My Pre-Winter Sludge, and the Chocolate Cure

There's a small window of time right before Winter and immediately after it that really, really drives me nuts.  Well, ok.  That period after Winter drove me nuts last year, and I can see the signs of it this morning.  What am I talking about?

The pre and post Winter sludge.

That's a photo of post-Winter driveway sludge from last year that I had to fix in order to keep the cars from getting stuck.

The temperatures were low enough that nothing was beginning to grow.  They were high enough, though, that precipitation came in the manner of rain, rather than snow.  That meant lots and lots of mud after a few hours of rain.  There was nothing, after all, to hold the mud down.  No weeds or grass to hold it in place.

This morning I woke up to a cloudy sky, and breathed in moist air.

Rain, I could see, was coming soon.  Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but it would arrive, and my name would be mud.

Well, all right... that's a bit dramatic.  But my floors will be covered with mud tracked in on shoes and paws.

Yep, it puts me in a rather morose mood.  Good thing it only lasts for a short time, right?

The good news, though, is that because the temperatures are so low, I can pull out my favorite comfort food:

Hot Chocolate!!!

Chocolate makes everything better.  Especially if it's in a rich and tasty liquid form.

Normally, I just pull out Abuelita Chocolate.  I'm a desert girl from the Mexican-American border, remember?  No boring Swiss Miss for me!  Sometimes I use the chocolate disks, and other times I go granulated.  The important thing, though, is that I have the rich, cinnamon enhanced goodness.

Other times, though, I make it myself.  When I do, I go big.  I want SPICE!

And so spice I get.

Two years ago, I found a recipe for Mayan hot chocolate while surfing the web, and as is typical on the web...

I lost it, again.  When I tried to find it last year, it was gone.

Poof!

That's ok, though.  It's just a recipe.  The flavor is imprinted on my taste buds, and that's what matters.

Naturally, I elected to wing it last year, and the result was magnificent.  This year I'll be doing that again, but I have the ability to make it a little more green than usual.  Score!!!

I'll have the recipe for you tomorrow.  It would have been here today, but since I'm experimenting I'll need to pay close attention to how much of each ingredient I use.  I don't want to give you a less than perfect recipe, after all!