I’m so damn tired of pumpkin stuff, and it’s barely half-way through the month, with another month and a half of fall stuff to go. Urgh. But I had to try pumpkin hot chocolate. There’s no way around it.
Image from Fooddoodles.com
Guys, it’s even vegan (supposedly– although I see a marshmallow in there and God only knows what animal by-products it takes to make one of those).
I made my post schedule at the beginning of this month and guessed on how much pumpkin puree I would need. I bought three cans of it. So far, even with completing the pumpkin spice krispie treats and pumpkintini, I have used a tiny fraction of a can. I was hoping to use up a bit more in this, but it still looks like I’ve barely touched it. I will have pumpkin forevarrrr.
On the plus side, I did get to use up some almond milk, which I bought one day when the grocery store was out of coconut milk, and which both my husband and I hate. But this recipe actually calls for it, so yay.
You will recall that I do not have pumpkin pie spice, so I made my own last time. Well, this time, my Googling turned up a different result and also asked me to put in Allspice.
But since last time turned out so well, I wasn’t to concerned about it, and I honestly didn’t really measure this stuff. I just put in a lot of cinnamon and a little of everything else.
Normally when I make hot chocolate, it involves heating water, opening a Swiss Miss packet, and mixing it up, so already this was way too goddamn involved. I had to get out ingredients and measure things and whisk them all together…
AND THEN I had to wait for it to boil, which took enough time that I cleaned my entire kitchen and some of my dining room before bubbles formed, and that’s with checking back frequently to make sure it wasn’t boiling yet, because I have had really bad luck with boiling dairy products in the past. (I forgot that almond milk isn’t really a dairy product. Sue me.)
When it was done heating, I carefully poured it into mugs so as not to fuck up my newly cleaned kitchen.
Sigh.
I garnished with marshmallows (because that’s how it was in the picture and I am not a vegan so I don’t care what animal by-products happen to be in marshmallows) and set to the task of drinking it. I also brought one to my husband. Because it made two mugs and I am Wife of the Year.
Except I think I have to give back Wife of the Year status because we both thought it was really disgusting. Seriously, it mostly tasted like Allspice, so I guess I put in too much of that. Secondary was the flavor of almond milk, which, as you’ll recall, neither of us like. And the pumpkin puree just sort of put me in mind of my vomit cocktail from the other day, so really, unpleasant all around.
I will not be making this one again because 1) it was gross (probably because I didn’t measure my spices, I hate almond milk, and I am really, really tired of pumpkin-flavored shit) and 2) it was kind of a pain in the ass to make it.
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Hahaha, well, now I know not to make that one. I have a can of pumpkin laying around, and I keep meaning to make pumpkin sugar cookies, but I think I’m too tired of pumpkin stuff too.
Something I never understand about things that are “pumpkin spiced” is why they require you to actually add pumpkin- the pumpkin itself has a VERY mild, almost nonexistent flavor. That’s why you can sub it in baked goods without changing the flavor of the recipe.
It’s the pumpkin PIE SPICE that adds the flavors we all associate with “pumpkin spice.” Why this recipe would have you add actual pumpkin to hot chocolate is beyond me. A little sprinkle of the spice would seem to give the flavor you actually expect.
Brave girl, trying two drinks in a row with pureed vegetable in them. And this one didn’t even add rum… bummer.
Cara
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I bought out Trader Joe’s of their pumpkin stuff last weekend and my kids don’t like any of it. I’m stuck eating it all. I’ll send it to you.
I love it when people are real about this stuff. I just checked out the original blog that posted this, and OF COURSE people raved about it. Filthy liars. It sounds really gross to me!
And then we get to mid-October, when *everything* is saturated with pumpkin and people go, “ugh” at the thought of another one, and I am happy that I’m allergic and don’t have to deal with this bullshit!
Seriously, that looks gross, and sounds like this stupid yearly pumpkin craze goes *way too far*! I am not a hot chocolate purist (I love raspberry hot chocolate, and I’m an inveterate hot chocolate meddler, always adding spices), but pureed veggies DO NOT GO in my guilty treat!
Also, if you don’t wanna deal with the last two cans of pumpkin puree (not that I blame you), consider donating it — that may mean pumpkin pie or whatever for a really poor family. And now I shut up, because I hate telling people what to do with their stuff.
