Chocolate Honey

I have been trying to make healthier food choices - but it's hard! Research conclusions on what's "good for" us change year by year.

For the past year or so, I've been trying to eat "simple" foods - foods in their simplest form, that I can recognize.  I try to avoid processed food. When traveling, for instance, I no longer bring along a package of store-bought granola bars to snack on. Instead, in the back seat, I keep a jar of unsalted nuts.

White sugar is something else I'm trying to replace. I don't buy much, though I do keep some on hand. Substituting brown sugar, honey or molasses for white sugar would change the taste and consistency of family-favorite cakes! But I don't bake cakes much anymore - unless I'm expecting a group to help eat it.

But one sweetened food I still enjoy, especially in winter, is hot chocolate. My mother used to make it with cocoa powder and white sugar, stirred up, boiling water added. She then added milk or cream as one would to coffee.

I like mine made with hot milk rather than water. For years, I've used "instant" sweetened cocoa powders like Nestles Quik. For a while, to make it less sweet, I added equal parts of unsweetened cocoa powder to the sweetened chocolate powder. But this year I've tried something entirely different: homemade chocolate honey...

It's easy to make: mix equal parts of honey and cocoa powder and store it in a jar.

I add my chocolate honey to warm milk or plain yogurt whenever I crave something sweet.

Occasionally, I mix it with equal parts of peanut butter and uncooked oats, for a quick sweet snack. I wonder if adding nut butter to my chocolate honey would make a convincing Nutella substitute. I have to try that next!

The last time I made it, I warmed the honey a bit, to liquefy it, making it easier to mix.

Perhaps I should buy some liquid honey and try adding chocolate to that.