Craving Chocolate (Recipe)

Feeling anxious and distracted and tired.

It has been a long day.  I was on the phone
for several hours with various people.

So what I am to do?

I am going to share a recipe with you.

At one point I had bought store bought puddings.
I knew it wasn't the best choice, especially since
I had a recipe for some delicious pudding.

I have been craving chocolate the last few days,
and I was trying to find the recipe, and couldn't
seem to find it.  I think I was able to find it again
with a web search.  I am pretty sure it is the same
one, but it came out differently tonight.

I am fairly sure I made it differently last time, too.

I often change recipes, trying to make them with
ingredients that lean in the "healthier" direction.
The original recipe calls for regular, whole milk
(not thrilled about the hormones, for one thing)
and semi sweet chocolate (not thrilled about the
soy lecithin, for another thing).

So I substituted the whole milk with almond milk
and the semi sweet chocolate with cocoa powder.
From what I see online an "accurate" substitute
includes some oil and sugar, but I wasn't interested
in adding those ingredients, so I just added the
amount of cocoa.  Well, at least close enough.
I managed to spill a bunch as I was putting it in
so I had to guess at how much to replace it with.

It is a relatively easy recipe to make that serves
6, and can stick around for 3 days.  I am thinking
about seeing how it freezes.

So here is the recipe:

Combine 1/4 c. of cornstarch, 1/2 c. of sugar and
1/8 t. of salt in a double boiler.  Slowly mix in
3 c. of almond milk.  Place over simmering water.

In 15-20 minutes, or when it has thickened/coats
a spoon, add 1/4 c+1/8 c of cocoa powder.
Continue to cook/stir up to another 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat and add 1 t. of vanilla.

To minimize lumping, I mixed the cornstarch with
a bit of water before adding it to the other
ingredients.

It will develop a skin when you refrigerate it,
unless you cover it with some plastic.

If you want to have a more "proper" semi sweet
chocolate substitute, add 4 T. of oil and 1/4 c+
1/8 c+1T of sugar with the cocoa addition.  If
you rather use semi sweet chocolate, it would
be 6 oz.

I imagine it is probably incredibly yummy made
with the richest/"real" ingredients.  But I am
quite happy with it as described above.  It isn't
very sweet at all.   I would imagine you could
even try it the way the recipe is above and just
mix in more sugar if you want it sweeter.

So there you go.

Sweet chocolate dreams for you.