Sunday, December 5, 2010

Rough weekend, comforting mint, hot chocolate

This weekend was tough.
Full of high temperatures, vomit, needles, nurses and hospital beds!
The short story (because my heart aches to tell the long story) is this:
Zac was sick to his stomach late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning and had a scary high fever along with being short of breath. We decided to take him into the hospital to have a Dr look at him and he was diagnosed with bronchiolitis. They sent us home with a follow up apt for Friday morning.
Friday morning came, the Dr listened to his chest and decided to admit him to the hospital for at least the night.
Loads of blood work, an X-ray, an IV, lots of meds and oxygen masks, two nights later, and we're finally home!
*Note, this is not how he currently looks, I just prefer this pic to his sad puppy eyes of the moment*

Seriously, after dealing with that my heart is breaking for all those parents out in the world that have to deal with really sick kids.
I think I cried just as hard as he did whenever they gave him a needle!

So tonight is a night to relax and regain my sanity and what better way then with mint hot chocolate?!?

I love Nigella!
Last year I got this book for Christmas
and have waited patiently for a full year to dive into it head first and start working on her holiday recipes.
This one is fabulous!!
I usually make it with chocolate chips because I find it easier and low fat milk instead of the full fat like she recommends, but it's still so good.
Dare I say it's as good as something from Starbucks? Maybe even better because you can make it with alcohol?

Here's the recipe!

Mint Hot Chocolate
2 cups milk
3/4 cup chocolate chips
4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp creme de menthe (or a drop or two of peppermint extract)

Warm the milk, chocolate and sugar in a pot until warm but not boiling. Take it off the heat and add your mint flavouring.
Cover it with a crazy amount of whip cream and toss in a candy cane and you'll be in minty chocolate heaven!
Simple and wonderful!

**I've made this with both semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips, however when using the milk chocolate, I left out the sugar and found it to be the perfect sweetness!**

Enjoy the last few hours of your weekend!

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