DIY Hot Chocolate Bar {Recipe Included}

Hey-oh!  Can you believe Christmas is a week away!?  Seriously, this year has flown by.  Our shopping is complete.  Most of the presents are wrapped.  So the next few days will be filled with wrapping the rest of the gifts, cleaning the house, last minute grocery shopping and baking, and most importantly, spending time with our families.  This weekend we're headed to Illuminations at our local Botanical Garden.  They have thousands of lights scattered throughout the many gardens so it's always a beautiful time to visit.  We're also off to see "A White Christmas" at one of our local music theaters with my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins (20 total!).  I'm really looking forward to this weekend and making memories with the people we love.

I was fortunate to have the day off today.  I spent a few hours baking Chocolate Cranberry Cookies and Chocolate Meringues (recipes coming soon!) for our work celebrations tomorrow.  I also had the opportunity to enjoy lunch with my husband.  We aren't able to meet up often over the lunch hour due to our schedules, so our lunch dates are always enjoyable.

This past weekend I hosted a bridal shower for my sister-in-law.  The Hot Chocolate Bar was a success and I'm excited to share the details with you!

Hot Chocolate Recipe:
3 cups Swiss Miss Powder Mix - I purchased a bulk can at our local grocery store
3 cups Heavy Whipping Cream
6 quarts Water
Crock pot
Meat thermometer

Directions:
Mix the three ingredients together.  Turn your crock pot on high to heat the hot chocolate.  We used our meat thermometer to keep the temperature of the the hot chocolate around 130 degrees.  Serve and enjoy!

For the toppings, we opted to offer Reddi-Whip, ground cinnamon, crushed candy canes, full size candy canes, mini chocolate chips, marshmallows and white chocolate chips.  We put each item in its own serving dish and let people pick and choose what and how much they wanted.  The bar was a hit!

Enjoying the hot chocolate bar back home!  Yum!

 Next time: Peppermint Meringues!

Slow Cooker Smothered Pork Chops

Good morning, everyone!  I hope you all had a great weekend!  With the exception of our lunch date Saturday and our grocery shopping trip, Troy and I spent the weekend at home relaxing and catching up on a variety of shows on our DVR.  It was nice to finally have some time together without a ton of things to do!

Saturday night we opted for a slow cooker meal of Smothered Pork Chops.  This was by far one of the easiest things to make.  But easy doesn't mean not tasty!

Ingredients:
5-6 Boneless Pork Chops, thawed
1 Can Cream of Mushroom
1 Cup Water
White Rice

Directions:
Lay pork chops into bottom of slow cooker.  Mix cream of mushroom with water and pour over pork chops.  Cook on high for 3-4 hours until meat is tender.  Prepare rice according to package directions and serve with pork chops. 

Zesty Barbecue Chicken and Baked Beans

Happy Monday!  Today was a super busy day between work and appointments, so we opted to to use one of the best inventions every: a slow cooker!  We've made this great Barbecue Chicken before and love it!  Its super easy to make and requires very few ingredients.

Zesty Barbecue Chicken Ingredients:
1 bottle of barbecue sauce - I like to use a honey barbecue flavor
1/2 cup Italian salad dressing
1/4 cup brown sugar - We use Splenda
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
frozen, skinless chicken - 6 breasts or 10-12 tenderloins

Directions:
Place chicken in the slow cooker.  In a separate bowl, mix barbecue sauce, dressing, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce together.  Pour over chicken.  Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 6-8 hours.  About an hour before serving, I shred the chicken and place back in the slow cooker to absorb more of the juices.  Delish!

I've been testing possible side options for this great chicken and decided to try a new Baked Beans recipe.  I came across two recipes here and here that had ingredients I liked, so I opted to mix and match. 

Baked Beans Ingredients:
1 can kidney beans
1 can butter beans
1 can lima beans
1 can grillin' beans
bacon pieces - I used 1 package, but you can use however much you want
onion - I used about a 1/4 cup fresh and 1/4 cup minced
1/1 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 cup barbecue sauce
2-4 tablespoons brown sugar - I used Splenda
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Simmer brown sugar, onion, barbecue sauce and other seasonings for about ten minutes.  Drain butter beans, kidney beans and lima beans and mix with grillin' beans and bacon pieces in a separate bowl.  Add in barbecue sauce mixture and mix well.  Pour into greased pan and bake for one hour. 

I'm happy with how this turned out!  And my fiance loved it!  There was the kick he loves, but it wasn't too spicy for my palate.  Next time, I may skip the minced onion and opt for all fresh.  Otherwise, great complement to the barbecue chicken.  Dinner is served!

 

 

Update: Since we had more than half a pan of baked beans left, we decided to add ground beef and make a meal of it!  It was delicious!