Choclomania

Christmas is really all about one thing . . .

Chocolate.

And we've been enjoying chocolate a lot lately. Chocolate also goes with our cold weather. When I put Keva on the bus this morning, it was a "balmy" 18 degrees with the windchill factor at 1 degree. "Biting" was the word that came to mind. Keva was not interested in getting up today either. I had to drag her up and out of bed, wrestle her into warm clothes, wrestle her off to the family room to fix her hair and get her backpack ready. I hope she's a little more lively in school today because I think I need to go take a nap.

Anyway, back to chocolate. A few years ago I found a Micro-Fudge recipe. Very easy. Very fun, but lumpy. I tried with all of my heart to get passed the lumpiness, but it would not work. I just dealt with lumpiness because the fudge still came out tasting good. Plus, I was finding it hard to find a microwaveable bowl that would neatly hold two pounds of powdered sugar. So, I thought to myself, why not try the recipe on the stove top. It works! Also, since it does cook just a little on the stove, the sugar de-lumpifies. It's SO EASY! It does not taste like regular fudge, but it's awfully close. For all of the times I've messed up a batch of fudge, this is heaven on earth.

So, here's the recipe for anyone interested:

Stove Top Fudge

2 lbs. powdered sugar
1 cup baking cocoa
1 cup (two sticks) butter
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp. vanilla

Jackie's directions: Dump all ingredients (except for vanilla) into stove top pan and heat until thoroughly blended. Take off of heat and add vanilla. Pour into lightly Pam-sprayed glass dish. Chill to harden. Cut and serve!

When it started getting cold earlier this week, Kathleen bemoaned the fact that we didn't have any packets of hot cocoa. So I looked at my Cocoa box, and there was a hot cocoa recipe. For some reason, I thought it might be a more difficult recipe, but it's only three ingredients -- cocoa, sugar and milk -- what could be easier. My kind of cooking! The kids didn't like the cocoa nearly as much as I did because it wasn't sugary enough for them. I think it didn't have that cocoa packet flavor of preservatives or something, actually, because it was really good. We had cocoa twice this week. Yum!

My complexion should look like the lunar landscape by the time the Christmas season is over.

By the way, thanks to all of the nice comments about my new hair. Love it! Even this morning (The Dreaded Day After) I still like it. I feel Sassy today. When I took the pictures last night, I was trying to get pictures at an angle that didn't show off my double chin too much, but each and every picture had a double chin anyway. And the double chin has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with chocolate!