A Warm and Fuzzy Feeling

It's been a truly horrendous winter here in Boston, where we've already exceeded the average annual snowfall with still two months left of winter to go. One of the joys of snowy weather is, however, a warm mug of hot cocoa. I never use premixed, packaged stuff. Firstly, I am not a fan of manufactured food and, mostly, I like it when I have the control over top quality ingredients. So here's how I do it.


Milk, chocolate, and a frother is all you need.

All you need to start is, of course, the milk. I use 1% for everything. Then you need a good quality of chocolate bar. The only unusual equipment may be the frother, a tool well-known to budding baristas everywhere. What it does is whip air into the hot milk to create the foam. I use mine every morning to make my cafe au lait.


Chopped chocolate to be added to the milk.

Heat the milk for two minutes on high in the microwave. Add the chopped chocolate and stir. Heat another minute on high and then froth. Voila!


The heated milk with chopped chocolate added.


Using the frother to whip up the cocoa.

Nothing like coming home to a sweet mug of hot cocoa on a cold and snowy eve.



On another warm and happy note, I decided to check my google account this week just out of curiosity. It has been almost a year since I signed up for it and I never really paid much attention. To my (extreme) surprise I found that my little blog has received close to 13,000 hits since that time! It seems just yesterday that I was lamenting how much work I do on TBF and how few read it. Or so I thought! It was really encouraging to discover that I have been viewed by thousands of people all over the world. Thanks everyone for reading, helping me out, emailing and posting comments. I look forward to many more years of blogging and continuously improving along the way. So, today, I am celebrating by ignoring the snow and ice for a few hours, relaxing by the pool and watching this spectacle of a Presidential Inauguration.



And if that's not enough good news TBF was also featured on the cover page of NPR's Public Radio Kitchen. Here's the link: Public Radio Kitchen.