Found Friday: Choco-Mint Tingle Shake

You are going to love me for pointing you in the right direction.

I know someone’s a real foodie when I connect with them on the food level very quickly. If they take that a step further and actually affect what I cook or how I cook it? That’s a pretty big deal.

When Josh and Hiedi visited in Hawaii last, we talked bread. Well, they talked bread and made bagels and focaccia, and I sat there eating happily. I ate a lot of bagels. We even spent quite a bit of time looking at pictures Josh had taken of bread. I got really psyched about it because most people laugh at me when I want to sit around looking at pictures of food. These are people that are serious about their bread. I was quite happy when I was able to usurp the copy of Baking Artisan Bread by Ciril Hitz that they left my friend, and I’ve been making some pretty good pizza dough and focaccia ever since. (I’ve wanted to make bagels about ten times now, but always fall short. I will.)

Hiedi and I also talked about smoothies. She told me about Chia seeds (yep, the ones on the chia pet) and I immediately started using them. She said her kids loved her super healthy smoothies. I got revved up again about green smoothies and dragged out the spinach and kale. She mentioned her favorite dessert, made with starlight mints, that her husband made up. She said it was much healthier than a regular dessert.

I thought, there is no way that can be good. I detest starlight mints. Really and truly. Plus I am skeptical of anything that doesn’t have full fat cream and butter in it being called “dessert.” So I forgot about it.

Fast forward several months and I saw she left a comment on my blog, and I asked her for that recipe again. I couldn’t even find starlight mints at my local store. I picked some up from town, thinking, I might not even be able to use all of these.

Why I doubted her, when obviously they know their business, is beyond me.

This is crazy deliciousness. Make it. And I won’t even tell anyone you did, because you’ll want to drink it all yourself. Amaya wouldn’t let me.

Notes: I didn’t heat the milk, sugar, and cocoa together. I just blended everything up cold and all at the same time, and I actually liked the slight mouthfeel from the cocoa. But I have a vitamix and it really blends stuff up well. She did mention that you probably want to be careful about the frozen cubes if you don’t have a good blender. She says that the measurements can be slightly adjusted according to taste. I did 16 cubes of frozen milk and 10 peppermints. It served 2 and a half. If I had been alone, it would have served one. To remove the cubes from the ice tray just run the bottom of it under cold water for about 15 seconds. You can also use leftover candy canes instead of starlight mints.