Green Your Cup of Cocoa This Winter

December 19, 2009 by La Mama Naturale'
Filed under all natural, eco-friendly, green, organic

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Photo credit: stevendepolo via flickr

Winter bring lots of goodies and treats including the infamous cup of Hot Cocoa! Lately, it seems my little guy and I can’t get enough of it. It can get to be pretty expensive if you’re having a cup of hot cocoa each afternoon. Especially, if you’re buying them in packets (which I haven’t done in years!). I stopped buying the packets when I discovered Ovaltine…and stopped buying Ovaltine to start making my own. In the long run, making your own will save you some money. In a homemade recipe you have the opportunity to tweak with the ingredients and use quality ingredients such as organic.

Why is that important?

Purchasing products that are all natural and organic means they will NOT contain preservatives, artificial coloring/flavoring, or any funky chemicals. The ingredients are pure and safe. No weird words on the label you can’t pronounce. In addition to making your own at home you can also regulate your little ones sugar intake a bit by cutting back or by using a sugar with lower gylcemic levels. Such as Turbinado Stevia, Agave, Honey & Molasses etc. In this recipe I use regular cane sugar… but I do use an organic brand which is not bleached like regular sugar (I’d like to try turbinado sugar sometime). Most grocery stores carry organic sugar now & the following ingredients can be found in most health food stores.

The cast of Christmas spirit….

Nativa’s Raw Cacao Powder Suzanne’ s Ricemellow Pure Fun Organic Candy Cane’s

Eco Hot Cocoa Recipe

(all ingredients are organic!)

1/2 cup of organic sugar

1/4 cup of organic cocoa

couple dashes of cinnamon

1/3 cup of filtered H20

Combine sugar, cocoa and cinnamon- set aside. Boil 1/3 cup of H20. Add H20 to dry mix and warm over stove but do not allow mixture to boil.

Once it comes to a light simmer add in 4 cups of organic milk then allow it to simmer up again.

Pour into your favorite mug~

Serve and enjoy.

** You can make this recipe dairy free by replacing cow’s milk with almond, coconut, rice, or soy milk.

Just remember that to GREEN your cup of hot cocoa – you’ll want to look for ingredients that are organic, have NO High Fructose Corn Syrup, no artificial colors or favor and no JUNK period. Chemical and preservative free, if at possible. Most companies who make all natural and organic products are conscience about the planet. Besides, keeping the planet healthy the consumer’s health is also kept in mind. On top of it all, most eco companies donate certain percentages to environmental causes. So, by supporting them you’re more than likely supporting a wonderful cause and helping to SAVE THE PLANET!

Now, if you’re anything like me, you have a ton of memories drinking hot cocoa from a surprise mug (had a frog inside). My grandma would make me a cup of hot cocoa and put marshmallow creme in it. I loved drinking it from my surprise mug because after a few sips the frogs eyes would be exposed and it would make me smile. Of course, all the marshmellow creme was eaten before that happened.

The holidays come with lots of treats and sweets why not ease the blow some and still have fun. Besides, putting a little eco in your cup of cocoa may have an effect in more ways than one!

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Tags: beverage, candy canes, chocolate, drink, eco, frugal, green, Homemade, hot cocoa, Make Your Own, marshmallow cream, nativas naturals, purefun, ricemellow, warm, winter

Extra, Extra- New @ ECP: Support Fair Trade- Get Coco-Zen!

October 21, 2009 by La Mama Naturale'
Filed under eco-friendly, green

Summary of Summer

September 8, 2009 by La Mama Naturale'
Filed under all natural foods, raw

5 Comments

Hey guys! Happy 09-09-09! Still around. Database crashed and I wasn’t able to get to it until last night. Sorry about that!!

We had a jam packed weekend full of fun!

We took Tristan bowling and I even wore Clark for part of it. Don’t worry, I played it safe… & Tristan had a ball… LOL!

And as a last consolation for the summer and because our membership is going to expire at the end of the month; we went to the zoo!

We BBQ’d yesterday at my in laws. I made a nice spinach salad and the neighbors actually made a raw dish! I was so impressed. It was a zucchini salad with lemon zest and sun dried tomatoes. Yum, yum!

This summer I’ve tried a few raw dishes and some new cooked ones. Our garden didn’t do as well as we’d hoped. This is the first year in five years that we’ve planted a garden and have not had much of a harvest. The insane high temps killed most of our plants or slowed their growth. We normally have tons and tons of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and peppers. We hardly had any harvest of what we planted. It was a bit discouraging but also part of gardening and the challenges you face. We’re determined to research some of the challenges through winter in hopes of a more successful garden next year. Hopefully, we master composting by then and are able to provide the much needed nutrients we were possibly lacking and time of all things. Thankfully, my mother in laws garden was flourishing because we’ve been eating some of her bounty.

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Tags: Babywearing, bananas, bowling, chocolate, garden, healthy, natural, raw, raw peach cobbler, raw tacos, recipes, sewing, summer, upcycling, zucchini