Since I live in the Southern Hemisphere, you would imagine that hot chocolate is not the best choice for the time of year being as it is hot and humid. However it is also the rainy season and when it rains it definitely cools down and then hot chocolate doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
I’d also heard that really good quality hot chocolate is a great pick me up and is filling, as well as tasting wonderful.

The first time I tried this it was very satisfying and stopped me snacking all afternoon, however in the morning I was hungry a couple of hours after (but I also didn’t use quite enough chocolate that time, maybe that’s why). Either way, make this with low fat milk or soy milk and your calorie intake can’t be massively high. I also imagine almond milk would be really good too.

Use a chocolate bar high in coco solids, a standard large one should last about 4 cups.

2 heaped dessertspoons of grated chocolate (or break into chunks) *
¼ tsp each of dry ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg
1 couple of drops of vanilla
2 tsps of golden cane sugar
½ mug of milk

Heat all the ingredients together in a small saucepan until the chocolate has completely melted. Make sure you stir well to blend everything together – enjoy!

*Experiment with amounts of chocolate because everyone's taste is different*

Power Salsa

I call this power salsa because it is full of healthy foods, avocados are packed full of protein and good fats, mangoes are great antioxidents, onion helps boost your immune system and stringent ginger is also a good anti oxidant and helps digestion. I ate this in a pitta with some grilled white fish and it was wonderful.

1 medium size avocado

1 large mango

1 large ripe tomato

2 spring onions

1 heaped teaspoon of grated ginger

The juice of 1 lime

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh coriander

Salt and pepper

Finely chop the spring onion.

Chop everything else so that it is quite small but still a little chunky.

Mix all ingredients to together.

That's it!

Derbyshire Ice-cream

I have been accused of not liking ice-cream. This is not true, I just like good quality ice-cream that is thick, full of natural flavours and is actually made from cream. Nowadays, this is hard to combine and then it's not cheap.

Here's a decent ice-cream I found in Tissington in the Peak District, in a bit of a dark tearoom. It is made on the Chatsworth estate and has a great name. They make the traditional flavours as well as more unusual ones. I had mandarin and ginger and flavour which was creamy, not too sweet and the mandarin worked very well - I think the ginger was a bit too light.

My husband has strawberry which has lovely pieces of real strawberry in and tasted subtle. Nice.

Sorry about the photo, but you get the idea!