Hey! One month!

Time goes quickly. Or rather, I totally lost track of time.

I've finished my one month. Mostly it was a very positive experience. I've learned how difficult it is to find fair trade chocolate options. I turned down a few delicious chocolately treats I was offered, but will make an effort to prepare my own using fair trade cocoa and chocolate.

I also realize that I had it relatively easy. I do not drink tea or coffee, and as much as I would like to, don't have a few cups of chocolate every day.

There are a number of other people who blogged about their experiences in the Fair Trade Challenge. They are definitely worth reading!

http://ainsleyfrederickson.blogspot.com/

http://fairtradinmanitoba.blogspot.com/

http://fairtradeclasschallenge.blogspot.com/

http://sophieroe5-thechallenge.blogspot.com/

Fair Trade Wine

I hadn't even thought about fair trade wine until I spotted some at the LC. I opted for this bottle of Wandering Grape. Only $13 which was a nice surprise since all of the fair trade chocolate I have bought has been considerably more expensive.

Now I am far from a sommelier. In fact, I know nothing about reviewing wine. I have no idea if it has aroma of cherry or oak. I do know that it was good, and it was wine, and it was reasonably priced.

I'm going to have to keep my eye open from now on. I'm normally good at reading labels. I wonder what else has a fair trade logo that I hadn't thought about?

Fair Trade Brownies

Last night I baked some delicious fair trade brownies. It's a cocoa powder recipe that I bought in the health food section of my local big-box grocery store. They turned out absolutely perfectly. I am currently enjoying one at my desk with a fair trade hot chocolate.

Recipe!

2/3 cup all purpose white flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup margarine, melted
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs, slightly beaten
Powdered sugar

Heat oven to 350ºF. Grease and flour an 8 inch pan. Combine all dry ingredients and mix. Melt the butter and mix the eggs and vanilla. Put that all in a mixer and mix it up until just combined.

Bake for about 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Do not over bake or they will come out dry.

Half way!

I'm roughly half way through my month of fair trade. It's unfortunate to get reactions from friends and co-workers along the lines of "oh, why are you doing that" or cracking some kind of joke along the lines of "I trade my money for coffee and i think that's fair".

I'm happy I'm doing this though. Finding chocolate is hard, but I'm managing. I'm keeping an eye out for coffee and tea when I am out and about as well. As mentioned, I don't really drink them but I have started looking to see if there is even are fair trade options.

Munching on a delicious Camino dark chocolate right now. Mmmm...

Cheating with chocolate milk

I cheated this weekend and my wife and I bought a liter of chocolate milk that stated nothing about the fairness of the cocoa. The number of options for milk is quite low, and since we drink organic milk whenever possible there really weren't any options.

Going forward, I'll probably try to make my own chocolate milk. There is a recipe for a home made chocolate syrop made with cocoa that I really like. It keeps in the fridge for ages.

I did find some fair trade cocoa in my local big-box grocery store but was not impressed. All they had available with a little 122g plastic package in the designer food section for $7! I'm going to reassess where I buy some of my food.

"The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole.”

A co-worker brought in some delicious looking doughnuts. I opted for the coconut one where I would normally have chocolate.

I wonder if there is anywhere in the city where I can get fair trade chocolate doughnuts?

Hot chocolate

I made a Cocoa Camino hot chocolate last night and it was incredible. I'm still surviving on the goodie box for signing up for the challenge, but I'll be buying this for sure from now on. It was the best hot chocolate mix I have ever tried.