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When I phoned home last month after a week when the mercury hit 35 below (that's Celsius), I told my parents, "Well, at least January's almost over."

And they asked if I thought January was the worst month.

"No," I said: "It's February."

So February's almost over. I think it's probably the worst month, and in celebration I went ahead and made some caramel sauce, and then I put it in some hot chocolate. Besides, you know what they say about March, right? (In like a lion--)

Actually, I made the caramel sauce just to see if I could, and then I put it in hot chocolate because I didn't know what else to do with it. The hot chocolate was a bit too rich and sweet for me; I think my whole family knows that peppermint hot chocolate is my favorite, and hot chocolate with cinnamon in it is a close second place. This didn't quite oust those, but the caramel sauce is good, and I think I'll eat it with apples or maybe ice cream (neither of which is particularly wintry). Or maybe I'll try the hot chocolate thing again, and add cinnamon.

Here are the recipes: caramel sauce from here (and here's a word on caramelizing sugar) and hot chocolate recipe, well, it's fairly straightforward. I looked at a few recipes and then decided just to reduce the sugar and add caramel to my usual.

This is how I make hot chocolate with a microwave (as opposed to one a stove). It is also how containers of cocoa powder everywhere tell you how to make hot chocolate, if you would ever listen: I microwave a mug of milk for 2 minutes, and while that happens I stir together 2 tablespoons of sugar and 4 teaspoons of cocoa powder with a fork. Then I add a little milk, and stir that together until it's blended, and I add that mixture to the microwaved milk when it's done. This is the way they tell you do it on the containers for most cocoas, as far as I can tell, and seems to help dissolve the cocoa powder smoothly, so you don't get gross, powdery chunks.

So, caramel hot chocolate: I reduced the amount of sugar by half, to 1 tablespoon, but I think you could eliminate it entirely. I added the caramel sauce (about three tablespoons--I tried for two, but the caramel flavor didn't come through in the hot chocolate) to the sugar/cocoa/milk mixture, and poured that into the milk as usual.

There you go. Long post about hot chocolate. But February's the worst month, right? And it's a day longer this year. So you--we--deserve it. Or something.