Vegan Mofo Post #4: Pumpkin Hot Chocolate With Pumpkin Marshmallows

A pumpkin on pumpkin flavor explosion.

Happy day four of fun!
I'm a huge hot chocolate lover, especially welcoming during autumn and winter. A giant heaping warm mug of chocolaty bliss brings upon most blissful thoughts. To include my love for pumpkin things, a lot more authentic and truer than anything Starbucks can create.
On the grocery shelves, Almond Dream, So Delicious, and Trader Joe's have put out vegan pumpkin drinks, these setting perfect basis for simple hot chocolate recipes. I blended Trader Joe's new beverage with NibMor's amazing drinking chocolate powder.
This drink is a bit sweet, but a pinch of pink salt will that tame down or even a bit of plain almond (or any other dairy alternative) milk will do.

Pumpkin Hot Chocolate With Pumpkin Marshmallows

1 1/2 cup Trader Joe's Pumpkin Spice Almond Milk Beverage
1 1.05 oz pouch NibMor Organic Drinking Chocolate
a handful of Dandie's Pumpkin Marshmallows
pinch of pink salt

Bring pumpkin drink and drinking chocolate to a boil.
Add in marshmallows.
Pour into a mug and drink well.

A delicious peek at a sweet, comforting ode to autumn.

Close up number one.

Gorgeous marshmallows. 

Pecan Caramel Hot Chocolate

Yummy hot chocolate. If only Lupita were around to share in this splendid treat.

Past Vegan Mofo prompt- on the 24th- imagine what a well known person would eat if they were vegan. I would pick Lupita N'yongo. She would have organic napkins over her expensive attire to protect from maple syrup slathered pancakes and cinnamon sprinkled hot chocolate. I would be in her company. We would sip sweet confection, rummaging thrift shops and mixing bohemian flare with prestigious upscale. Naturally, she would be happy to sit for me while I paint her holding an oversized mug! Yes!
By the way, have you all seen Lupita's Vogue yet? Talk about best use of the October month for a fashion magazine. I don't buy or subscribe to fashion magazines in general, but the Lupita spread made me so happy, especially alongside the article. Smart, talented, sweet, and beautiful, Lupita is certainly a woman of our time. I adore her immensely. I was so crushed to not be able to score a ticket to the sold out Eclipsed- the off Broadway show she co-stars in written by Danai Gurira (yes Michonne!). It features the brilliant Zainab Jah (who played a brilliant female Hamlet this year) who also starred in Gurira's The Convert. Oh well. I'm sure someone will tell me how wonderful the performance was by Lupita and Zainah....

Lupita in Vogue.

Woman painter palette of the moment is Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. She is a painter, writer, and poet born in London 1977. Yiadom-Boakye has adopted a French Impressionistic style that is all her own vernacular. On large to small scale canvases, she sweeps the history of thick, lush brushstrokes loosely across the composition plane with contemporary outlined burnt umber skinned figures playing against the browns family, a competition both opponents win. Psychological depth invites viewers to lure into neutral tones, become seduced by subject matter and the beguiling rendering. Often Yiadom-Boakye inserts a pinch of surprising color, a pinch of sophisticated light that garners intriguing focal point.

Half of a Dozen Dead, 100 x 180, oil on canvas, 2010.

Hot chocolate comes to mind- a special kind. Thanks to Califia Farms for concocting a new line of sweet, addictive almond milk creamers. The pecan caramel is simply divine. I have added it in my hot tea, a chocolate sauce, a milkshake. Just that little note of sugared nutty flavor gives dessert beverages and sauces pizazz. I love melting chocolate chips into milk for a satisfactory instant hot chocolate. By including a bit of Pecan Caramel Creamer, things turn wickedly delicious real fast.   

Pecan Caramel Hot Chocolate Ingredients and Preparation

Three ingredients equal one good hot drink.

