After working out to Just Dance 2 with my Wii (because working full time, being a grad student, and trying to maintain a social life and romantic relationship have made it difficult for me to make it to the community education wellness and fitness classes I like), I decided I needed a snack. Originally, I had a craving for ice cream, but the rain all day today, which persists even now, has made my apartment rather chilly. Since I refuse to raise the heat, and I actually have milk in my refrigerator that is not two weeks past expiration, I decided to make hot chocolate on the stove.
Now, for a single 20-something, I will admit that my kitchen is fairly well stocked, as far as cooking utensils go. However, I am also an elementary ESOL teacher, and I have brought a number of my personal cooking supplies to school to use as props in teaching certain units this month. This means that I have my spaghetti pot and my le creuset available. Please keep in mind that I have a le creuset because I lusted after them insatiably at William-Sonoma for a long time, and finally snagged a black one on super clearance a couple of summers ago. I feel pretty highfalutin right now.
So I am making this hot chocolate in the le creuset using organic sugar and organic cocoa. This is not because I go to the store and only buy organic things, but because I try to avoid shopping at Hy-Vee and only shop at Trader Joe's now. When I go to Hy-Vee, I buy convenience food, most of which goes in the freezer. When I go to Trader Joe's, I plan meals, spend less money, and generally eat healthier. It seems, however, that another bonus is that there are a lot of times when organic is the only option.
And so I plan on enjoying this organic hot chocolate made in my le creuset on this rainy evening, curled up on the couch with my Cookie Monster skin blanket. I almost feel like it is necessary for me to get out the step-ladder to get down one of the fancy porcelain tea cups given to me as a gift to complete the entire activity.
Who says I can't be fancy-schmancy?
Showing posts with label hot chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hot chocolate. Show all posts
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Results of the "Hot Chocolate Topping" Survey
In an interesting twist, this time I let people choose more than one answer. I tried to choose things that I myself enjoy while drinking a mug of hot chocolate, so if you have a favorite that didn't make the poll, let me know.
I thought it was interesting that real whip cream won overall. And I believe (but you can go back and check and tell me if I am wrong) that this is the first poll where nothing has 0%, so that is exciting. To be honest, I am shocked - SHOCKED - that cinnamon came out ahead of either kind of marshmallows. Who doesn't like marshmallows? Of course, you are reading something written by the person that munches on marshmallows while cooking dinner or boiling water for tea, so perhaps I shouldn't be considered representative of the average population.
In other news, some pretty awesome things happened this evening. While volunteering with my (because they belong to me) old people , I got the quote of the day. We were all doing charades and trying to guess what the leader was doing. Then we played a modified version of "Jive" where one person had to do an action, and all the others had to do it, too. One sister got very confused when another was pretending to milk a cow. She looked at me and in her slow, drawn out voice asked me, "Now what is she doing?"I responded, "She's pretending to milk a cow! Now you pretend to milk the cow!" She looked at the other sister, looked and me and made a big O with her mouth. "OooOOh!" she exclaimed, "That's not how you milk a cow! The cow would be angry!"
Once home after volunteering, I started to go about my decompressing routine (take off my glasses, turn on the computer, pre-heat the oven, etc.). I received a phone call from an unknown number in the area. Usually I only get calls from telemarketers or people I know. And I will tell you I don't know many people around here. "Hello this is Ivy." I answered.* The person promptly hung up.
The phone rang again as I was about to flour the cutting board to roll out the dough. It was one of my students (We'll call him "Oliver")! After a pause from "Hello this is Ivy", I heard in a small voice, "Is this Ivy McDougalhopper?"
"Yes, it is. Who is this?"
"Can Oliver come to the basketball game?"
"Of course. Is this "Devon" (name changed)?"
"No, this is Oliver."
"Didn't your brother tell you you were invited?"
"Yes. But I mean the other Oliver. Can the other Oliver, my friend, come?"
"Yes, of course!"
"Ok. Good. Devon wants to talk to you."
And it only got more interesting from there as Devon proceeded to ask me what I was doing and what kind of food people eat at basketball games and did I know he likes Mountain Dew? I gave my phone number to a couple of families so they could contact me whenever they needed, and some families have it because I call them from my home phone since they won't answer when the caller ID says our school. But I guess I hadn't anticipated it falling into the hands of the students and having them call me on a Tuesday night!
And finally, for the last bit of awesomeness tonight, I made cheesey calzone-esque things for dinner. The one I ate tonight was delicious, and I am already looking forward to lunch tomorrow! YAY!
*Did you see this week's episode of "How I Met Your Mother"? People make fun of me for the way I answer the phone, but Marshall does it, too! Someone must know that we Minnesotans have some sort of polite phone answering patterns.
Mini Marshmallows | (16%) |
Regular sized Marshmallows | (16%) |
(Real) Whip Cream | (50%) |
Reddi Whip | (33%) |
Cinnamon | (33%) |
I thought it was interesting that real whip cream won overall. And I believe (but you can go back and check and tell me if I am wrong) that this is the first poll where nothing has 0%, so that is exciting. To be honest, I am shocked - SHOCKED - that cinnamon came out ahead of either kind of marshmallows. Who doesn't like marshmallows? Of course, you are reading something written by the person that munches on marshmallows while cooking dinner or boiling water for tea, so perhaps I shouldn't be considered representative of the average population.
In other news, some pretty awesome things happened this evening. While volunteering with my (because they belong to me) old people , I got the quote of the day. We were all doing charades and trying to guess what the leader was doing. Then we played a modified version of "Jive" where one person had to do an action, and all the others had to do it, too. One sister got very confused when another was pretending to milk a cow. She looked at me and in her slow, drawn out voice asked me, "Now what is she doing?"I responded, "She's pretending to milk a cow! Now you pretend to milk the cow!" She looked at the other sister, looked and me and made a big O with her mouth. "OooOOh!" she exclaimed, "That's not how you milk a cow! The cow would be angry!"
Once home after volunteering, I started to go about my decompressing routine (take off my glasses, turn on the computer, pre-heat the oven, etc.). I received a phone call from an unknown number in the area. Usually I only get calls from telemarketers or people I know. And I will tell you I don't know many people around here. "Hello this is Ivy." I answered.* The person promptly hung up.
The phone rang again as I was about to flour the cutting board to roll out the dough. It was one of my students (We'll call him "Oliver")! After a pause from "Hello this is Ivy", I heard in a small voice, "Is this Ivy McDougalhopper?"
"Yes, it is. Who is this?"
"Can Oliver come to the basketball game?"
"Of course. Is this "Devon" (name changed)?"
"No, this is Oliver."
"Didn't your brother tell you you were invited?"
"Yes. But I mean the other Oliver. Can the other Oliver, my friend, come?"
"Yes, of course!"
"Ok. Good. Devon wants to talk to you."
And it only got more interesting from there as Devon proceeded to ask me what I was doing and what kind of food people eat at basketball games and did I know he likes Mountain Dew? I gave my phone number to a couple of families so they could contact me whenever they needed, and some families have it because I call them from my home phone since they won't answer when the caller ID says our school. But I guess I hadn't anticipated it falling into the hands of the students and having them call me on a Tuesday night!
And finally, for the last bit of awesomeness tonight, I made cheesey calzone-esque things for dinner. The one I ate tonight was delicious, and I am already looking forward to lunch tomorrow! YAY!
*Did you see this week's episode of "How I Met Your Mother"? People make fun of me for the way I answer the phone, but Marshall does it, too! Someone must know that we Minnesotans have some sort of polite phone answering patterns.
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