Going to Starbucks everyday is out of the question for a couple reasons, one we don’t have one that is convenient to where we live, two the calories and three the cost. Hence the name “Poor Man’s Mocha” – the name came from my husband. My favorite flavor – peppermint – doesn’t come in a lower calorie version at Starbucks, so I started working on my own version.

Begin by brewing 16 ounces of your favorite coffee. It can be a flavored coffee if you like. Next you will need:

• 1 packet of diet hot cocoa mix
• 1 tablespoon Torani Sugar Free Chocolate Syrup
• 3 tablespoons Torani Sugar Free of your favorite syrup flavor

I first put the cocoa mix in my travel mug. Next I heat up the syrup mixture in a microwave proof container for about 25 seconds. I discovered if you heat the syrup mixture before adding it to the mug, it keeps from cooling the coffee down too much. Now add the warmed syrup to your mug, followed by your freshly brewed hot coffee. Stir until well mixed and enjoy.

I search the world over and found that Barista Pro Shop has not only the best prices for the flavoring syrups but it has great shipping rates too.

For those of you who don’t follow my tweets or Facebook updates, Jeff bowled his first 300 game last night. Shout out to Chris of McCorvey’s Pro Shop. He drilled both of our bowling balls. I went from a falling 160 average to a 182. Jeff’s average has been over 200. Don’t ask what the other two games were, he was so excited from the 300.

The Game itself. It was Jeff’s first game. He bowls on a different team than I do, so I didn’t realize what was going on until I wandered down to his lane around the 8th frame. He asked if I had come down to take his mind off what was going on, that’s when I realized he had the first eight. At that point, being a student of the psychology of the game, I knew not to mention anything. After he rolled the 9th strike, he came down to my lane, he was getting very nervous. I watched from my lane as he rolled the 10th strike. As he was rolling the 11th strike, I started down to his lane. As he was on the approach for his final ball, I could see he was trying to relax himself. He rolled the 12th ball, I could see he had rolled it a little light and by his reaction he disappointed with it too. I watched the ball roll all the way down the lane, it was going “Brooklyn” – just a bit left of the headpin. It was a strike! I let out a scream (very similar to the one I let out when D1 beat her opponent by ONE pin in a tournament she was bowling in) Jeff fell to his knees, he was so excited, and the crowd that a potential 300 game draws erupted in applause. I went down, gave him a big hug and then made room for the rest of the “congratulators”. We have a great league secretary, she started the paperwork for his award as we bowled our other two games. Think we also need to give a shout out to our Orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Adkison, who fixed Jeff’s right shoulder about a year ago. He’s been working on my knees.

Now he needs to get his ring size for his award.

I have been so busy off on all of my other tangents (got the soapbox relaunched) that I have sorely neglected my recipes section. I need to decide it I want the recipes to be posts or pages (okay, that’s a technical decision). It looks like it will take a bit more tweaking, but I’ll get it figured out.

I have a weakness for hot gooey cinnamon and sugar. I prefer to use dark brown sugar for just that reason. This is one of those recipes that you can tweak and adjust to your own personal tastes.

½ cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
3 (7.5-oz.) cans Pillsbury Refrigerated Buttermilk Biscuits
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
¾ cup margarine, melted

Heat oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease 12-cup fluted tube pan. Mix sugar and cinnamon in large bowl with lid.

Separate dough into 30 biscuits; tear into quarters and roll into balls. Drop the balls into the bowl – cover and shake each time after you add 5 or 6. After all are coated with sugar mixture; arrange in pan.

Mix brown sugar and butter; pour over biscuit balls.

Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until golden brown and no longer doughy in center. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn upside down onto serving plate; pull apart to serve.
Serve warm.

12 servings

Just a short update. Leslie’s Little Soapbox has been moved, it’s now a sub-domain of lesliekirk.com. I’m still working on the look and feel, it’s still a plain vanilla WordPress theme right now

As I have probably mentioned one too many times, I have way too many blogs to keep up with. Twitter’s micro-blogging concept is just so easy. I’m trying to also make better use of my Facebook account – I really need to make better use of the social networking “tools” that are out there.

I won’t even mention the text messaging…but I am proud to be a Geekette!