Hot Chocolate with Caramilk Cream Mousse

Wow, and double wow. We are not big drinkers in our house, but we do enjoy the odd treat. When I saw Caramilk Cream Liqueur in the store I knew we had to try it! So far, so good :)
I found this recipe for mousse, and then I made this recipe (slightly modified) for hot chocolate. We put the mousse on top of the hot chocolate and it was soooo good! My husband tasted it first and immediately told me that I wouldn't like it but that he would drink it for me so it wouldn't be wasted lol!

The mousse and the hot chocolate do taste good without the liqueur so if you don't drink, no fear. It does add a wow factor, but it is still very tasty without!


Mousse Recipe
2 Cups Whipping Cream
1/2 Cup Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
3 Egg Whites
3/4 Cup Sugar
2 Tbsp. Caramilk Cream Liquor(optional)



1. Whip cream to medium peaks.
2. Melt chocolate until it reaches 105°F (40°C).
3. Heat sugar to 240°F (115°C) softball stage.
4. Whip egg whites to soft peaks.
5. Slowly add hot sugar to the egg whites while whisking to form a meringue.
6. Fold meringue into melted chocolate.
7. Fold in the whipped cream.
8. Add Caramilk Cream Liquor, if using

It's a bit of a complicated recipe and I wasn't very good at the sugar part. I ended up burning it a bit and it turned brown and hardened when it mixed it with the egg whites, but I just picked out the pieces and it still tasted great! I also melted the chocolate in the microwave. I made a half batch of the above recipe as well because I had liquid egg whites so it was easy to get 1.5 egg whites!

Make sure you fold the meringue into the whipped cream. Don't beat it in, you don't want to over mix your whipped cream!

Hot Chocolate Recipe
1/3 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
3/4 Cup Sugar
Pinch Salt
1/3 Cup Boiling Water
3 1/2 Cups Milk
1/2 Cup Half and Half Cream
2 Oz. Caramel Cream Liqueur (optional)

Combine the cocoa, sugar and pinch of salt in a saucepan. Blend in the boiling water. Bring this mixture to an easy boil while you stir. Simmer and stir for about 2 minutes. Watch that it doesn't scorch. Stir in 3 1/2 cups of milk and 1/2 cup cream and heat until very hot, but do not boil! Remove from heat and divide between 4 mugs. Add 1/2 Oz. of caramel cream liqueur to each  mug, if desired. Top with mousse and serve! 

Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal

Fall is upon us, and one of the only good thing about fall (in my  mind, since it leads directly to winter!) is the ready availability of pumpkins!
This is when I try out all the pumpkin recipes I can find or think of!
I was surfing around Budget Bytes website after making Crockpot Taco Chicken and came across Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal! It sounded so good I had to try it right away!!

Very simple, very tasty and very filling!

Ingredients
2 Cups Pumpkin Puree
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Large Eggs
1 Tsp. Pumpkin Pie Spice
1/2 Tsp. Salt
3/4 Tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp. Vanilla
1.5 Cups Milk (any type of milk will work if you are a dairy free house)
2.5 Cups Rolled Oats (Do not be tempted to use Steel Cut Oats...it turns out awful, trust me!)
Optional: Add 1/2 Cup Yogurt (leaving milk at 1.5 cups), or reduce milk to 1 cup and add 1 Cup  Yogurt. I added 1/2 Cup of Greek Yogurt for some extra protein :)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the first 7 ingredients. Add the milk (and yogurt if using) and whisk until smooth. 
Mix the dry oats into the mixture. Grease an 8x10 pan. Pour the mixture in. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 15-30 minutes. It is cooked when it starts to crack on top and the edges start to brown.
Eat hot right out of the oven, or refrigerate until ready to serve. Can be eaten cold or reheated. Top with milk, maple syrup, whipped cream or nuts. I like mine heated up with cold milk on top. Sooo good on a cold, damp fall day! 

Smoothies!!

