{"id":310,"date":"2009-06-12T07:44:01","date_gmt":"2009-06-12T14:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/?p=310"},"modified":"2009-06-12T07:53:26","modified_gmt":"2009-06-12T14:53:26","slug":"oh-my-stars-hot-chocolate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/?p=310","title":{"rendered":"Oh My Stars!  Hot Chocolate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We took a Thermos and two large china mugs when we went star-gazing last night near the intersection of Tiptop Road and Highway 49.\u00c2\u00a0 Oak trees were silhouetted like black lace on the horizon.\u00c2\u00a0 The sun-glow receded, and the inky sky revealed a million stars.\u00c2\u00a0 The Big Dipper.\u00c2\u00a0 Arcturus.\u00c2\u00a0 The Scorpion.<\/p>\n<p>Star-gazing and a Thermos are a tradition with us.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes it&#8217;s hot soup.\u00c2\u00a0 This time it was chocolate, and not the &#8220;instant&#8221; kind.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s easy and economical to make hot chocolate from powdered cocoa, and the result is delicious and satisfying&#8211; without all the mystifying additives you find in the &#8220;instant&#8221; packets.<\/p>\n<p>Recipes abound on the Internet and in cookbooks.\u00c2\u00a0 I like\u00c2\u00a0 the one in an old edition of the &#8220;Joy of Cooking,&#8221; and I pep it up by making it less dilute.\u00c2\u00a0 Here&#8217;s how I make enough for two large mugs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>3\/4 cup boiling water<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup cocoa<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup sugar<\/li>\n<li>a pinch of salt<\/li>\n<li>2 1\/4 cups scalded milk<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the top of a metal double-boiler I stir the dry ingredients together and add the hot water.\u00c2\u00a0 I leave the pan over low direct heat for a minute as I continue to stir the mixture.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I place it over the bottom half of the double-boiler, which contains the requisite amount of boiling water.\u00c2\u00a0 Now I whisk in the hot milk.\u00c2\u00a0 If there is time, I allow the mixture to continue to cook at moderate heat, covered, over the boiling water for 10 minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I give it a whisk and pour it into the Thermos.<\/p>\n<p>Add stars and you have the recipe for a delicious evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We took a Thermos and two large china mugs when we went star-gazing last night near the intersection of Tiptop Road and Highway 49.\u00c2\u00a0 Oak trees were silhouetted like black lace on the horizon.\u00c2\u00a0 The sun-glow receded, and the inky sky revealed a million stars.\u00c2\u00a0 The Big Dipper.\u00c2\u00a0 Arcturus.\u00c2\u00a0 The Scorpion. Star-gazing and a Thermos [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}