Cooking Lesson #1001: The Chocolate Doctor’s Mexican Chocolate Oatmeal

…from the Choclatique Kitchen

How you doin’? When you own your own chocolate company you get to “play” around with all sorts of recipes that use chocolate. Joan and I used to own the premium chocolate company, Choclatique, and we were always creating new concoctions with chocolate… so many, in fact, that I wrote the book on chocolate desserts… Choclatique--150 Simply Elegant Desserts.
 
As the Chocolate Doctor, I made a crushed cacao and salt coated prime rib, s’mores pizza, cocoa braised short ribs and Mexican Chocolate Oatmeal. Believe it or not they all tasted great!
 
My mother was of the generation that if you didn’t have a good hot meal to start off the day, it wouldn’t be a good day. There was no room for Tony the Tiger or Snap, Crackle or Pop in our house. My brother and I were destined to have a hot cereal breakfast every weekday morning. 
 
I was never that fond of hot cereal. I guess the Cream of Wheat was better than most, but hot gloppy oatmeal was the worst. I discovered in my preteen days that chocolate helps the oats go down. I started by spilling a little bit of my stronger than normal hot chocolate in the bowl of oatmeal and mixing it up really well to get the chocolate flavor.  Then I started to sneak in some chocolate chips that melted into the mix.  Then I graduated to this recipe to start everybody’s day in the pink or chocolate brown.
 
Prep time:  5 minutes
Cook time:  15 minutes
Yield:  2 servings
 
Ingredients 
1 cup old-fashioned oats (I prefer Quaker Oats)
2 cups milk, divided (you can use any kind of milk)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt (salt enhances the flavor of chocolate)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons granulated sugar (or honey)
1/4 cup grated dark chocolate, save a little for topping
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Topping of choice
 
Directions

1. Combine the oats and 1-1/2 cups of the milk in a saucepan and place over medium-low heat.  
2. Add the salt and cinnamon and stir to combine.
3. Cook for 15 minutes (stir to prevent burning) until the oats are creamy.
4. Remove the oats from the heat and immediately stir in the cocoa powder, sugar, chocolate and the last half cup of milk.  
5. Stir in the vanilla extract.
6. Top with the remaining grated chocolate.
7. Optional toppings—Sliced bananas, berries, nuts or marshmallows. ​

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ChefSecret:  You can accelerate the cooking time of the oats significantly by using 1- or 3-minute oats.  After all, it isn’t about the quality of the oats, but the quality of the chocolate. 

Quip of the Day:  The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nuns wrote a note and posted it on the apple tray: "Take only ONE. God is watching."

Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of fresh oatmeal raisin cookies. A child added a handwritten note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples."
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