I can’t recall ever seeing any posts about bananas, so aside from their inherent penis shape, I won’t speculate on your opinion of them. However, if you do like them, may I recommend Gwenyth Paltrow’s (I know, stay with me here) recipe for banana ice cream as it’s really simple, only a few ingredients, AND calls for almond milk!?
http://www.self.com/fooddiet/recipes/2013/04/banana-ice-cream-roasted-almonds
Just don’t make the same mistake as I did, which was eating two bowls since it was so delicious (and good for me!), and then going for a run an hour later with it sloshing around…
p.s. have you seen the Onion’s take on all things pumpkin, including porn??
http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-pumpkin-spice-channel-to-offer-fallthemed-hard,34175/
Top 5 things to do with your leftover pumpkin:
1) Add a tablespoon a day to your adorable dog’s food. Pumpkin is super good for their digestion.
2) Freeze it into ice cubes for fall smoothies.
3) Add it to the brown sugar hair straightener and have the fall version of something that doesn’t work at all.
4) Actually cook with it! Muffins or nut bread are perfect carby solutions, soup is the paleo way to go. (You can swap pumpkin for butternut squash if you have a recipe you like.)
5) Chuck it in the freezer and be a leg up for next year’s inevitable pumpkin pins.
I make an orange pumpking poppyseed cake that’s really good.
I thought we had a lot in common, but if you can clean your kitchen and start in on another room before the HoCho boils…my jealousy for how clean your kitchen normally is just makes our imaginary relationship impossible. That and my hatred of coconut milk.
Sounds much easier to go to Starbucks and order a hot cocoa with the pumpkin spice!
I thought there was no way I would get tired of pumpkin. But after using up almost all of it that I had pureed already, I pulled the last 3 pumpkins out of the garden yesterday. Meaning after pureeing up this batch, I’m going to have almost as much pumpkin to use up all over again. Eeesh. I will admit though, pumpkin pie smoothies are pretty fucking awesome.
I love almond milk!!! ‘Course, I only use it on cereal….and it DID take me a while to get used to….BUT NOW I LOVE IT.
I love hot chocolate. I would NOT make this. Ugh. But you can clean my kitchen any time. (Also, I think these days, marshmallows are mostly sugar. In the old days, they were actually made from a marshmallow plant. Very vegan.)
I think Willy Wonka had a couple of those in his factory.
True. But Marshmallows now are sugar + gelatin (which is made from bones).
Well, of course you’re going to hate almond milk if you buy unsweetened! That shit’s nasty. You have to get the Original. Also, while most marshmallows have gelatin, there are vegan versions available. I buy them when I go camping, cuz I gotta have my s’mores!
Poor over-pumpkined peeps. I haven’t had a single pumpkin-flavored anything so far this season, so this actually sounds pretty good to me. I’m too lazy to, like, cook & stuff, and preprocessed punkin-flavored whatever always seems to have dairy in it, making it a no-go for me. I tell you, some days I real miss being able to just run my lazy ass out & get a Starbucks Pumpkin Mocha in the fall (or an Egg Nog Mocha in the winter).
If you actually want to try pumpkin flavored whatever (idk why, but who knows), try Trader Joe’s — they have a good variety of stuff for pretty much all food allergies (which is why I do a good half of the family’s grocery shopping there! We got 1 vegan who is also gluten-free, 1 vegetarian who eats dairy rarely, 1 person who is allergic to eggs, so… fun! I gave up trying to cook for everyone and told my parents, “I’ll cook meat for us kids when it’s our night, you two fend for yourselves!”)
Not sure I’m craving enough to spend 45 minutes driving to the nearest Trader Joes. 😛
Fair enough. I forget sometimes I am lucky enough to live in a magical land where there are not one, not two, but *three* Trader Joe’s 20 minutes away (in 3 different directions)
At least you can get to a Trader Joe’s and back in one day! :p
BTW, love your name & pic. 😀
As someone mentioned, you need vanilla sweetened almond milk. Way better. And when you make hot chocolate with it (from the packet, of course), it’s a bunch of sweet creamy goodness in your mouth. For reals. Also, skip the pumpkin and all the spices besides the cinnamon. You can add that to the vanilla hot chocolate, and then it’s Mexican hot chocolate. It is amazeballs.
If you’re just using your milk for drinking & cereal, vanilla works, but I always stick with original because I cook with mine too, & you REALLY don’t want to end up with vanilla mashed potatoes & vanilla cream of broccoli soup. 😛 Either way, don’t get the unsweetened.
We buy tons of vanilla soymilk at my house, because it’s awesome, and we cook with it too. Most recipes, it doesn’t matter, since the flavor is pretty mild, but there were a few things that you could taste the vanilla pretty strong, and it took me *forever* to figure out wtf was making it taste so vanilla-y.
I bought unsweetened almond milk so that I could have totally guilt-free chai lattes. It tasted like balls. Seriously nasty. I could barely choke it down. I kept trying to convince myself that it wasn’t that bad. It was that bad.
