Ended up with tea

As usual, I just wasn't in the mood for an off the shelf hot chocolate. So, I opted to try and create a delish hot chocolate made with passion and care by me. My first attempted involved using 1/2 cup of orange juice and 1/2 cup of milk. Unfortunately, the hint of OJ became overwhelming and I couldn't balance it out with Vanilla, Sugar or anything else.

STRIKE 1

My second attempt involved my last cup of heavy cream. I accidentally burnt the chocolate shavings in the double boiler. Immediately, I strained out the burnt chunks to preserve the heavy cream for another try.

STRIKE 2

With the heavy cream from the second attempt to make hot chocolate from scratch, I decided to add a pre-made mixture to the cream. Next, I tried to add a little pizazz with ancho chili. Blah!!!!! It was a hot mess.

STRIKE 3

After cleaning up the messy kitchen, I resigned myself to breaking out the tea kettle for a cup of hot tea.

No hot chocolate for you!

Last night our puppy doo, Wally, decided to bring us box of Target plastic bags to the game room upstairs. It was funny at the time until I realized that the box came from the same shelf I store my hot chocolate and cocoa mixes. Which meant...it was time to reorganize and remove my favorite beverages to a non-reachable location.

A few years back, I went through a major organization of my hot chocolates. Now with Wally being a busy puppy, it is imperative we keep him safe. The cocoa infused teas stayed on the baker's rack and the opened hot chocolates were moved to high shelves. I am still looking for more storage due to the number of tins I have, but at least they have been removed from Wally's reach.

What a hot mess!

Blasted Tea Toddlers

After sweating to death on our girl power family walk around the Pasadena Rose Bowl, it was time to eat. Even as hot as it was, I wanted to try Zona Rosa Caffe's to see what their hot chocolate was like. However, I was overruled by my tea toddling family members.

Once we changed out of our walking clothes, we were off to tea. My mother and sister, the girly ones out of the family, enjoy having tea at the Tea Rose Garden. As we turned onto Raymond Avenue, a tear appeared in my eye as my husband and I use to live off of Raymond and walk around in the vicinity for groceries, dining and entertainment. Oh well. We will return again...one day.

Still fuming from missing my sole opportunity for a hot chocolate adventure, I participated in my first tea experience. I ordered the English Tea which includes a scone, tea and finger sandwich of your choice, along with a petal salad, fresh fruit and rose sugar cookie. My sandwich of choice was the Goat Cheese & Sun-Dried Tomato Sandwich. As for my tea, I selected the Berry Passion Tea and a Lemon Raspberry Scone.

I must admit, I enjoyed myself. We all ordered different sandwiches and scones so we could share our tea house treats. My Lemon Raspberry Scone ranked 1st among us girls and my favorite sandwich was my sister's Cranberry Chicken Sandwich.

This was absolutely an enjoyable experience. Normally, I would be fixating over the fact I did not have the opportunity to try a new hot chocolate. However, I will definitely get over it...this time!

Granita w/Anisette Sugar

My next frozen dessert adventure was with Chocolat Vital’s Cocoa Cardamom Tango Black Tea made with cinnamon, chocolate chips (sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa powder, emulsifier lecithin) cardamom, cardamom seeds and natural flavoring. With this fragrant tea, I know I have a winning recipe on hand to make Granita.

Granita or Granite is an iced Italian dessert. Since an ice cream maker isn’t necessary, the texture of the dessert is very coarse (look at my picture). To make this simple recipe, I brewed 2 cups of H20 with 1 tablespoon of tea and added ¾ cup of Anisette Sugar.

Unfortunately, Granite is not supposed to be very sweet, so I blew this recipe in theory. However, I think ½ cup sugar would be better since Anisette Sugar is very flavorful. To me, Anisette Sugar tastes like black licorice. Outside of this recipe or making an actual cup of hot chocolate, I wouldn’t touch this sugar but it added such a nice taste….