Last week I shared how to make hand-rolled beeswax candles. This week I offer recipes for spice rub and cocoa mix in addition to the many jarred recipes at the bottom of this post. The series will conclude next Monday with ideas for perfectly packaging your handmade gifts. Have you ever read the ingredients on a box of commercial hot cocoa mix? Very often they are full of unpronounceable additives and artificial flavors. Cocoa mix [...]

Imagine that you just canoed for two days, sleeping the night on cold rocky ground.  The lake you paddled across is shimmering and surrounded by great green pines.  Your body aches.  Hunger nags constantly, your tongue having touched nothing colder than room temperature for days. Then, chef for the evening canoes out to the middle of the lake and pulls out a black plastic trash bag. Inside, there are two bags of instant chocolate pudding [...]

For yesterday’s Father’s Day extravaganza, I was supposed to bring chocolate sauce to top ice cream sundaes.  I forgot to tell Alex when he was at the store.  We could have gone out again, but I decided instead to try making chocolate sauce. After one try, I’m convinced I’ll never buy it again. Chocolate sauce is easy to make and delicious!  Plus, when you make it yourself, you have possibilities: finish with bourbon or vanilla, [...]