HELOISE It's time for do-it-yourself hot chocolate recipe

Dear Heloise: I'm looking for your do-it-yourself instant hot-chocolate recipe. I know it contains dry milk and cocoa, but I don't remember the rest, nor the proportions. B.J., Minnesota
It's been years since this recipe has been printed, so it's certainly time!
To make this yummy concoction, mix together:
1/4 cup of cocoa powder
Dash of salt
1 cup of powdered sugar
2 cups of powdered milk
And for a creamier mixture, also add:
1/3 cup of powdered nondairy creamer
1 tablespoon of malted-milk powder
For a cup of cocoa, add 4 tablespoons of the cocoa mixture to a mug and pour in 6 to 8 ounces of boiling water. Stir well and enjoy. Don't be afraid to experiment with how much cocoa mixture you add -- some like a little more, some a little less.
FYI: With Christmas close by, buy some pretty mugs and add a sealed bag of cocoa mixture with instructions for use. Top off with a chocolate-covered spoon or some peppermint sticks. Wrap with some colored, see-through holiday wrap. These make great gifts for co-workers, neighbors, teachers, etc. For some other ideas to add to those mugs, order my four-page pamphlet Heloise's Flavored Coffees and Teas. It's filled with many tasty recipes. To receive your copy, send $3 along with a self-addressed, stamped (60 cents), long envelope to: Heloise/Coffee, P.O. Box 795001, San Antonio, Texas 78279-5001. For a quick cinnamon coffee, add a sprinkle of cinnamon and some sweetener to your cup, then pour in the coffee. Add skim milk or creamer, stir and enjoy. Heloise
Dear Heloise: Our daughter comes each Tuesday and helps with the housework and fixes our noon meal.
We had some nice-size baking potatoes, shredded cheese and butter, but no sour cream. It is hard to imagine a good baked potato without sour cream. Well, we had some no-fat cottage cheese, and our daughter, Cindy, blended about half the container, and voil & aacute; -- we had the best-tasting sour-cream substitute we'd ever had. S.G., Beaumont, Texas
Dear Heloise: I've done this for years, since I live alone.
I buy a loaf of bread, separate it by slices and put two slices each in small, plastic freezer bags. Then I put these bags in the original bread wrapper and freeze. I remove one bag (two slices) as I need a sandwich or toast, and the rest stays frozen. My friends who live alone loved this hint! Dolores E., Daytona Beach, Fla.
Dear Heloise: I was recently out of sugar when making a coffeecake for my husband, so I used the same amount of a dry lemonade mix that I had on hand in our "hurricane kit." It turned out great, and no icing or brown sugar was needed for a topping.
My husband, Bob, has worked hard getting us through this past season's hurricanes, and he needed the treat! Madlyn Blom, Punta Gorda, Fla.
XSend a money-saving or timesaving hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, Texas 78279-5000, or you can fax it to (210) HELOISE or e-mail it to Heloise@Heloise.com.
King Features Syndicate