Or, get Dark Chocolate Almond Milk, which is basically like… um. Idk, I’m no writer, I suck at metaphors, so I’m going with FUCKING GOOD. The barest hint of almond makes it even better.
Dogs love canned pumkin. Seriously. Mine like it better than canned food and it is good for them.
pumpkin…jeeze
Can I just say how jealous I am that you have canned pumpkin? I’ve never seen the stuff here in Australia which means if I wanna try pumpkin flavoured anything I have to buy a real pumpkin and puree that shit myself.
Make sure you roast it before you puree it!
Well yes. I imagine it would be damn near impossible to puree it raw.
Mostly I meant cooking squash/gourds in the microwave is just not nearly as good as doing it the old fashioned way (although a helluva lot faster!)
You know it’s fall when….PINTEREST is plagued with pumpkin crap. :/ Now mixing pumpkin and chocolate together just makes me want to puke. Thanks for your awesome reviews! You rock!
Chocolate chip pumpkin muffins are really good, though.
If you’re ever looking to get rid of the pumpkin, you can feed it to your dog! It’s good for their digestion, and it spices up their regular food. (I also have a recipe for pumpkin dog treats if you’re interested.)
I was going to actually try this recipe until I saw that it called for almond milk. Luckily for me, I’m allergic to nuts (<—- insert joke here). After reading this review and trying a juicing recipe that involved pumpkin (really more of a smoothie(regardless, it was disgusting), I have decided to chuck all pumpkin inspired beverages this year. Cookies and pies are still on the menu!
I have been inserting all *sorts* of jokes in my head for like an hour now about being allergic to nuts! It has been a great hour (I can’t decide if being allergic to nuts is funnier if one is a straight woman or a lesbian. I’ve been debating that for an hour, too).
This may not be (probably is not) the right place to post this, but this is an IT problem I’ve been having. Now, granted, it may be my computer or my inability to use anything without fucking it up, but just in case: When I click random, and then ‘load more’, I often get repeats and then it tells me ‘no more posts’ even though I’m missing some things you’ve posted (maybe due to repeats? Idk, I’m pretty bad with computers). Anyway, like I said, odds are good that it’s me, not you, but I wanted to let you know!
I am having the worst time on the iPad too. Scrolling sideways on the mobile version and I can’t view photos or anything anymore without opening new pages. It switched back to normal for awhile, then it came back. 🙁
i haven’t had any pumpkin-flavored things yet this fall, and am not really planning on it. i don’t seem to like pumpkin flavored anything. but i am told i make an amazing pumpkin pie. it smells so good while i’m cooking it. but in reality, it smells like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice. not pumpkin.
maybe i should make hot chocolate and just add cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice. not, you know. pumpkin. ALSO: everyone saying give pumpkin to your dog – great way to up the fiber intake for your pooch, also good if pets get a bit of diarrhea. however, too MUCH pumpkin can cause…. diarrhea. poop confuses me.
You are so brave. I consider myself pretty adventurous when it comes to dining, but if I had been presented with a chocolate-pumpkin concocktion, I’d have bolted.
Pumpkin must die. That is all.
Fun fact: Marshmallows are a pork by-product! Pigs: not just for bacon anymore.
I actually like pumpkin, but this sounds nasty, even with regular milk and measured ingredients.
You could use the rest of your canned schmumpkin on your doggy! My lab loves these biscuits. http://simmertilldone.com/2009/10/07/retriever-retriever-pumpkin-eater/
You will have pumpkin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Q7b-vHY3Q
I made pumpkin white hot chocolate last year… it sounded delicious until I started blending it together, but then I didn’t even have the cocoa part to make it chocolatey brown so it kind of looked like watered down baby poo, if a baby had been eating nothing but carrots. Or I guess pumpkin.
Next time, add a scoop of coco powder and more Jack Daniels to the pumpkintini and heat that up. Or, you could just leave out everything except the Jack Daniels and put that shit on ice. Now THAT is an awesome Autumn night (that will probably also give you the runs, but it would be worth it)
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[…] I know I said I’m tired of pumpkin, but I still have a whole lot left, and hey, when is it a bad time to add pureed vegetables to cake […]
I really don’t understand the fascination with pumpkin pie flavored crap. Isn’t it bad enough that we have to listen to crazy white girls going on and on about them while wearing Ugg boots and shopping at Old Navy? Hasn’t the world suffered enough without adding some weird hot chocolate crap to the mix? Seriously, people, think of the children! *tear falls* The children.
I can’t get over the fact that Americans eat pumpkin as a dessert. It’s just plain weird, people! Here in Australia, pumpkin is a savoury food, usually served as pumpkin soup or roasted along with potatoes and a leg of lamb.
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