Chocolate . . . Homemade

I want this blog journal to be full of my life and a huge part of my life is cooking . . . and chocolate. So the first recipe I will share is my homemade chocolate syrup. I love a good glass of chocolate milk, but want to avoid all the artificial-ness of store bought syrup. I make my syrup from raw organic agave. It isn't really the best sweetener out there, but it makes a great syrup and isn't as bad as white sugar or corn syrup. This is one of those middle of the road sweets.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

1 cup hot water

1 cup raw organic agave

1 cup cocoa powder

1/2 t vanilla

1/2 t salt

Combine and whisk together to remove all lumps. Refrigerate.

I used it in my coffee this morning. Goes great on ice cream, but I typically vote for my homemade crackle topping on ice cream. Hmmm . . . maybe another recipe I need to share.

Although there really isn't any great recipe to share there. Melt a handful of chocolate chips with a little bit of virgin coconut oil. When you pour it on ice cream it hardens quickly because of the coconut oil. :)

Filling Tummies without Losing my Mind

I love to cook, but even more, I love to eat! And I want real food made from real ingredients. I guess I am a bit of a food snob. I am not a PB/J and mac-n-cheese kind of mom. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I want scrumptious food every time I sit down. Up through 4 kids, this was easily maintained. I menu planned when I had time, but mostly I kept a full pantry and fridge of real foods and would create meals towards whatever I "felt" like at the time. Number 5 was born during a deployment and number 6 is under a year old and I am single parenting it yet again.

Menu planning has become essential, yet it was taking so much time. Time I really don't have. I am not the "let's have pizza every Friday night" type of mom. I have dreamt of it often, but my impulsive desire to try new foods and not get bored with my dinner, prevents me from such menu plans.

This week I came up with something revolutionary  to my meal planning adventures! It is a combination of the "pizza night" mom and my love for cultural food.

Sunday:
B - Egg Dishes

L - Sandwiches

D - Grill

Monday:
B - Cereal

L - Leftovers

D - Crock Pot/One Dish
Tuesday:
B - Pancakes

L - Pasta

D - Mexican

Wednesday:
B - Muffins

L - Sandwiches

D - Wild Card

Thursday:
B - Granola

L - Salad

D - Asian

Friday:
B - French Toast

L - Leftovers

D - Italian

Saturday:
B - Wild Card

L - Wild Card

D - Veggie

I hang up my weekly menu plan on the fridge so that it is easy to reference. My kids can check it too and it avoids the million questions of what's for dinner!

This simple plan gives me flexibility to try new things, yet doesn't require me to do detailed menu planning every week. I can fly by the seat of my pants to do what sounds yummy at the time and use up ingredients needing to move out of the fridge quickly. Yes, some meals require a little more planning ahead, but for the most part I can swing this. For example: tonight is Mexican night. Even though I wasn't sure what I was actually gonna make for dinner, I knew I needed to start beans earlier in the day. And now that my black beans are almost done cooking, I decided to whip up some Black Bean and Corn Salsa! Yum!