Snowed In With Ghiradelli Hot Chocolate

When I woke up Wednesday morning, I couldn't believe how much it was snowing out!  I obviously knew that the blizzard was coming but as one of the handful of attorneys in my office that live in the city, I was still planning on going into the office.  I took one look at the intense snowfall and I knew it would be a "work from home" kind of day.  I spent most of the day on my laptop and Blackberry in my flannel pajamas with my slippers on.  Let's just say that I wasn't complaining about having to work from home!

During the day, I made a healthy roasted turkey and habanero cheddar egg white omelette, got in an hour long bike ride, did some laundry and had a leftover beef and zucchini burger for lunch.  By the time the late afternoon rolled around, I was ready to cozy up on the couch with my laptop to blog and settle in for an NCIS marathon.  I decided to make a special treat for the snow day and couldn't think of anything better than homemade hot chocolate!

I decided to use the recipe straight from the back of the Ghiradelli Natural Unsweetened Cocoa canister in my pantry. 

The ingredients are simple:

• 1 1/2 tablespoons of Ghiradelli Unsweetened Cocoa
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar (I used 1 tablespoon of Splenda)
• 1 cup of milk (I used fat free)

Since Bret was also working from home, I doubled the ingredients to make hot chocolate for the both of us.

First, I warmed up two cups of fat free milk on the stove.  As a sidenote, I found this wonderful saucepan that I haven't used in years!  It is probably the remaining piece of cookware from the mismatched set my parents gave me when I started law school and it made me so nostalgic to find it and use it.

While the milk started to warm up, I added the cocoa powder and the Splenda to the milk.  I stirred the hot chocolate on the stove until it was steaming and hot!

I ladled the hot chocolate into two mugs.  The left one is Bret's Deluxe Town Diner mug which he loves to use because it reminds him of the days he lived in Watertown after college.

We didn't have any marshmallows so we topped the hot chocolate with sugar-free whipped cream.

This hot chocolate was super easy to make and of course, you can make it in the microwave too.  But on a Wednesday snow day, I had all the time in the world.  It felt so nice to make a non-instant version and sip it while relaxing on the couch.

Did you bake or cook anything during yesterday's snow day?