Mmmm smoothies! So yummy, cool, refreshing and yes, healthy! My 1 year old has decided she is a smoothie lover so I have been throwing them together a little more often. Really you can throw any type of fruit in, pretty much any quantity you want and add extras to it, but if you like to have a recipe to follow, this is one that I have concocted that we like :)



Ingredients

2 Bananas

2/3 Cup Blueberries

1 Cup Mixed Frozen Fruit (mine had melons, grapes, strawberries, mangos etc. in it)

1 Cup Coconut Milk (I used canned)

1 Cup Plain Yogurt

1 Cup Milk

1/4 Cup Ground Flax Seed (optional)

1/4 Cup Whey Powder  (optional)



My blender isn't the best,  so I blend a bit after every addition, and I had to thaw my frozen fruit first, but it turned out yummy! If you don't like bits in your smoothie then I suggest you leave out the flax, but it does add a lot of health benefits! If you think it's too thick, just add some extra milk and re-blend.



It's like a tropical smoothie. You can taste the coconut, but it's not overpowering, you can taste the banana but it's not a 'banana smoothie'. All the flavours flow together and compliment each other nicely!



Bottoms up!

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Organic Milk Selection

I have been on the hunt for a better place to buy organic milk then Safeway (nothing against Safeway it's just really out of my way!), and discovered that Superstore, Walmart and Save On Foods all carry it! Save On Foods and Walmart actually carry 4L jugs too, and have skim, 1%, 2% and homogenized . Yay!!
The prices are pretty close, but Save On Foods actually has the cheapest price (they have 2 brands, I cant remember what the names were), followed closely by Walmart and then Superstore and bringing up the most expensive end is Safeway. Don't get me wrong, it's still not 'cheap', but it's cheaper.
Save On Foods has 4L for $8.49 (ouch!), BUT they have a sale on right now that if you cash in 1,000 points you get it for $5.99. Not bad when a regular 4L jug of homogenized milk is around $4.50. Their 2L's are $4.99. They also have a WONDERFUL selection of organic yogurt! Still not super convenient for me, but I do pass a Save On Foods more often then a Safeway.
Walmart had plain organic yogurt and they do have a pretty good selection of milk as well and I go there more often, so it's looking like Walmart may be the winner in this one just to avoid an extra stop just for dairy.
Superstore has 2L jugs of 1%, 2% and homogenized, but I didn't see any yogurt.
Safeway does have plain yogurt (which is on sale this week!) but not flavours.

I have been drinking so much more milk since finding out how much better organic tastes! I find myself sitting down at lunch and supper with a glass of it because I enjoy it so much. I've never been a milk lover, and usually if I have milk in the evening I feel quite sick. Not with organic!! Because I've been drinking more I've decided to go cold turkey and bought Skim (0%) milk for myself. It's not bad, and because it's got that great flavour it's easier to handle the no fat! Although I may cut it with the kids homogenized just a little until I get fully used to it!

I noticed that Save On Foods carries Hemp milk...anyone tried that? I'm also waiting for So Nice to bring their Coconut milk to Canada! I like the tinned stuff for smoothies, but a drinkable one would be nice. Friends of ours only use Almond milk, and I got to try that recently and it's actually pretty tasty. And to think I've spent all these years thinking 'milk is milk'. There's a whole world of milk out there!!

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Organic Milk

What I would really love to try is raw milk, but since it's pretty much unobtainable the next best thing was organic milk. After some searching I found that Saxby's Creamery here in Edmonton sells organic milk to Earth's General Store. They also brand it for Safeway to sell. I finally made it into a Safeway and sure enough, there it was! I choked when I saw the price. $2.99 for 1 litre, $5.99 for 2 litres. Ouch. I convinced myself it was worth a try and got a 1 litre. I bought homogenized because it had the longest expiry date and I had just bought a bunch of milk a couple days before. My husband and I did a taste test last night. Non Organic Homogenized vs. Organic Homogenized. The best way to sum it up is my hubby's reaction: "The organic milk is more.....milky". It's true. There is a HUGE taste difference! We both really liked it. It seemed less sweet as well. I'm trying to brainstorm how to convince myself to spend that much on milk. I think in the next little while I'm going to try to do all my baking/cooking with rice milk or powdered milk and maybe buy organic just to drink. I know this would cut back since I do go through a lot of milk. (Rice pudding itself takes 3.5 cups every time I make it!) It isn't just the cost either, there isn't a Safeway around here, and neither of our grocery stores sell organic dairy products. So it means an out of the way trip every week or two just for milk. And yogurt! I found Safeway also has organic plain yogurt for pretty much the same price as non organic. I didn't get any to try because I had just bought some, but next time!
Does anyone know of cheaper places to buy organic milk, or organic dairy products? I would really like to make the switch, but $6 for 2 litres of milk seems like a lot to make room for in the grocery budget :(