1 1/2 cup almond milk
1/4 cup Califia Farms Almond Milk Pecan Creamer
1/3 cup vegan chocolate chips
pinch of cinnamon (optional)

In a small saucepan, combine almond milk, pecan creamer, and chocolate chips, slowly gradually until all of the chocolate chips have dissolved into melted bliss.

Top with cinnamon. Best to drink beside a fireplace with a scandalous romance novel in tow. Sip slowly and daydream.

Chocosol Hot Drinking Chocolat

Chocoholic's delight from a treasured Toronto friend.

I'm beyond grateful for this gift. Beyond. Never expected anything like this. 
I just got hooked on a different hot chocolate. Or shall I say drinking chocolate or chocolatyl? It's definitely a rapturous, more grown up version of he popular winter aphrodisiac beverage. The notes are exquisite, flavorful, rich.
Chocosol Traders based in Toronto, Canada have a line of rich, impressive sweets that are ethically packaged,  Mexican derived (Oaxaca to be exact), fair trade, and vegan. They are set in the divine practice of stone grounding high quality cacao beans by using methods that date back to ancient time.
Here Chocosol states grand foundation:
"Our artisanal chocolate is a symbol that embodies our values of socially just, ecological chocolate made, not only, with a ‘cradle to cradle’ approach, but also, charged with the use of solar energy..."
The decadent taste alone is highly superb. This has to be one of the yummiest hot chocolaty concoctions there is! My favorite way of making traditional hot chocolate is simmering almond milk and melt in vegan chocolate chips or parts of a whole flavored bar. Chocosol calls for different set of directions.

100% whole roasted cacao beans are in every bar. Next to simple, organic design, the big bold brown words are an inviting read, a narrative that summarizes sophisticated heritage of this tantalizing chocolate. Aromatic smells of squared wedges mimic how it will winningly taste on the tongue- sweet and fragrant.

This is not hot cocoa. Not the hot cocoa from olden days. This is something superior, something above satisfactory.

Looks like a candy bar, but in a hot mug tastes like a sensually fogged dream.

To make. Bring 1 1/2 cup of water to a boil. Then set aside for a few minutes. Break off four wedges and toss into a blender. Pour hot water over wedges. Add 1/4 cup of cane sugar (or maple syrup/agave sweeteners) and mix. Once liquid starts frothing at the top it's ready to drink! Using the blender gives the drinking chocolate its airiness and brings apart glorious chocolate fragrance when removing the lid.

For great variations add cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, cayenne, or even some melted vegan marshmallows. Right now, I prefer plain hot chocolat. Tastes perfect.

Vegan Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate

The best hot chocolate ever!

Usually, I make hot chocolate with either boiled water or dairy free milk with cocoa powder- the traditional method started way back in the old childhood days.  Then of course, Megan over at Opinioness of The World had an incredible suggestion of melting dairy free chocolate chips into the milk for a creamier, richer, even more chocolaty enhanced flavor inside her version of Vegan Hot Chocolate. I took the idea and ran with it, adding Peanut Butter and Company's Dark Chocolate Dreams (best peanut butter ever!) to the mixture- a nutty chocolate addicted heaven that is oh so wickedly charming for my last day in Ohio. I savored it at a deliberate pace for breakfast and couldn't help feeling refined and sophisticated, sipping out of the big mug, relaxing over chocolate and peanut butter notes syncing together. This relaxing, sweet hot chocolate is definitely worth savoring and taking slow- especially if you've got a full day ahead!

Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate Ingredients and Preparation

Three sweet ingredients make for the best hot chocolate ever!

2 cup Vanilla Almond Milk (use sweetened variety if desired)
1/4 cup vegan chocolate chips
2 generous tablespoon Peanut Butter & Company's Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter
pinch of cinnamon

Bring almond milk to an almost boil & stir in chocolate chips & peanut butter. These will melt quickly & beautifully.

Add a touch of cinnamon if desired.

Rich, creamy, chocolaty peanut butter goodness.