Merry Christmas! Below is my 2015 Christmas message in a post card!  
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 These are one of our Green family favourite Christmas cookies. They are basically a sugar/butter cookie made with cream cheese and filled with chocolate and/or nuts; they are particularly good with mint chocolate. A chocolate drizzle or royal icing are great additions too, for a sweet tooth. 
Trick #2 This trick only requires a whisk and two hands and is designed to make a frothy well mixed hot chocolate. I had filmed a video if this process but... I accidentally deleted it. SO below are step my step pictures (not that it's really complicated enough to warrant a step by step method).  I know this is nothing revelational. In fact, stores have been selling hot chocolate agitators for a while now, designed for this very purpose; however, this method saves you from spending extra money a fancy gizmo and/or an alternative when you can't find your said gizmo. I hope you enjoyed today's hot chocolate trick. Keep reading as I continue into the second part of the quest for the perfect hot chocolate "The Journey to the Best Homemade Hot Chocolate" and as I share my unique hot chocolate tips & tricks. Think this is a neat idea?
Jump on the band wagon and submit recipes (or recipe links) to good hot chocolate recipes you've found! You can do this either via: 1) The comments below 2) Emailing lifeaftergluten@outlook.com 3) The contact page
Homemade Hot Chocolate Recipe 1
Here's the first hot chocolate trick/secret! Hope this helps! Trick 1 When making a hot chocolate from the bare ingredients use milk not water. Traditionally speaking hot chocolate is a bed time drink so warm milk was used to lull one to sleep, just like when you were a baby. You may be thinking: But I always use water with my store bought hot chocolate powder and it turns out great! True but that's because to compensated for this commercial hot chocolate powders add milk powder; so in essence when you add water to the power your reconstituting milk. So... add milk when making your hot chocolate from scratch, unless your adding milk powder. Trick 2 This trick/secret will com out in a new post because I want to film myself doing it, as I think it will be easier to understand that way. So keep reading as I am launched into the second part of the quest for the perfect hot chocolate "The Journey to the Best Homemade Hot Chocolate" and as I share my unique hot chocolate tips & tricks. Think this is a neat idea?
Jump on the band wagon and submit recipes (or recipe links) to good hot chocolate recipes you've found! You can do this either via: 1) The comments below 2) Emailing lifeaftergluten@outlook.com 3) The contact page
Just recently I was checking the comments on this blog and there was this inspiring comment:  So, Sarah Grace, I have tried searching out homemade hot chocolate recipes many time too, usually with disappointment. But, I do have several hot chocolate "tricks" up my selves which I am more than willing to share with you and anyone else willing to read them. So keep reading as I am launched into the second part of the quest for the perfect hot chocolate "The Journey to the Best Homemade Hot Chocolate" and as I share my unique hot chocolate tips & tricks. RELATED POSTS: Hot chocolate trick #1 Hot chocolate recipe #1 Hot chocolate trick #2 Think this is a neat idea?
It's been a fun 12 days as I've woven in and out of 9 unique dining establishes, exploring the many theorems of hot chocolate assemblage. I've had fun,had my fill of whip cream for a year, and loved every second of it. So what are my conclusions? [see direct comparison score cards below] What makes the best is... In my humble opinion should be... warming (just 5 degrees below burning temp.) thick and frothy but not sugary or oily, with a deep/dark chocolate flavour/aroma/look. Who's got the best? Who serves the hot chocolate closest to this make in my local stomping grounds? [A.K.A. Port Perry]
Click picture of score card to enlarge. And the show goes on... Still not 100% satisfied with a 3.5 out of 5 hot chocolate I'm going to continue to visit these places to see if they maintain the standards I've reported to you and expand my scope to other towns. So keep looking for more reports on what makes and who serves the best hot chocolate! Jollily signed, Tamara Green
A mild December evening it is as I walk north to the end of Water Street reach the end of the road; this is where I meet the end of my hot chocolate travels. So I find myself in a parking lot in front of the Scugog Memorial Public Library. I enter and despite the wafting smells coming from my right of the newly opened Gingerbread Baker’s Village, I make a hard left, straight for the Community Living Café outlet on the opposite side of the main room. The attendant reaches for a carnation hot chocolate package right after I ask for my hot chocolate. “Do you want milk or cream?” she asks as she’s adding the hot water. I say yes to milk and she asks me “How many?” I think for a moment and reply two. So she gives me two milks and I pay my meager dollar twenty-five, stir my milks in and snap a lid on my to-go cup now I wonder over to a table to take the first sip. The Flavour The flavour… the overall flavour was weakened by the steamy heat, so I recommend letting it cool a minute before taking the first sip. If you like a frothy cup of carnation hot chocolate then you will love this. Note: While waiting for my hot chocolate I noticed that there are complimentary spices directly next to the lids and stir sticks, so you can spice up your beverage with a little pumpkin spice, cinnamon, or nutmeg.
