Healthy Chocolate-Mint Milkshake (and a give-away!)

I'm going to get to the milkshake in one second, I swear. But first! I have to gush about another book. And yes, suspiciously as always, this is the memoir of a friend of mine, a person whom I love who also happens to drive my kids to school three times a week. Also, I went to college with his editor at Flatiron. And you're like, "Why do I want to read Catherine's carpool-friend Lou's book?" And I'll tell you: because it is incredible. I knew it would be because the story is so good--it's about the year Lou was thirteen, and his parents' Playgirl-centerfold best friend came to live with them in Salem, MA, while everyone was (spoiler alert) swinging and also (spoiler) splitting up and (yes) smoking pot and cigarettes and feeling each other up out on the roof. I knew it would be zany and hilarious and brilliant, like Lou. But I hadn't realize that the writing was going to break my heart and blow me away. Which it did. I read it in one night.

Whose Rime-on-the-Ancient-Mariner reading glasses are those? Is it the same guy with the grizzled beard? It is.

And now Michael is reading it and loving it, and Michael is not so much a, how shall I put this, reading kind of person. He keeps reading passages out loud to me, and even though I just read the book myself, I'm still happy, because it is so good to hear it again. Anyhoo, buy this book immediately. Or comment below by Friday noon if you want to win it, because I've got one copy to give away!

Speaking of books given away, Roost Books sent me a copy of a new cookbook called Feeding a Family by Sarah Waldman, and it's just lovely. I haven't actually made anything from it except this one bastardized recipe I'm about to put down here, but I have a really good feeling about the book because it's kind of mostly vegetarian, which is how we eat, and everything is seasonal and appealing and tasty looking. Anyhoo, the Chocolate-Mint Milkshakes recipe spoke to me because our backyard is turning into a giant mint patch, and it's so lovely and fresh in the spring, before it gets all dried-out and hairy and worm-eaten.

No actual ice cream!

Plus, I'm kind of on one of my periodic no-refined-sugar kicks, because I'm tired of having headaches and acne and nonspecific crankiness and also my jeans are tight. 

"Mama said, No, Snapper! and put me on the floor, where I am sad and lonely for a milk shake."

This is the kind of recipe that hits all the right notes for me: it is frosty and thick and super-creamy (please use whole milk) and the chocolate flavor is deep and the mint flavor is fresh, and the shake is sweet from the dates but also bitter-edged from the cocoa. I've adapted it from 4 servings to 1, and also I don't use the banana that original recipe calls for because banana is such a fucking alpha-dog of a smoothie ingredient, pardon my French. But I bet it's sweeter and creamier with the banana, so feel free to add back half a frozen banana here.

Sorry, did you need an actual +food+ recipe? I made this recently, and it was divine. I used pinto beans and a mix of collards and kale, and swapped in some chipotle puree and liquid smoke so I could skip the bacon and keep it vegetarian. Truly extraordinarily simple and good. 

Healthy Chocolate-Mint Milkshake
Serves 1

Adapted from Feeding a Family by Sarah Waldman. If your blender is not very powerful and you're worried that the mint leaves are going to be more leafy than aromatic, swap in a few drops of mint extract or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract.

3/4 cup whole milk
1/2 cup ice cubes
2 pitted dates
1 heaping tablespoon cocoa powder (or cacao pwodre)
The leaves from 2 healthy sprigs of mint

Blend everything in a blender until it's thick and frothy and has stopped making the ice-and-dates-banging-around noises that signal that there are still chunks. Serve right away.