As a morning person, I’m generally refreshed and energized as soon as I open my eyes – ready to tackle whatever the day has in store for me. I do my best work in the morning, and I don’t need coffee or anything else to wake me up. (Afternoons and evenings are an entirely different story, of course.) When I woke up this morning, though, something was off.
I had gotten plenty of sleep, but felt tired and grumpy. I had to leave my apartment early to make it in time for student teaching but couldn’t bring myself to rush. And it felt like a layer of fog covered everything I heard, said, or did. When I arrived at the school where I was student teaching, I was amused to see that the class’s word of the day was “lethargic.” Yup.
Things declined from there. I went to the grocery store to buy zucchini, and they were out. I bought a water bottle that turned out to be unnecessary, and it made my bag uncomfortably heavy. The app I use to display my bus pass kept bugging out, and when I tried to uninstall and reinstall, my connection died after the uninstall. (Of course the bus arrived as soon as this happened!) In short, I was beginning to think I was the new protagonist of the childhood classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
Luckily, when things go wrong or I’m feeling downright irritable (which I was by this point), I know what to do: eat chocolate. Or in this case, drink chocolate. Generally, ingesting chocolate one way or another (has anyone tried a syringe?) is a pretty solid mood lifter. And I’m happy to say it did the trick today.
Of course, don’t wait until you have a bad day to make this epic hot chocolate. It’s thick, creamy, rich, and comforting, with subtle warming notes from the turmeric-ginger combo. And I do mean subtle: the main flavor here is dark chocolate, but I melt it into a mix of coconut cream, almond milk, and ginger-turmeric tonic for a truly special cup. Whether you feel like you’re on top of the world, at the bottom of a dumpster, or somewhere in between, this hot chocolate is guaranteed to lift your spirits.
A couple notes about the recipe:
-This recipe makes about 2 standard mugs full, or 20 ounces.
-Low-FODMAP people: A scant 1/2 cup of chocolate chips = 4 tablespoons. As long as your chocolate chips don’t have any high-FODMAP ingredients like milk, inulin, or weird sweeteners, one mug of this hot chocolate (a 2 tablespoon serving of dark chocolate chips) is Low-FODMAP.
-If you want the turmeric and ginger notes to be more forward facing, simmer or steep your ginger-turmeric tonic for longer than the recipe calls for.
Turmeric-Ginger Hot Chocolate
- 1 recipe ginger turmeric tonic
- ½ cup coconut cream (scoop from the top of a can of coconut milk)
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
- Scant ½ cup (4 tablespoons) semisweet chocolate chips
Directions:
Combine the tonic, coconut cream, and almond milk in a saucepan and heat until steaming. Add the semisweet chocolate chips and stir until completely melted and incorporated. Pour into mugs and enjoy!
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