Are you ready to come along for the ride as I share with you my findings, cup by cup!?! Just keep coming back to find out what happens next or subscribe via the comments page or the RSS feed. In any case I hope to continue to share my adventures with you! Jollily signed, Tamara Green
 Happy Hungarian St. Nicklaus day! I honour of the good ministry God did through Nicklaus of Myra and the fact that I've been fooling around with turning traditional Hungarian meals into gluten free ones I've decided to share this wonderful recipe for Zserbo with a Twist. So somewhere on my mission to make authentic Hungarian food I made an innovative version of Zserbo turning the traditional layered cake/bread into a twisted cookie/bread. So I offer this neat recipe for unauthentic Zserbo Twists. Enjoy!  P.S. The Hungarians traditionally serve a pastry filled with poppy-seeds on St. Nicklaus day so you can also make a version of these that is more Christmas suited by using poppy seeds and honey in place of the apricot jam and walnut meal.
 Jollily signed, Tamara Green
Previously on The Hot Chocolate Adventure Tamara Green explained why she has taken to the streets of Port Perry to find the number one hot chocolate! And made her stops at: Durham Homestyle Gourmet, The Pantry Shelf, Cafe Mocha, Millar's Market, Queen Bean's, the Piano Cafe, Hank's Pastries. Now direct from the hot chocolate scene Tamara narrates: after a long day of delivering newspapers in the cold rain, my sister and I hike up highway 7A on our way to meet our mother at the newspaper. It's dark but not too dark to see my last hot chocolate hope peek over the top of the hill "Country Corner Coffee" said the sign! Wait I hadn't included that shop in my original nine hot chocolate stops. Seeing as the cafe in the Port Perry public library, which had been my next planned stop, was wall closed by this time I thanked God that he had shown me this independent coffee shop just when I had resided to the fact that I was gone to continue my hot chocolate adventure today. Buying the hot chocolate... we entered the coffee shop which is one and the same with small fish and chips shop. Soon we make our selves to the counter in the centre of the dinning room. I ask for a hot chocolate and my serving promptly goes to prepare it. I just as prompt a manner she returns placing the medium size cup down on the counter and asks if whip cream is okay. I agree this time to the complimentary whip cream. Humorously enough when she tries to put standard lid on the whip cream proceeds to ooze out of the tiny pin hole on the top of the lid. She dabs the top of the cup with a napkin trying to sop up the over flow. I pay my two ten for the drink and she hands me the cup which is still overflowing so she also gives me a small stack of napkins to clean up any whip cream if it continued to overflow. Which it soon did, when I lifted the flap so I could take the first sip the beverage continued to try and escape the cup through the new opening. But this too, soon subsided and then stopped completely after I took the first brave sip. The first sip... my first thoughts? It was hot. I waited a few seconds and took a better sip, a cooler one. The best feature of this cup was that the balance of chocolate to sugar was prime. The cup was not bitter to any degree but yet the least sweet cup I've had thus far! For the other aspects of the drink I have to say that I was fairly disappointed as it was watery, had a light gleam of oil the surface (possible a result of the dissolved whip cream), and the cocoa powder settled a little at the bottom so I don't recommend drink the last sip as it will feel silty in your throat. Don't take my word for it though, if what I just described as my preferred hot chocolate is not yours, then judge for yourself with the handy-dandy score card below!
Are you ready to come along for the ride as I share with you my findings, cup by cup!?! Just keep coming back to find out what happens next or subscribe via the comments page or the RSS feed. In any case I hope to continue to share my adventures with you! Jollily signed, Tamara Green
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Happy to meet you,
If you are that person with a million and one allergies and intolerance I am there to say you are not alone! Life After Gluten can be better than life with wheat. Living lactose-free since 2007 and gluten-free since 2013. Also intolerant and/or allergic to mushrooms, soy, and yeast. Categories
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