Fall

I make it different all the time but this one turned out well today:

Small saucepan
honey
vanilla
cocoa powder
milk and cream, or just milk if you have no cream

Cover the bottom of the saucepan with a scant 1/4 inch of honey. Warm it up gently, put in a heaping chinese spoonful of cocoa, and I mean heaping. Maybe two regular non-heaping spoonfuls would be less precarious. If you don't have a chinese spoon, a spoon from your silverware drawer will do. You should get some chinese spoons, though; they're handy. (My god, Wikipedia has pages on EVERYTHING.)

Add a bit of vanilla, maybe half a capful or less. Stir until the cocoa and honey have formed a syrup and there are no more lumps. Taste for sweetness; add more honey or more cocoa to adjust. Gradually add cream, not too quickly or you'll get blobs of syrup if the cream's cold. (The observant may note that this is a sort of poor man's ganache.) When you have about an inch or so of cream in the pan, start adding milk, gradually. Keep stirring. When the milk and the syrup are completely integrated, heat it up to hotness.

Let your nine-year-old serve it forth with cookies and marshmallows. Remind her to turn the damn burner off before putting the pot back on it next time.

This would all be quicker with a blender, but this is actually more work to write out than to do--it sounds more labor-intensive than it is, and there's no blender to clean after. Also it'd be quicker with pre-prepared chocolate syrup, which isn't hard especially when your husband makes it, and he likes doing it, which mine does.

But if you don't like mixes, and you have cocoa powder in the kitchen, which you should, this is one way to make it.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

Its easy peasy, if you have the cocoa. Go to a restuarant supply house, and get a big ole back of dutch cocoa, then gather up the following:

1 1/2 cups water
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups Dutch-processed cocoa
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

bring the water to boil with the sugar, slowly blend in the cocoa, salt and vanilla extract. Whisk it till it's smooth, and then reduce until it's thick, stirring often (but not non-stop). Let it cool, but keep the whisk handy for scaring away the inevitable children hoping to sneak their fingers into the now-cooling concoction.

Pour into a squeeze bottle, and you ahve syrup that is better than the stuff in the can!

This is SO getting put in my recipe box!

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally

Otherwise, they will spill it on a burner, and then the next time you turn it, it will have little 2" flames all over the burner.

Trust me. We know this to be true. Sugar+alcohol extract =flammable mixture.

We had a kitchen fire. I'll post more about it in a sec.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor