How could a chicken salad sandwich have such an amazing taste? Because it has a thin schmear of pineapple jam on it.

It’s been awhile since I posted, friends. It’s been 19 years I’ve been running this little blog of mine, and I was running out of steam, let alone the energy to try more and more new recipes. I decided I wanted to make some of my old favorites (which I figure would bore all of you since I might have reposted them), and I’ve been doing that with regularity. And thoroughly enjoying every single one of them. If I’m so inclined I’ll put up a post about all the recipes I’ve made in recent months, all from the blog archives.

Yet I’m still collecting recipes. I’m still a crazy person about that, still reading numerous blogs, magazines and collecting them from my friends. In my recipe software I have an astounding 8,000+ recipes. Never in my remaining lifetime will I get to but a fraction of them. I’m turning 85 in a few weeks, but yes, I am still cooking. Still living in my lovely home, still driving (safely, I think), still visiting with friends, going out to lunch or dinner, going to plays, etc. And reading. I do a lot of that!

For the last several months I’ve been making myself a green smoothie for breakfast. Oh gosh, it’s delicious. It started after I’d had a weekend of way too much food, some of it quite rich. My regular yogurt and fruit breakfast didn’t appeal to me. So I dug out a recipe I had for a green (greens and fruit) smoothie and have perfected it over the last months. I suppose I could post the recipe for that, but I expect 95% of you wouldn’t be at all interested in such a recipe! And you might decide I’ve gone around the bend! If any of you are interested, leave a comment and I’ll email the recipe to you.

One of my granddaughters has just become a doctor (an M.D) and is a surgical resident now. I live vicariously through some of her real-life stories. I’m terrifically proud of all of my grandchildren, but she’s grabbed my attention recently with the interesting surgeries she’s done since she began working as a surgical resident. I have 5 grandchildren and 2 great-grands. None of my kids or grandkids or great-grandkids live near me, but I do see all of them – mostly they come to me, which is lovely.

So, this sandwich. Awhile back I’d saved a Food & Wine magazine recipe for a tuna salad tartine, and in the ingredients it called for pineapple jam. Thinking nothing of it, I went onto amazon (of course I did!) and found some pineapple jam, ordered it. Once it arrived, I noticed it had a customs label on it – what? Went to look up the order and realized it had shipped from England and after paying $8 for the jam, I paid $9 for shipping. I hadn’t noticed the jam didn’t have amazon prime with it. Geez! Very precious, this little jar. I’d best enjoy it!!

So, one recent day I was thinking about that tuna sandwich thing, and had chicken on hand, so I winged it. I didn’t even look up the tuna tartine recipe but made my own chicken salad mixture, but used a lovely slice of country bread I had in the freezer. A few weeks ago I visited Tartine Bakery in Pasadena and bought 2 loaves of their sourdough country loaf (gave one to my son and his family and I brought the other one home, sliced it up and froze it). I also bought some flash fried shallots at Trader Joe’s recently. I used the bread and the shallots in the sandwich.

First I toasted the bread lightly – so the edges were crispy but the interior bread was still soft and every so lightly toasted. I spread it with a tiny bit of mayo, then put about 2 tablespoons of the pineapple jam on the bread and spread that out to the very edges so I’d get a bit of the pineapple jam with each and every bite.

In a bowl I combined the shredded chicken I had (it was actually from a can, Costco’s canned chicken), a diced up tomato, some fresh basil I had on the kitchen counter, and a little bit of mayo to hold it together. Then I added about a cup or so of finely sliced Romaine lettuce. You could use any kind of lettuce – even arugula, or head lettuce. I had Romaine on hand. The second time I made it I used arugula (in the pictures). After lightly mixing that in, I carefully piled the chicken salad on top of the bread. The shallots were added the second time which are optional. I cut the sandwich into handle-able pieces and devoured it. I mean, devoured it.

Here’s a photo of the HALF of the sandwich. Lovely, holey bread, the chicken salad on top, then the shallots garnishing.

ABOUT THE PINEAPPLE JAM: Without a doubt, it’s the pineapple jam on the sandwich that gives it such a divine, zingy flavor. In thinking about it, I suppose you could substitute kiwi jam (is there such a thing?), orange marmalade maybe? Daughter Sara said she had some lime marmalade on hand. Yes, that would work. What you want is a piquant sweet/sour flavor. Of course, all jams are sweet, but there’s an astringent taste in using a fruit that has a sour or acidic component. Or, if you’re so inclined and don’t want to pay that amazon shipping charge, make your own pineapple jam. I found this recipe that looks ever so easy. When I’m out of my precious jar of jam from England I’ll be trying that recipe.

What’s GOOD: this sandwich is just over the top. For me, it’s the little tiny bit of pineapple jam you get in each bite that makes it so good. Nothing else in it is unusual. The lovely country bread slice (toasted) also gives the sandwich an especially nice texture.

What’s NOT: nothing really, except that you do need to source some pineapple jam (or substitute as I mentioned up two paragraphs, or better yet, make your own). And don’t over-toast the bread, you want it just barely toasted.

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So easy. So delicious. So satisfying.  

As I type this I still have a smidgen of this soup left in my frig. Not enough for a serving. Darn! Maybe that means I’ll need to make it again, soon. This soup just hit all the right notes for my Mexican food-loving taste buds. Many of the elements of ground beef enchiladas. Probably corn isn’t very authentic for an enchilada, but it added nice texture. You could substitute finely minced cauliflower to this and you’d not know it was there, likely.

Truly, I do love my Instant Pot. It’s not like I don’t have time to cook – I can always make time, but there certainly are days when I am rushed. This is the meal to fix for that day. I always have red and green enchilada sauce (canned) in my pantry. I had a package of Costco’s lean ground beef. I had taco seasoning (I used a new brand – Cholula, this time, it was good), frozen corn and I had cream cheese. Yes, I had cilantro and sour cream too. Cook the onion first, then add the ground beef, then garlic and everything else. Put the IP on “SOUP” function (usually that’s 18 minutes), although it takes awhile to bring the IP up to pressure, so just because it cooks for 18 minutes, it likely took 10 minutes for the IP to build up to it. Right out of the pot it was just delicious. Shredded cheddar on top plus some cilantro and sour cream, and there’s a lovely soup meal. I’ve been buying Daisy sour cream in the stand-up pouch – it keeps for a good long time since there’s no air introduced to the sour cream when it’s squeezed out. If you haven’t tried it, I recommend it.

If any of you have made soups using cream cheese, you may have noticed (as I have) that often the cream cheese doesn’t fully melt. I’ve learned to mash it up some in the pan (in this case the IP) when you add it – using my spiral whisk, or a flat kind of implement. If the cream cheese is at room temp to begin with it’s easier to do. The other option is to whiz up the cream cheese with some of the liquid ingredients (use an immersion blender for this) before adding to the pot. I didn’t do that here as I had warmed the cream cheese beforehand.

What’s GOOD: for me, someone who loves Mexican food, this soup was a #1 winner. Definitely I’ll be making it again – and it’s just a boon that it can be done in the Instant Pot. Add toppings of your choice. FULL of flavor and texture. Loved it.

What’s NOT: hmm, not a thing.

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This is a Stanley Tucci recipe. What’s unique are the flavoring extracts – anise, almond and vanilla. Also, it was sweetened partially with honey.

When my friend Linda and I were in Florence a few months ago we bought a package of premium biscotti (actually we got them at the wine store 50 steps from our front door). They were just scrumptious. They were relatively plain – maybe they had chocolate chips in them, or maybe almond. I don’t remember which.

Every once in awhile I get the urge to make biscotti. I have a number of recipes in my collection. This one will be on rotation again. What I liked were the flavorings – the extracts used: anise, almond and vanilla. The cookies baked a bit differently than some – 30 minutes at 350°F and then after they’d cooled and I’d sliced them, 10-15 minutes (to dry them out) at 250°F. They sliced nicely, too, with only a couple that broke off the ends of the slices.

The prep was the normal stuff – cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add eggs and egg yolks, then the extracts. Honey is added also, and raw almonds. That’s what the dark specks are in the dough.

There are the usual ingredients in the dry mix and that was added in just until it came together and no specks of flour were visible. The dough needed to be chilled for awhile (30 minutes) then shaped into two long logs. Then baked, cooled some, sliced, and re-baked at a lower temp just until lightly browned.

What’s GOOD: these are just delicious. A little bit of crunch from the almonds, and subtle flavor from the extracts. I think next time I’ll add more anise (just because I love anise biscotti). Otherwise, the recipe is perfect. Notice how yellow the dough is – from the eggs and egg yolks. But they make the biscotti more tender, I think. And richer.

What’s NOT: not a thing. A keeper.

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Comfort food at its finest. Plenty of chicken and vegetables in a sauce or gravy then topped with super-flavorful English muffin cubes, Gruyere and Parm.

My mother used to make a wild rice casserole – I think it used all wild rice (not a blend with other rice types) and because my dad wouldn’t eat chicken I think she used ground beef. And canned cream of mushroom soup. It was a favorite of mine, maybe because we had it so rarely. I don’t think wild rice was all that expensive back then like it is today. In fact I couldn’t even find straight wild rice at my market. So I followed the recipe (mostly) from The Pioneer Woman, which uses a wild rice blend. It worked perfectly well in this case.

This casserole was so delicious. To me it was the gruyere that made it taste so darned good. Gruyere has a unique flavor – it would have been far less tasty using a more bland cheese, so don’t substitute. Trader Joe’s has imported Gruyere (what I used) and a domestic version. I’ve never used English muffins as a topping before, either, and it was so easy to do. Mixed with the gruyere and grated Parm, it made a very tasty mouthful. And the top of the casserole looked so pretty with those toasted bread cubes.

I won’t tell you this isn’t a bit of work – you have to cook the wild rice blend, then cook the vegetables, then make it into a kind of gravy. Some soy sauce is added to the sauce (adds good umami flavor). If you don’t already have cooked chicken to use, you’ll need to cook that too. I decided to combine the topping ingredients so they were mixed well. The butter has to be melted as well – yet another small pan to clean. There certainly was a bit of cleanup after making this. It could be made ahead (the topping is added after partially baking it). The topping can be made ahead also – just keep in the frig until needed. Don’t overfill the casserole dish you decide to use – it might overflow once it’s baking. Mine nearly did. The instructions tell you to put the bread topping about 1″ away from the edges. Good advice.

What’s GOOD: everything about this was good – wonderful flavor in the dish, and especially the Gruyere and Parm added to the bread topping. It will feed at least 10 people unless you have football players at the table.

What’s NOT: only that you’ll use a number of pots and pans, so quite a bit of cleanup required.

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Luscious and rich – chicken breasts with a creamy sun-dried tomato sauce. 

So the story goes, if you serve this to a guy he’s bound to ask you to marry him. I guess the advice is, be careful who you invite for dinner! Healthy, this is not. Delicious? Absolutely yes. This recipe, or a similar iteration of it became a Tiktok phenom, apparently. I heard about it and found numerous recipes online. The recipe I used came from the New York Times. I did make a few changes: I added paprika, and I used a little bit of flour to thicken the cream sauce.

As it happened my friend Dianne and I had invited six women friends for dinner on Valentine’s Day. I made the chicken and Dianne made garlic mashed potatoes. I roasted broccoli, served some lovely rose prosecco as guests arrived, and Dianne made appetizers and dessert. I found some Valentine’s Day trivia questions which made for some fun conversation. And we had each of our friends describe how they were proposed to. Wow, were there some interesting stories about that!

This chicken – oh gosh yes, it was delicious. I wanted to make the chicken breasts (boneless, skinless) thinner and usually I pound them. I had the darndest time trying to pound them – they just would not thin out. If you pound on the fleshy side it mostly obliterates the chicken flesh, so you need to pound on the side that has a light membrane on top. I did the best I could, but once I began cooking the chicken those thicker parts got thicker. Certainly don’t know what that was about. The chicken came from Costco; usually a good source. Anyway, the chicken was lightly floured, then seared in a big frying pan and removed.

The sauce starts with EVOO and butter, then garlic (lots), then more aromatics go in – oregano, tomato paste, red pepper flakes, paprika. Chicken broth is added, then heavy cream (lots). The chicken is added back in to finish cooking and re-warm, then at the last you add some grated Parmesan and diced up sun-dried tomatoes. When serving, sprinkle the top with fresh basil. Some folks like this with pasta, but Dianne and I opted for mashed potatoes.

Based on some reviews I read, I made more sauce – I’m glad I did because I knew the guests would want that lovely sauce on the mashed potatoes. I made the dish ahead of time and rewarmed it just before serving. Ideally I’d make everything at the last minute. The sauce had thickened more than I liked, so needed to add more heavy cream to it. Oh well!

What’s GOOD: everything about this was delicious. Even the leftover sauce (not much) on the last of the mashed potatoes. Good to the last bite on everything. A definite keeper. Would make a lovely company meal.

What’s NOT: Nothing, really. The sauce takes a bit of time, but worth it.

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Actually, really tasty, despite my low expectations! And it’s from Romania, not to be confused with being a “romaine” lettuce soup.

In my mind making “lettuce soup” seemed kind of a like a “why bother” exercise. But, I must say, this one made with a fair amount of bacon and some other tasty items, made it more than good. It was actually very good.

Do you remember back a few years ago when the nutrition experts told us that lettuce (I think they were referring to head lettuce) in much of any form was mostly worthless? Not worth eating – certainly not for any nutritional value. I never really subscribed to that evaluation, despite it coming from experts. I don’t eat a lot of head lettuce, but usually buy Romaine – have done for decades – as my salad green of choice. I love that 3-pack from Trader Joe’s that’s already washed (although opening a package recently had me rescinding that “washed” designation). In the last year or so I believe the experts have deemed lettuce having more value than thought. Good thing!

As it was, I made this on New Years’ Day – I was home by myself, and certainly thinking about all of the food indulging I’d done in the previous month, and how I should find some low-calorie soups that were more vegetable-centric. Having read recently about this lettuce soup I decided to try it. The only thing I didn’t have in my larder was fresh dill, and being a holiday, I wasn’t about to try to drive around town to find an open grocery store. So I used dried dill, and added a bunch of chives that I did have. What makes this soup is not the Romaine (obviously) but the bacon. What isn’t enhanced by the addition of bacon? The recipe is Romanian (who knew?) and came from Milk Street. As mentioned, except for the addition of dried dill and a bunch of chives, I stuck to Milk Street’s original recipe. If I’d had a leek on hand I might have added that, but I wanted to taste a true lettuce soup, not one that was blended with leek (which does have a lot of flavor).

The recipe called for trimmed Romaine. Do you think that means cutting out all of the ribs? I decided not as I wasn’t about to do all that much fussy knife work. I did with the larger outer Romaine leaves, but the rest of the head I used the lettuce and the ribs. Their recipes called for cutting the lettuce into 2″ pieces, but to me that seemed to big for an easy mouthful, so I cut them into about 1″ pieces.

The soup is easy enough to make – first rendering the bacon and setting it aside when it’s crisp, then using the bacon fat for cooking the onions, garlic and chives. Broth is added, the lettuce is slowly added in, and then at the end you mix up a bit of Greek yogurt and three egg yolks. You do need to temper those egg yolks with some of the hot broth, then carefully stir that into the hot (not boiling) soup. If you bring it to a simmer the mixture will separate. Don’t boil the soup at all – that’s the only way to maintain the nice subtle creaminess. If you don’t want to bother with yogurt, use heavy cream, then you don’t have to do the tempering step. I kept one of the green onions raw to add on top.

What’s GOOD: actually, this soup was very good – quite tasty – the lettuce itself doesn’t taste like much, but with the bacon as the flavor, the liquid (soup) is very nice. You could add cheese if you’re feeling indulgent.

What’s NOT: nothing, really. I liked the soup – it’s light, although with all the bacon and egg yolks, perhaps it’s not exactly low calorie.

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Luscious and absolutely divine. 

If you read all of the post I did about my trip to Florence in October, with my friend Linda, then you’ll have read the part about how we fell in love with mascarpone cheesecake while we were there. We visited one restaurant three times just so we could order their cheesecake. Until that trip I’d never gone back to any restaurant for cheesecake, as cheesecake isn’t usually up at the top of my dessert radar.

But since it did, we asked questions. The waiters at the restaurant weren’t Italian (they looked the part, however) but all they could tell us was that the cheesecake was made with mascarpone AND “Philadelphia.” We laughed about that – we know it as cream cheese, OR “Philadelphia cream cheese.” I did a deep dive about the subject:

Philadelphia Cream Cheese: It was invented in New York in 1872 by a dairyman, William Lawrence. He was trying to replicate French Neufchatel, but accidentally added an excessive amount of cream to the batch, which created a richer, smoother and more spreadable product. In about 1880 it was rebranded (probably that word didn’t exist back then) as “Philadelphia” because that part of Pennsylvania was renowned for high quality dairy farms. The cheese brand was sold several times and now is owned by Kraft.

When we were in Florence I noticed the grocery stores sold a product called “Philadelphia.” It didn’t have a “cream cheese” label at all. After I got home I looked up a dozen or so recipes for mascarpone cheesecake, and generally they were 50% mascarpone and 50% cream cheese. The recipe I used here came from Taste of Home, and used that 50/50 division. I added an extra egg yolk and have changed the baking just a bit. My cheesecake ended up quite golden brown on the top. The one we had in Florence didn’t have even a hint of golden brown. I may have baked it too high in the oven or longer than necessary. Use an instant read thermometer and remove the cheesecake when it’s reached 145°F.

There’s nothing new in this recipe for making cheesecake. A graham cracker crust and a filling composed of the the real-thing, Kraft’s Philadelphia cream cheese and imported Mascarpone cheese (thank goodness for Trader Joe’s who sells it all year round at a reasonable price), lemon juice, vanilla and eggs. Simple, really. Make certain you cool it completely before refrigerating. Too soon and the top may crack. Make it a day ahead. It’s serve about 16 people – yes, it’s rich. We served it with whipped cream. In Italy they served it with raspberries and blackberries and a little bit of a berry syrup. Plus a tiny dollop of whipped cream.

What’s GOOD; oh goodness, this is so delicious. I only got one small slice as I made it for Christmas dinner at Powell & Karen’s home, and left the remaining with them. It got eaten the next day. Hence, I want to make it again! So creamy and decadent.

What’s NOT: it’s an expensive dessert, but serves so many people. A good thing, not a bad thing. You probably could pare it down and bake in a smaller springform pan.

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With the exception of the cannellini beans and the Parm, nearly everything else in this soup is green. And delicious. And healthy.

I made this soup over Christmas – a big batch of it that my cousin Gary and I had several of the days he was visiting. There’s another green minestrone here on my blog that was equally as good. Since I’m watching carbs, I made this one with cannellini beans and no pasta, but you can add pasta to it and more beans too. I adjusted the proportion of veggies to broth, to make this a very thick soup with a lot less broth. I wanted chunky (I don’t mean chewy, just dense with vegetables). The original recipe, came from Bon Appetit, but I have no idea when. I don’t subscribe to epicurious, so I can’t look it up.

This soup has no meat in it – just a full vegetable repertoire, from flavorful leeks, Swiss chard, zucchini, green beans, peas (I omitted this time) plus the onions and celery (the soffritto). There’s a fair amount of prep work here with chopping a bunch of things, and if I’d used my food processor it would have been faster, certainly. The pesto here is made with pistachios and I altered it also, as the original recipe made a huge batch and called for an enormous amount of olive oil – far more than needed for a pesto (my opinion) and more than needed for this batch of soup. The soup is all gone, but I still have a lot of pesto left – it will be great in some future soups since I make soups frequently.

When serving this – ladle it out into wide bowls, then sprinkle with some freshly grated Parm and then drop a big, heaping spoon of the green, nutty, oozy pesto on top. Serve with toast if you’d like. But, I’ll just say, the soup is very filling, even if there’s only one can of beans in it! This soup is enhanced by making it a day ahead.

What’s GOOD: really delicious vegetable soup – thick with green veggies. Do use good, flavorful broth – vegetable broth might work here, but I used chicken broth for more flavor. Loved the pesto on top, and the grated Parm sprinkled on top too. You will get a bit of protein from the beans (very few) and the nuts (not much). You could add pancetta to the soffritto if you’d like some extra flavor.

What’s NOT: only that there’s a fair amount of chopping to be done.

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Delicious and easy fish soup, to warm your insides! Creamy too, but with some veggies as well. I used shellfish, but you can use any type of fish.

This recipe came from a master of soup cooking, Clifford A. Wright. One day some years ago I found myself killing time at a library in another city and perused the cookbook this recipe came from, The Best Soups in the World. Since clearly I’m a soup lover of the first order, I took a photo of the recipe. What wasn’t included in my pix were the headnotes, so I’m not sure about the provenance of the recipe, nor anything Wright might have imparted about its story – the Norwegian part of this soup. But never mind, it’s certainly a delicious soup, Norwegian or not. Haddock, cod, hake and/or shrimp would be traditional. So, I changed a few things – using mixed shellfish, perhaps some that aren’t native to Scandinavian waters, I added some carrots (for flavor, more veggies and for some color) and added chives as a garnish.

Perhaps the most significant flavor in this soup is from the salt pork. It’s not something I cook with very often, but gosh, it enhances everything about this recipe. I had to buy a big chunk, so once cut up I have more to use in a soup sometime in the future (I froze the remaining). The making of this soup isn’t difficult, but does take a bit of time (prep of the veggies) then add the time for the actual cooking of the soup. The frozen shellfish (that wonderful frozen blend of shellfish from Trader Joe’s) was added in at the end. I considered adding some more traditional fish, but there was sufficient using two packages of the TJ’s mix. If you wanted a more substantial soup, consider adding a potato or two, to make more of a chowder. This soup isn’t very thick at all, despite adding 3 tablespoons of flour to it. I might add more next time.

What’s GOOD: yummy, the flavor is just wonderful. Creamy, hearty (although no potato in it) with toothsome veggies and shellfish and the salt pork cubes. Really delicious.

What’s NOT: really nothing – it’s easy enough, probably takes about an hour to make it.

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What’s not to love about hot chocolate. It’s an extra special treat to me and I don’t have it often, but now, with this sugar-free dry mix, there’s nothing to it, to make myself a nice cup.

As most of you know, I’m an avid reader. At any one time I have at least two books I’m reading – one on any of my three iPads (they have different purposes and are in different places in the house – I know, decadent to have three), and the other on my Kindle beside my bed. I read historical fiction by first choice, but also some nonfiction, some romances, some mysteries and spy novels and plenty of current day novels that don’t necessarily have a genre. The reason I’m mentioning this is that recently in some of the period novels I’ve read of life in England during the 1800s perhaps, in the aristocracy, ladies of leisure, in stately homes, had the maid deliver a breakfast tray each morning. After putting down the tray, she’d throw open the heavy velvet curtains, light the fireplace and on the tray would be toast, perhaps and a pot of hot chocolate, for the lady in bed. Not coffee. Not tea, either. I didn’t know this was a thing back then, hot chocolate in bed. I’m too ingrained to coffee to consider having hot chocolate first thing in the morning. Maybe a maid to deliver coffee to me in bed would be nice. Not sure I could stay in bed to do that as once I’m awake I’m ready to start my day, and that doesn’t ever include lounging in bed.

In 2015 a group of four girlfriends took a trip to Europe and one of our stops was in Paris. Darlene and I went to one of the famous hot chocolate shops to enjoy the very decadent, thick hot chocolate that’s actually made like a thin gravy – with flour – a very different species of hot chocolate. I wrote a post about it on this blog, if you’re interested.

So, back to dry hot chocolate mixes. Some years ago I made a mix similar to this, and thought it tasted awful. Just awful. Threw it out after one sample. A waste of good cocoa. But this one intrigued me because it also contains some bar chocolate that’s ground up into a fine dust in the food processor with the other ingredients. The other ingredients include some kind of artificial sweetener (I use erythritol, because that’s my fake sugar of choice), some dry collagen, cocoa powder, vanilla bean paste and a dash of salt.

The recipe came from one I found on the web, but I changed it a little bit –  by using erythritol, for one, by using dark cocoa powder, and by using vanilla bean paste rather than ordinary vanilla. I also used really good bar chocolate, Ghiradelli unsweetened. Not Baker’s or German. Having gone through that other iteration (above) I knew I wanted to use good quality ingredients. The recipe suggested using Dutch cocoa powder  – you can  – I just decided to use Guitard (dark)  cocoa powder. So intense. And I used a tad more sweetener than the recipe called for. Add more if you prefer a sweeter hot chocolate.

The only little caveat I’ll explain is that after you add all the ingredients in the food processor (I have one of the newer Cuisinart models that has a smaller workbowl that fits inside the larger one, for making smaller batches of things), drizzle the vanilla bean paste into the center (middle) of the dry stuff. If you pour it in on the side, much of the paste ends up smeared on the side of the workbowl and doesn’t get incorporated into the dry mix. Or at least you lose some of it that way. The bar chocolate I broke up into quite small pieces so the food processor would grind it into a dust. Running the processor for about 12-15 seconds seemed to do the trick. You can tell by the sound when it’s ground up all the bar chocolate pieces.

You’ll laugh, though – be careful when you unbutton the processor  – all that dry dust can fly all over everywhere. I held my hand over the feed tube as it ran, so I knew it would billow. That cocoa dust gets into everything. Just do it slowly and you shouldn’t have a problem!

When you’re ready to make a cup of hot cocoa, DO heat the milk to a very high temp, without boiling it, obviously. You need the heat to melt that bar chocolate (even though it’s a dust in the mix) or the hot chocolate will become a not-very-hot-chocolate. I heated it afterwards in the microwave (do it in very short few-second amounts), and I also used a whisk (they’re called a French whisk, with an up-and-down motion) to thoroughly dissolve the dry mix. No matter what you do there will be some chocolate sludge at the bottom of the mug.

What’s GOOD: I like this very much. Enough that the glass jar of it sits out on my counter waiting for the right moment for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Love the intense chocolate flavor. Yes, I’ll be making this mix again, using the same alterations and with very good quality ingredients.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of, really. It’s easy to make. Easy to serve.

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