Hot White Chocolate

This is so delicious and so easy to make, you may need to lock the white chocolate away in a strong box and bury it in the backyard, so you won't be making it all the time; after all, while it's absolutely delicious, it is also laden with calories. Regular readers will already know that I use evaporated (canned) milk in many recipes, and that's what I use for this white hot chocolate, but I then also add regular milk. You certainly can use all regular milk, or even 2% milk (there are also 2% versions of canned milk). Canned milk "tends" to have a slightly off white color, as compared to regular milk. Likewise, white chocolate comes in slight variations of "white," depending upon brand. If you like a little "kick" to your white hot chocolate, add some Kahlua, rum or brandy. You can heat the milk and white chocolate on your stove top, or heat it in a microwave. Both milk and white chocolate can easily stick or scorch if you use your stove, unless you use low heat, keep stirring and devote your total attention to the mixture. The amount below is my suggestion for about 4 servings of white hot chocolate. You can use mini marshmallows or the larger types, and I suggest that when you add them to the hot chocolate, use your spoon to "dunk" them into the hot chocolate and then let them float on top covered in the creamy delicious hot chocolate.        

3/4 cup chopped white chocolate
1 1/2 cups canned (evaporated milk, NOT sweetened condensed milk)
1 1/2 cups regular or 2% milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(optional) Kahlua, rum or brandy per individual serving
marshmallows

In a microwave safe dish, add the canned milk, regular milk, vanilla extract and chopped white chocolate. Heat for about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, then check the temperature of the milk and stir. Heat further for about 30 seconds and check the temperature and consistency again. You'll be able to tell if the chocolate is well on its way to melting. You don't want the mixture to foam over. Heat at about 10 to 15 second intervals, until you reach the temperature you like. Myself, I don't like very hot drinks or foods, so I stop at the "precise" description of "good and warm." Haha! Whisk to make sure the chocolate is melted, pour into serving cups or mugs. If desired, serve the white hot chocolate with some Kahlua, rum or brandy and some marshmallows. Don't forget to lock the white chocolate in a strong box and to bury the box in the back yard. A friend of mine liked this so much, she had 3 servings with rum, then she locked her husband in a box, buried him in the backyard and went back inside and made 3 more servings. Hahaha! I'm just joking. She didn't didn't bury him in the backyard... she locked him in the cellar.   

WORD HISTORY:
Narrow-The origin of this word is a bit uncertain, although it "seems" to go back to an Indo European form of something like "sner" or "ner," with a meaning like, "to twist, to constrict, to wind (long 'i' sound)." ^ This gave Old Germanic, or perhaps only West Germanic, "narwaz," meaning, "twisted in tightness, constricted, narrowed." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "nearu," meaning, "not having great space, constricted;" as well as a number of figurative meanings like, "strict, severe, causing hardship." This then became "naru," then "narowe," before the modern form. Old English also had the verb "nearwian," meaning, "to make narrow or constricted, to make or to become smaller." The noun developed from the adjective as "nearewe/nearewo" (late 1100s?), but originally meant, "a hiding place," and also, "a place of confinement;" thus, "a prison," as well as, "a narrow place," and, "a danger." The verb has long meant "to lessen the distance between things," as in, "The runner in second place was able to narrow the gap with the leading runner," and also, often used with "down," and meaning, "to limit a number of things," as in, "The mother had to narrow down the invitation list for her daughter's birthday party to make it more manageable." The other Germanic languages have: German developed more figurative senses: "Narbe" (scar, "a mark left by a narrowed wound") and "Nehrung" (a narrow strip of land that juts into the sea to form a lagoon); Low German and Dutch "naar," meaning, "dismal, sad, ill," from the idea of constricted spaces being "dismal." Old Norse had forms used for geographic points with "straits;" that is, "narrows," but it's unclear if Old Norse borrowed its form from perhaps Low German, as all the West Germanic forms originally had the general meaning "narrow, constricted."  

^ Its origin might well be "sner" a possible form of the Indo European word that produced "snare," with "narrow" and its Germanic relatives being derived from a shortened West Germanic form "ner," where the "s" was not emphasized.