Snap peas.
Part of my dinner the other day.
I shared with Abby.

When you realize that your husband will be home soon and you haven't yet started dinner, throw some onions in a pan. They'll smell so good when he walks in the door he won't mind dinner being late.

That's a piece of advise my grandmother was once given by a friend. She shared it with me (with a laugh) one night when I was visiting and commented on how good cooking onions smell while we were making dinner. "What do you do with the onions?" I asked. "Oh, just use them." 


At the time I was only learning to really cook and didn't realize just how much you can do with a pan of sizzling onions. Now that I'm a little older and more experienced at making things up in the kitchen I understand what she means.


I have been wanting to make caramelized onions ever since I read this post. I don't have most of the rest of the stuff called for in the recipe but I figured if we had a bowl of delicious onions waiting in the fridge we'd use them in whatever we felt like eating ... and I wanted to smell them cooking.


So tonight I pulled the (giant, like the size of a child's head) onion out of the fridge and sliced up a quarter of it (about a regular sized onions worth) and threw it in a pan.


We ate some of it for dinner with prosciutto on pizza - sweet and salty - and the rest is sitting in the fridge for whatever we want tomorrow.

I was thinking about what to blog today and feeling just a little bit hungry. I wanted something quick, because I didn't want to have to wait, and easy, because I didn't want to fuss with anything or clean the kitchen, and warm, because it was chilly outside at the dog park today. So I thought I'd make cocoa.

I was pulling the mugs out of the cupboard when I realized this must be the third time this week I've made cocoa. That's okay with me - it's one of my favourite things - but I wondered if there are people out there who don't know how to make a cup of cocoa. So I thought I'd post the recipe:




Combine 1 tablespoon sugar with 1 tablespoon cocoa in a mug. Add a little less than 1 tablespoon of milk and stir into a smooth paste. Fill the mug the rest of the way with milk and stir; things won't combine perfectly but don't worry about it - they'll work themselves out as the milk heats up.

Put your mug in the microwave and cook on high for 1.5 to 2 minutes in 30 second intervals (when I'm making two mugs at once I use 1 minute intervals and a total of 3 minutes). Stir between intervals. Remove your hot cocoa from the microwave and enjoy.

This recipe is nice because it's so easy to alter: put marshmallows or a little whipped cream on top, and chili or cinnamon to the cocoa power, use more or less sugar, ...

It's really wonderful on chilly days.



ps. I was half way through making the cocoa when I remembered the chocolate cake in a mug recipe my sister sent me a while ago. Now I'm trying to decide if we could have cake for desert after having cocoa for an appetizer. I think I'd better print off the recipe - just in case. Do you think I need to wash the mugs out or could I use them as is?