Hot Chocolate Sticks - The Making

Luke's internet addiction comes up with some amazing things! He found a link to this crafty item on thedailywh.at and quickly sent it my way. I LOVE hot chocolate! I think we have 5 different types in the cupboard and I can debate the merits of Swiss Miss vs. Nestle and have wowed friends by introducing them to Abuelita (a Mexican hot chocolate - check out your local Mexican aisle! Amazing! Worth the effort!). So within 3 days of hearing about this....it was made!Everything you need!

Chocolate!

Halving the skewers

Mixing chocolate with sugar and powder is an awkward process!

And you end up with a strangely textured lump of chocolate that you break apart and push into silicon ice cube trays and garnish with sticks and marshmallows.

Before.....and after!

We'll post an "after" picture when they've cooled enough to take apart and test! Try it yourself! It wasn't hard at all and I'm pretty sure it's going to be amazing!

Hot Chocolate Sticks
Makes 15-16 sticks

Update: It seems that some people have had trouble with the consistency of the mixture becoming too thick. I made another batch and weighed the dry ingredients and have included the measurements below. This should help to remove any issues caused by inconsistencies in measuring cup sizes or method of packing those cups.

Supplies
sticks (at least 5 inches long) - I used kabobs and cut them in half because they were way way cheaper!
piping bag or sandwich bag with 1/2″ corner cut off - I didn't need this - the chocolate was easy to handle if you are ok getting messy!
ice cube tray or deep candy mold, each cavity approximately 1 ounce

Ingredients
16 oz. dairy free semi-sweet chocolate (not chips)
1/2 c (1.5 oz) loosely packed cocoa
1 c (4.5 oz) loosely packed powdered sugar
1/8 tsp salt
mini vegan marshmallows

In a medium bowl, sift together cocoa, powdered sugar, and salt. Set aside

Chop chocolate into small pieces (no larger than about 3/4″ inch long) and combine in a glass bowl that is completely dry. Microwave in 30 second bursts on 50% power, stirring between each burst, ensuring that your spatula is also completely dry. Once chocolate is about 2/3 melted (there are still some chunks in the melted chocolate), stir until remaining chunks melt. This prevents the chocolate from getting too hot.

Pour melted chocolate into the mixing bowl containing the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Mixture will be very thick, similar to brownie batter. Spoon mixture into a piping bag (no coupler or tip is needed) or into a sandwich bag with the corner sliced off. Pipe the chocolate into an ice cube tray.

Once all chocolate has been piped, pound the tray lightly on the counter to eliminate air bubbles and to flatten the tops of the cubes if they are uneven. Working one cube at a time, insert a stick and place four mini marshmallows onto the top of the cube. Once all cubes are complete, set aside until cubes are completely dry. You can also place them in the fridge if you are in a hurry.

Once all cubes are dry, remove carefully from the molds. Wrap pretty and store in the cupboard.

To Use:
Heat up 1 cup almond or soy milk (approximately 1 ounce of chocolate should be used for each cup of almond milk, so adjust based on the weight of your cube) and stir in. Cube will take several minutes to dissolve completely.

The Builder

Just a few days ago my grandfather Pete died.

I'm ok, but I'd like to just write something short about him.

It's short because my relationship with him was... not necessarily short, not necessarily simple, not limited-but it was something like that. How I view my relationship with my grandpa can be summed up in this story.

Grandpa seemed like a cold person growing up. I don't have any memories of him laughing, or smiling, or saying much of anything at all. He had a stone cold look, almost like he was looking right through the living room wall at something a mile away. I don't know why for sure, but he seems quiet in my memories-sitting at the end of the dining room table with his back to the mirror (if you've been to his home then you know the one I'm talking about), he has his elbows, a newspaper, and a glass of scotch with slivers of melting ice in it sitting on the table. This is my memory of him growing up. He was always there, hardly involved-but always watching.

