Snowed In?

If you're my family, then the answer for about 80% of you is YES (I'm counting Bathjes as well). For the rest of you, just in case you haven't heard yet, most of the midwest is dealing with lots of horrible winter weather right now. We're in the middle of a blizzard here in Chicagoland, and I don't expect we'll be out and about again until Thursday at the earliest. The snow has been falling so heavily, but I have no idea how much we have yet because the wind has been blowing so badly. Anyway, for those of you who are snowed in I thought I'd share this fabulous hot chocolate recipe I finally tried tonight. It's so good that it doesn't even need marshmallows.

INGREDIENTS
• 2 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon corn starch
• 3 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (if desired)

PROCEDURE
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler
Boil the water, and stir in the sugar, salt, and cornstarch until dissolved. Add the cayenne pepper, if desired.
Pour over the chocolate and stir thoroughly.
Scald the milk, pour it into the mixture, and add the vanilla.
Reheat the mixture almost to boiling and whip it with an eggbeater until frothy.
Makes 4 cups.

Also, many of you have asked me to come back to my blog and update again. I decided last month that I was going to take January off and come back again in February, though I won't post every day like I did before. So please come back and check up on me from time to time. I'm going to keep this blog address even though I'm done with the 365 project, I'll probably just change the name in the blog header. Anyone have any suggestions?

Look back here tomorrow - I'm hoping to get some snow pics once it lets up a bit. Stay safe and warm everyone!