Happy Valentine's Day!

Chocolate is to Valentine's day like turkey is to Thanksgiving... so I thought I would share one of my favorite (and easiest) chocolate recipe.  It's my basic chocolate sauce, good for ice cream and great for Angle Food Cake (and Angle Food cake is to my birthday like wings are to the Super bowl).

To make this, you just need chocolate, a dairy product, and an optional extra flavor. For chocolate, something like Scharffen Berger bittersweet or semi sweet is best, but;chocolate chips work fine. I figure about an ounce or so for 2 servings.  Next is a dairy product, half and half is best, but you can use cream, milk, even soy milk. And finally is an extra flavor, like Grand Mariner, Cognac, vanilla, or a bit of espresso.  This scales easily for more people.

Start by putting the chocolate in microwave proof bowl:

Then add the half and half, about this much:

Then microwave until it starts to boil:

For a small batch like this, it only takes 30 seconds or so.Take it out... the chocolate won't be all melted yet:

But start to stir, and it should turn into a nice, dark sauce:

Optional at this point is to add something like Cognac or Amaretto (what ever would be nice with what you are putting it on), just a teaspoon or so. Or you can add a bit of vanilla, or some espresso.

Finally, serve. For ice cream, one of us likes some chocolate sauce on the ice cream.... the other likes a little ice cream with her chocolate sauce. Works perfectly!