Thinking back on him, he seems unapproachable - but when I was young I didn't think that at all. I knew that he was a construction worker. Enter my big imagination as well as a complete lack of understanding of social queues and I KNEW that he could build ANYTHING, specifically anything I wanted him to. I decided that all I needed to do was pester him to do it, and that I did. That something was a model ship, made of wood, with lots of sails that I could show off to my friends and spend much of my free time admiring. I was at my grandparents' house often while my parents were working or whatever it is that parents did while my adolescent world was turning, but only twice was I able to convince grandpa to bring me down to his magnificent shop to build me a boat.

I need to interject and tell you a little bit about myself.

Growing up I LOVED building things. I spent so many hours with my big tupperware bin full of Legos that my hands would get torn up from swishing the legos back and forth searching for the pieces i needed for my various lego spaceships and castles. I spent a lot of time playing with K'nex, lincoln logs, and puzzles. I know now that I got this fascination of building things from my grandpa - to this day, there are few things that I am more proud of than the things that I have made since I've taken up carpentry as a hobby. Just this year I have bought nine books relating to carpentry and construction and have read nearly all of them. In addition to this I have purchased somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000 on power tools and hand tools (far too much money for a college kid to be spending on a hobby!) The more I build and the more tools I buy, the more I realize the connection I have with my grandpa even though he never taught me to enjoy it. It is in my genetic code and I know it came from grandpa.

Back to the story.

The first boat he made was completely unacceptable. It was a speed boat made of two hunks of two-by-four shaped using his stationary sander and spray-painted neon orange and navy blue. It did not look at all how I imagined it should-in fact I may have said that I thought it looked dumb, I was not pleased and I knew he was holding back so I kept on bugging him.

After a good long time of persistent "pretty please"s and "oh come on!"s he finally made me a second boat that met my standards. It had three masts, a long smooth racing yacht like body, sails made by grandma complete with a flag. It even has a stand. Needless to say it was far more elegant than the first. I was happy. It was a source of inspiration to me when I was young - not to sail, no-do you think I care about sailing? It was a source of inspiration to build things, anything.

I still have these boats somewhere at my parents' home. I could tell though, even at that young age, that they came at the expense of many annoying hours of badgering from his bug-eyed overly-enthusiastic grandson. I could tell he was annoyed throughout that whole process. Maybe it was the way he spoke to me when he said, "Luke! Listen to me, there are dangerous tools in this shop! Sit down at this bench and play with these rubber bands and I will make the boat. Don't touch anything."

Then I grew up some, grandma died, and my family moved one state west. Grandpa got sick, I went to college, got married, and he got even sicker-but then grandpa got sober... or something happened (I'm not completely sure what) but grandpa was suddenly different. It was like he was a different person. He would speak from his heart and tell jokes and for the first time that I could ever remember he would say "I love you" and it sounded like he meant it.

My last visit to his house a few months ago is the most special for me. I talked with him for the first time about my new interest in carpentry as a hobby. I told him about the tools that I had bought and the projects that I was in the middle of.

He was interested. He said, "Turn over your hands and let me see..." he looked. "Very good... you know Luke, you turned out to be a fine young man."

Thanks, Grandpa.

The Ozarks

So Charlene and I went to the Lake of the Ozarks for eight days to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles with our church about a week and a half ago. Wow, was it fun! We didn't take a whole lot of photos, but we can tell you about it a little bit.

We golfed (well Char did, I didn't), played board games (Catan and Quelf), we go-karted, we hiked, we went to see castle ruins, we went on a short cruise around the Lake of the Ozarks (which was beautiful), we had a campfire, we went to a winery, had a pizza party, man... you name it we did it.

We also saw this awesome spider. *shivers down my spine thinking about it*
The landscape was much more interesting than North Dakota's (though North Dakota's beauty I would say is in the people and the peace.)
Trees!
Castle ruins!

Most of all though, we ate a lot of really good food. No pictures of food though, because we were too busy enjoying to snap pictures.

We met a lot of really awesome people and developed some very special relationships.

All in all it was a very spiritually uplifting time (as it always is) being able to have fellowship with so many people for eight straight days makes for a very uniquely positive experience.

A Lego Star Wars Birthday? At 26?

