day 362: hot chocolates from the pioneer woman

orange hot chocolates ... seriously good!

day 362 and the winter cold REALLY set in today ... it was cold, i am cold, i longed for everlasting hot showers and warm drinks to take away the winter chills.  i found inspiration mid afternoon after trying every tea and coffee in the house to try a new hot cocoa recipe.  i had no cocoa so couldn't make the usual concoction the peeps and i love, but i had chocolate so i went with the pioneer woman's recipe.  Ree has all sorts of different versions of her delicious hot chocolate, i went for the healthiest looking one that used something similar to these ;)

the healthy part of the recipe :)

i didn't have the recommended oranges but we still have a tree laden with mandarins, so they made the cut.  the recipe also made the cut and is now pinned to my winter wonderland board on pinterest.

the recipe is painless, and i halved it to serve three instead of six.  for three you need two cups of milk, 1/2 cup of chocolate melts, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and for the orange, or in my case mandarin version, orange rind, and a couple of orange rounds.  as it was evening when i got around to making this, i couldn't be bothered peeling the mandarins so just added two clementine mandarins sliced to the pot and left them to simmer with the milk, then added the chocolate pieces ... it has been a long day.

the mandarins simmering with the milk

then in went the chocolate

i wish you could smell and taste this!

outcome:  steve declared this was the BEST hot chocolate he had ever tasted ... and i would have to agree .... why did i halve the recipe, why oh why? honestly the sweetness of the clementines in with the milk chocolate is divine and you just want to keep drinking it.  i didn't think i would like it because i am not a big fan of really sweet things.  but this isn't, it hits just the right balance and as our clementines were a little tart i think that only added to taste!  if you are a new zealander, think hot jaffas ... yum aye!

my sincere thanks to ree from the pioneer woman.  doesn't she have an amazing website for ... well, um, everything ... i have spent way to much time there this evening looking over all she has to offer :)

and as for those pineapple flowers ... AWESOME, even us mere mortals in the kitchen can make them :)  you will see more of them in the coming days, but here is a finished crisp one and i can tell you the intense pineapple flavour of them is magnificent ;)

this is the finished pineapple flower ... the rest are for a special project you will see soon ;)