I have a problem. Whenever I come across a great recipe, video, product, concept, etc, I get all excited and want to write about my discovery but then I’m like, Nah, everyone knows about it already. Because if I know about it, then surely everyone else does, too.

I’m not sure if this problem is unique to me or if everyone deals with it (oops, here we go again. I told you it’s a problem). Maybe it harkens back to my TV-less childhood in which I never knew what was going on (and didn’t really care). I just learned to (correctly) assume that everyone knew things before I did. I was cool with that.

But now, as A Possessor of the Internet, I find myself discovering interesting things in real time. And as a blogger, I have the means to share. Except everyone is A Possessor of the Internet—because that’s how they access my blog, see?—and so there’s a very real probability that no one needs me to share anything because they already know everything.

And so I discover Things Most Marvelous, rave to the people around me, take photos, and then do nothing. Because what’s the point? Also, I reason, if I wait an extra week or two to share my find, maybe everyone will have forgotten that particular Thing Most Marvelous and it will seem new and fresh. And then everyone will be like, Ooo, she is SO on top of things!

Whatever.

All that to say, I made Deb’s hot chocolate and it is the best hot chocolate mix ever.

There. Did you already know that? This is not a rhetorical question! I seriously want to know how many of you: 1) knew about Deb’s hot chocolate mix, and 2) made it and loved it. Tell me! Tell me! This is an experiment in sociocultural psychology! (Or something.)

Anyway. About the hot chocolate. I am quite picky about my hot chocolate. I can’t stand it when instructions say to mix together sugar and cocoa and then add hot milk. This is wrong. The cocoa turns out gritty. Don’t do it. To skip the cocoa grit, proper hot chocolate must be made like so:

*combine the cocoa and sugar in a saucepan
*add a bit of water to make a slurry
*BOIL (this is what dissolves the grit and makes everything creamy-lush)
*add milk and heat through
*before serving, add a pinch of salt and a drizzle of vanilla

And don’t even get me going on powdered milk mixes—i.e. cocoa and sugar with Whiff of Barnyard—or, heaven forbid, the packaged junk.

But Deb’s mix breaks all rules. She uses cocoa and sugar, yes, but she also adds cornstarch and chopped chocolate. I thought for sure it’d be gritty, but it wasn’t! Well—full confession—there is a slight, ever so slight, sandiness to it, but it’s due more to the ridiculous chocolatey thickness of the drink and less to the non-dissolved cocoa. At least that’s what I think.

Perhaps it helps that the dry ingredients are pulverized in a food processor. Or maybe it’s the addition of cornstarch (which is brilliant because cornstarch). Or it’s the real, melted chocolate that smooths things over. Whatever the case, it works. It’s like drinking molten chocolate: intense, thick, rich, delicious. Willy Wonka would be proud.

(It’s a little too good, maybe. Ever since I discovered this mix, I spend most of my days just waiting till I can have my bedtime cocoa.)

Hot Chocolate Mix
Adapted from Deb of Smitten Kitchen.

½ cup cocoa
½ cup sugar
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt

Put all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the chocolate chips are indistinguishable (though I let my processor run for a good minute or two and I still had a few itty-bitty chunks). Store the mixture in a pint jar.

To make hot chocolate:
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons hot chocolate mix
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
marshmallows or whipped cream, optional (but not really)

Heat the milk in a small saucepan. When the milk is steamy-hot, add the mix. Whisk well for a minute or two. (If the milk boils, remove the pan from the heat.) Add the vanilla. Pour the hot chocolate into a mug and top with marshmallows or whipped cream.

Marshmallow trick: tear your marshmallows into fourths. This way, instead of sip-wrestling with two giant marshmallow blobs, you get an easy-to-manage, foamy, evenly-dispersed marshmallow cap. Such an improvement.

This same time, years previous: stuffing, constant vigilance!, sunrise, sunset, light painting, my elephant, the quotidian (12.12.11), cracked wheat (or cooked oatmeal) pancakes, Sunday vignettes: human anatomy, and iced gingerbread men.    

*the wall clock says it’s 4:13 but it also says “Who cares?” so whatever
*pushed-back chairs and rooster end table to make room for the latest fad: gymnastics
*two of my children + two of their friends = four children
*dying fern hanging by the window
*on the wall, the picture I drew of my husband—I gave it to him the weekend I tried to break up with him
*below that picture, a pencil drawing my brother did of my brother and me when we were little
*on the other side of the window, our wedding fraktur
*leftover decorations (still!) from my birthday
*mountains of laundry and a broken wash basket
*on the table among the stacks of laundry, To Kill A Mockingbird, since my older son decided to re-read it (I think it just may be my favorite book of all time)
*out of the frame and in the very front center: holes in the hardwood floor, and giant cracks, too, as in the boards have split—we’re like a pack of elephant kangaroos
*in the basket on the table: the last of our bushel of Fuji apples
*in the muffin tin: flopped gougeres that no one ate (the second batch turned out better but none of us were fans)
*the black record-keeping notebook that I had been jotting notes in for the next Milkmaids meeting
*on the yellow stool: my recipe/cooking notes/menu notebook (for supper that night: roasted carrots, roasted potatoes, and not much else)

This same time, years previous: iced, pimento cheese spread, and cashew brittle.

The day after Thanksgiving, I turned my kitchen over to my sis-in-law and she churned us out a delux Japanese feast.

Her original plan was to make Bento boxes, but the box of supplies from Japan didn’t arrive in time, so she had to switch to Plan B, okonomiyaki. On the off chance you don’t know what that is (ha!), I’ll tell you. Okonomiyaki is a savory Japanese pancake.

More or less, it goes like this:

Make a crepe batter of eggs, flour, and water.
Pour some batter on a skillet.
Mound the batter-base with green onions, cabbage, and brilliant pink pickled ginger.
Spread several thin slices of pork on top.
Cook on low-medium heat for 15 minutes, flip and cook for another 15.
To serve, place the “pancake” on a plate and crisscross the top with Japanese mayonnaise and okonomi sauce.
Sprinkle with dried seaweed and fish flakes (that undulate gently, making them look alive).
Devour.

My husband took the last step very seriously. I think he ate four of these monsters.

My sister-in-law made a variation that involved adding a layer of noodles and a layer of scrambled egg.

See all the layers?

And she made octopus balls. Similar ingredients, but with chopped octopus, and all mixed together and then cooked in a ball cooker.

“Ball cooker” isn’t its real name, of course. But that’s what the thing did—it cooked balls.

There was also a root that looked like yucca but wasn’t.

Instead, it was slimy and slightly toxic—it would burn your fingers if handled too much. I think she added it to the crepe batter. Maybe?

And dried, crumbled shrimp bits. Maybe they went in the batter, too? I can’t remember.

The next day, the box from Japan arrived.

We encouraged my sister-in-law to save the contents for the next time, but there were a good number of other items for fun sampling. So we had an appetizer feast! Squid stuffed with sticky rice. Dried squid dipped in Japanese mayo (she says that rice wine and dried squid is the Japanese equivalent of wine and cheese). Sticky rice cakes. And boiled eggs in the shape of a rabbit or panda (put a hot boiled egg into a mold and then chill in ice water for ten minutes). There were shrimp-flavored puff-chip things. And bowls of Japanese “ramen noodles”—noodles with cakes of fried tofu—simply add hot water and slurp.

Next up: Bento boxes! (Or maybe shrimp in three seconds flat?)

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (12.9.13), smoking hot, a family outing, peanut butter cookies, Ree’s monkey bread, and butter cookies.