Lovely Chili Hot Chocolate with Rose Petals

Love-Me-Dew at Shine Restaurant & Gathering Place, Boulder, CO

 

On a recent visit to Boulder, I had the pleasure of visiting one of my favorite restaurants, Shine Restaurant and Gathering Place. And one of my favorite things about Shine is their offering of “potions,” which are a “thoughtfully and lovingly concocted array of fantastic, non-alcoholic brews, using a rich assortment of herbs, vibrational-essences, juices, spices, coconut milk and natural sodas.”

This time around, I tried the Love-Me-Dew, which is coconut milk infused with cocoa, chili powder, rose petals, raspberry agave and vibrational essence of rose quartz. It is designed to enhance feelings of self-acceptance and self-love. It certainly evoked feelings of love for this drink – since I tasted it, I have been craving it! So, I thought I would try making my own version given ingredients I had around the house.

Here is my version:

• 2 cups almond milk (best when you have time to make your own)
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup (more or less, depending on your taste)
• 1/4 teaspoon ancho chili powder (Shine uses chimayo; you can use more or less, depending on how spicy you like it)
• A few sprinkles of finely chopped dried organic rose petals for garnish (make sure you use culinary roses)

Heat the almond milk in a saucepan over medium heat until it just starts to steam. Lower the heat and add the cocoa powder, maple syrup and chili powder. Stir until well-blended and remove from heat. Divide into two ceramic mugs and sprinkle a half-teaspoon of rose petals on top of each. Share the love!

 

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Wild Foods from Dirt to Plate

On our recent travels through the west, we passed through Boulder (a place I definitely need to spend some time exploring in the future). We stopped by the Pearl Street Mall and took a walk around, looking for a good place to have lunch (we chose Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace, which turned out to be an excellent decision!).

image copyright Almightydad.com

We passed by cute boutique after cool-looking storefront. But the one that caught my eye was The Boulder Bookstore. It was filled with lots of books, fun gift items, and a surprisingly large selection of fair trade chocolates! I wanted a copy of Rachel Carson‘s Silent Spring to read on the plane home, and figured this indie bookstore would have to have a copy in stock. I inquired at the desk, and was told that I could find it in the Ecology section. I found Silent Spring, and also made a wonderful additional discovery – Edible Wild Plants: Wild Food from Dirt to Plate, a new book by John Kallas, PhD, founder of Wild Food Adventures.

I have been on Kallas’ mailing list for over 2 years, but have yet to attend one of his amazing wild food events, which are mostly held in Oregon. So I was very excited to find a book through which I could glean some of his expertise in the field of wild foods.

While I love my collection of wild foods books by Euell Gibbons and Jim Duke, I was thrilled to see the detailed information provided on each plant profiled in Edible Wild Plants. Like Gibbons, Kallas goes into depth on just a few plants (only 15 plants, as this book is part of a series he plans to write over the next few years). And like Gibbons, he includes recipes for each plant.

However, Kallas’ book has the added feature of multiple photographs showing each plant during its various stages of development. This has been my major complaint with other wild plant books, in that it is often very difficult to identify a plant based on just one photograph. As Kallas points out in his book, “The same plant can look different not only in this book but in other books, depending on the angle of the photograph, the condition of the plant…” and “While moving through different stages of growth, a plant can transform so much that young and old versions look like different species.”

When I opened the book in the store, it fell open to the first of 17 pages devoted to one of my favorite wild plants, garlic mustard (which I wrote about earlier this year), including 16 photographs and two recipes. I knew I had to buy it!

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