Spiced Hot Milk

We went camping on the Washington coast this weekend and that ocean breeze is cool and damp, so I found this recipe at about.com and was excited to try it out. Looking back I should have read the intro a little bit more carefully. It describes this drink as spicy and exotic and a recipe discovered one night when they only had 1 t of cocoa left. See that's the part I missed!! This drink is NOT a hot cocoa drink, but it is surprisingly tasty and one of those drinks that fills your mouth with taste long after you've swallowed.

So while I was packing, I measured out the ingredients and stored the spices in a little container:

1 1/2 c milk
1 1/2 c water
1 t cocoa
2 t ground cinnamon
2 t sugar
1 t vanilla

Once Levi was down we started up the camp stove (actually Dan did that, I am not safe with camp stoves) and we boiled up the water and then added the milk. This is where I made a slight change. The recipe called for 1 can of evaporated milk, but I forgot to get it when I made me run to the grocery store. And since we were camping with a 1 year old, we had a jug of homogenized milk which worked well as an alternative. Once the milk was warmed I added my spices.

And stirred until it looked well mixed. (Another alteration here, you are supposed to add the vanilla after removing it from the heat, but I didn't want to take 2 containers so I just mixed the vanilla with my spices).

This is what we ended up with. Warm and tasty!! Once we got over the fact that it wasn't very chocolatey.

Actually, the taste improved as the beverage cooled. And we enjoyed the rest of our evening in front of the campfire and with my sudoku puzzle. It was tasty even without the recommended topping of marshmallows (which I forgot).