorite recipes by 3 every time I want to cook (really, what the hell is 1 3/4 cups divided by 3??).


And that's why I made this blog.  So that not only do I have a record of exactly what 1 3/4 cups divided by 3 is (.58333 cups FYI), but also can share simple, easy recipes that deliver ONE meal for ONE person.  Which is how cookbooks should be made in the first place.




Enjoy!


(Note: Background photo is from Remodelista -- my all time favorite interior design blog)