Bread and Chocolate

I picked up this bread a couple of days ago. It is delicious. The crust is crunchy. The inside is chewy. Yet, I had a complicated turkey, avocado, swiss and apple and cranberry chutney sandwich to make today. How was I to do so with holes this large in the bread? It took advanced sandwich engineering, but I finally got lunch made.

Since today was the first really cold day of winter I decided to make a cup of hot chocolate this evening. How do you make hot chocolate? Here's how I usually make mine:

Can you see the creamline? Heat two parts milk to one part heavy cream (2/3 c milk + 1/3 c cream for one serving) over low heat. Chocolate melts at about 110 degrees, not much over body temperature, and gets grainy if its temperature is raised much higher.

Use two wedges from a disc of Ibarra Mexican Chocolate (flash intro) per serving. Ibarra chocolate is sweet with a hint of cinnamon. Depending on my mood I may use the Ibarra alone or add an ounce or so of semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate. Tonight I added a tablespoon of wildly expensive, impulse-purchased drinking chocolate. As a side note, a wedge of Ibarra makes a mighty fine snack all by itself.

Add the chocolate to the heated milk. Stir often and let the chocolate warm for a couple of minutes.

The most important part of the preparation! Pour into a blender, don't worry if chocolate isn't completely melted, and blend on high for 10-20 seconds. Blending adds an inch or more of frothy bubbles to the hot chocolate. See:

Enjoy in your Zoe or Emma mug!

That's a bit more work than opening a pack of Swiss Miss and dumping it in hot milk (or do you use water with Swiss Miss?), but it is oh so much more tasty.

Comments

[tien]

seems like it would take forever to make that.

[joe]

It goes pretty quick unless you're photographing the process.

Plus, the hot chocolate freezes well, so you can make extra.

[CB/CityRag]

i know this sounds crazy, but hole-y bread like that is great for making grilled sandwiches. bits of the cheese melts thru the holes and gets crispy, brown and yummy. you could almots use the same exact ingrediants for a variation on a Croque Monsieur (turkey, swiss and chutney.) chow!

[Marie C.]

Joe, one thing I've learned about you is that you do enjoy your food. This all looks and sounds so good.

[joe]

It is a wonder I don't weigh 400 pounds.

I'll have to give the grilled cheese a try. I've been eating the bread with cheese from the Union Square greenmarket.

[jeff]

You are making me hungry. I want to go buy a candy bar from the machine, but I have a $100 bill and two cents. Very frustrating!

[rachelle]

i feel so sorry for jeff.