Maggie Milk: Chocolate Edition

We love flavored milk! 

Chocolate, strawberry and vanilla are among our favorite flavors.  Before we started paying more attention to food labels, Nesquick used to be a staple ingredient in our home. Now, we try to eat more real food and less processed.  That means that we had to find a new way to flavor our milk.  The first method we tried was a chocolate syrup. 

Chocolate Syrup:

Mix together 1/3 c cocoa powder, 2/3 c sugar (we use organic) and a dash of salt in a saucepan.  Slowly stir in a cup of water. Bring to a boil using medium heat and let boil for 2 minutes.  (Be careful--it expands as it boils and could easily boil over). Let cool and pour into a mason jar.  Store in the fridge for two weeks (if it lasts that long!)

Add a tablespoon to a cold glass of Maggie milk (or whatever milk you have on hand :) ) and stir well. 

While this is tasty, it doesn't have the ease of Nesquick for a single glass.  When we have extra milk on hand, I usually just flavor a whole gallon with a batch of syrup and call it good.

I decided to call on my friend Google and see if homemade Nesquick was possible.  It sure was!  We love this recipe. Simple--only two ingredients.  And it is shelf-stable and not as messy as a sticky syrup.

We just add a tablespoon of hot water to the bottom of the glass, mix in a tablespoon of homemade Nesquick, and add milk.  The kids love helping to stir their individual glasses!

Strawberry milk is a topic for another day.  I'm still trying to work out a powdered version with dehydrated berries...if you have any ideas or links for that one, I'd love to hear it!

How about you--what is your favorite flavor of milk?