So, Charlene is 26-and what did she ask for on her birthday?

^This^

Of course, she was so proud that she displayed it on Facebook to show off her inner geek. Everyone knows she's a science nerd-but did you know that she LOVES Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Batman? (This may have had something to do with my decision to marry her...)

Charlene and I were in Missouri during her birthday and she received ^this^ from some friends in our church - it's the Naboo Fighter from Star Wars Episode 1: Revenge of the Sith.
^This^ came from Trent and Shannon (Charlene's brother and his wife) and it is a Snowspeeder and the Wampa cave scene from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes back.

^This^ is the Millennium Falcon OF COURSE! Flown by Han Solo and Chewbacca in Star Wars: Episodes IV-VI.

Charlene gets what she wants - but NOT because she's spoiled (which she's not) but because she works WAY too hard not to be appreciated with all of our might.

Han Solo agrees.

The Mighty Making of the SALSA

Some say that salsa is the life blood of the latino...

Actually, I don't think anyone has ever said that. I just said it in my head while trying to think up something to say here. Oh blogging...

Anyways, Charlene and I are making glorious wondrous salsa. In fact we are making so much that our local salsa marshal has deemed our house the capital of Pico de GET OUT OF TOWN.

We are using ingredients from our garden as well as MANY MORE from the grocery story. We had enough tomatoes from our garden to fill our medium sized mixing bowl with them, as well as garlic, a meager amount of cilantro, and plenty of peppers. But let me tell you folks, we wanted to make an obscene amount of salsa. So, we went to our grocery store and bought 70 tomatoes, 57 Jalapeños, 9 bulbs of garlic (you get the picture.) Needless to say - we went in the middle of the night so as not to draw too many weird looks (though that may have given reason to make it even weirder.) These veggies will all go to good use - believe us when we say this.

Want some? You have to come spend time with us to get some. So there.

ANNNND PICTURES

Hot Goggles, for keeping the hotness out (or in?)

Crafty Craftiness and Flash Photography

I just got done working (slowly) on a homemade craft table for Charlene. To be honest, it's kind of a gift to make up for a birthday present two years ago that I started but never finished... but that's a different story. The craft table has shelves for supports, a BIG work space for cutting and working with large pieces of fabric, as Charlene is prone to do. Charlene is always working on something big it seems. It even has a shelf with dimensions that make it perfect for holding 5-6 bolts of fabric. It has white/cream insides and natural wood on the outsides with a lacquer finish. My thought behind the project is if you know that someone is productive or good at something, then you should help them to be more productive. Charlene is so crafty and creative - I think she deserves all of the best tools and a big work area, which she now has! We just got done moving her stuff from the basement to our old roommate's room and turned it into a craft room/sewing room.

The question is, am I being a nice husband - or am I just trying to get all 200 of her half finished projects out of the rest of the house?!?!?!

On another note...

I was trying to take a picture of Charlene next to her new craft table and we spent an obscene amount of time trying to take a picture with her eyes open. Seriously Char? Charlene is talented at many things, but when it comes to controlling her own eyelids in the presence of flash photography there is only one word that comes to mind: Failure. Here are just a few of those pictures put into a montage for your viewing pleasure. btw the picture up top had to be taken WITHOUT flash in order for her to leave for work on time... hopeless...

Storm

So, we had a pretty significant storm roll through our area. Here are some pictures of the damage that was caused by trees falling over on our neighbor's stuff. Luckily, we seemed to be the only house on our block with large trees that hadn't fallen over. This picture is of our neighbor's house two houses south of us. It seemed that every tree in their yard had fallen over except one, and two of them had fallen onto their house. They also had their phone lines ripped out of their house from the trees falling on them.

This is just the top third of a very large pine tree (large by ND standards) that had snapped off and fallen onto some guys car across the street from us. It broke out all of his back windows and had flattened the roof of the back half of the car. By the time I had taken this picture, they had taken the very top off of the car already.
This is our front yard. Just a lot of smaller branches all over the place. I've been hearing of trees and power lines down all over Fargo. Good thing we are still safe!