Posts Tagged ‘hot chocolate’

Godiva Chocolatier

Posted: 25th October 2019 by doomthings in The Foodening
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Tysons Corner Center, McLean, Virginia

Tysons Corner Center is full of interesting stores, many that come and go, but the sweets and treats shops are my favorite, because they tend to stave off “mall headache”, an affliction known for affecting those in malls who do not want to be there.

Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream

This hot chocolate was fantastic.  It seemed to be made of chopped up Godiva chocolate (as opposed to a pre-made syrup, I’ll need to watch more carefully next time) blended with hot milk.  Honestly expecting a syrup style blend, I was very pleasantly surprised by the creaminess and non-chemical chocolate taste.

Often the whipped cream and chocolate layers are distinctly separate, but in this drink I couldn’t tell where the whip ended and the chocolate began.  The creamy feel persisted through the very last drop.

What’s Up

If you find yourself wandering the stores of Tysons Corner, and are in need of a warm drink, definitely stop by the Godiva store for a perfectly cromulent hot chocolate!

Pret A Manger

Posted: 14th September 2019 by doomthings in The Foodening
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Delaware House Travel Plaza, Newark, DE

The travel plazas up and down route 95 on the east coast are great! They can be accessed from either direction, have clean bathrooms, gas stations, and a plethora of food options. This is where I came across Pret A Manger.

Hot Chocolate

It was chocolate water and with that bitter cocoa feel like Starbucks hot chocolate but without actual flavor.  Needs salt.

I found at the end of the drink that they didn’t stir all the chocolate in, from the mound of chocolate goo at the bottom, so perhaps it was actually better? Lesson learned, always re-stir your hot chocolate!

Spinach and Tomato Mac and Cheese

It was super creamy, made with small tube pasta, whole grape tomatoes, and lines of spinach.  Very flavorful. I destroyed it before I could take a picture, soooo, here’s the empty box.

What’s Up

Because the hot chocolate wasn’t stirred up all the way, the jury is still out on whether it would still taste like chocolate water. The Mac and cheese, however, was delicious and I look forward to coming across another Pret A Manger cuz that is definitely what I’ll be ordering!

A New Doom Mission…

Posted: 2nd September 2019 by doomthings in the Tastening
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There are two foods, macaroni and cheese, hot chocolate, and grilled cheese… There are three, threeee, foods that I cannot help but order when they are on a menu. It’s a nervous tick that results in deliciousness about 75 percent of the time.

If you have a conversation with me about any of these three foods, you’d immediately peg me as a food snob… for those three foods and those three alone. You’d be right.

Future posts in this little blag will be dedicated to pretty much only these three foods.

How else will the three of you who follow my dumb posts know where to get awesome hot chocolate, grilled cheese, and mac and cheese, and where to say “no thanks”.

It begins…

Hot Chocolate Gets a Sugar-Lift

Posted: 6th May 2013 by doomthings in Drink, The Foodening
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Sooooo, I like hot chocolate.  More recently, I’ve started making it from scratch (and by scratch, I mean the recipe on the side of the Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder box), instead of buying packets, which are way too sugary for me.  (As a side note, the Starbucks hot chocolate packets are pretty good).   The original single-serving recipe calls for 2 tbsp of sugar.  It’s not bad, I love it!  However, this morning, I decided to try honey.  Mostly because we have lots and I don’t want it to harden and be unusable (it’s happened before!), but also because I’ve been wanted to experiment with honey as a sugar substitute.

If I’m being totally honest, I originally thought maybe honey had healthier attributes than sugar, which was my initial drive for the substitution.  After lots of research, I found that it won’t make much of a difference, and if it does, it will be very slight.  If you want to get picky, yes, it’s sweeter than sugar and while teaspoon-for-teaspoon honey has more calories, the thinking is that you’ll use less, perhaps in the long-run lowering your calorie intake from sweeteners.  I think this is probably crap for most people (people like them their sweets!), so I really think taste should be the driving factor.  Don’t take my word for it, check out both sides of the honey versus sugar argument and decide for yourself.  I know I’m not being any healthier and I want a different taste.  I’m happy with that.

Ingredients (adapted from Hershey’s Unsweetened Cocoa Powder box):

  • 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (dutch processed or other, contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t really make a difference)
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • dash salt
  • splash vanilla

Directions

  1. Combine cocoa powder and salt in a mug.
  2. Microwave milk until desired temperature is reached. (2 minutes works for me)
  3. Add vanilla and honey to milk, stirring until dissolved.
  4. Add milk mixture to mug and stir until dissolved.

The sugar version of this tastes good of course, but the honey version added just a hint of extra flavor.  I’ll be doing this from now on!