Frozen Hot Chocolate with Nutella Fudge Sauce

I know, frozen hot chocolate in the middle of winter is nuts. It came about around Christmas time. I received a new Ninja blender for Christmas and wanted to try it out.

I don't know who came up with the idea of a frozen drink for the test run but I searched until I found this yumminess - Marshmallow Fluff Frozen Hot Chocolate with Nutella Hot Fudge Sauce at Anyonita Nibbles. It was very yummy. The fudge sauce made quite a bit - I still have some left! I am sure when warmer weather hits this will be a regular around here!

The Fudge Sauce:
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp light corn syrup
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup nutella
1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk together milk, water, sugar, corn syrup and cocoa powder in small saucepan. Heat over medium heat, whisking constantly, until mixture begins to bubble.

Remove from heat. Stir in the nutella and vanilla. Set aside.

The Frozen Hot Chocolate (for each serving):
1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cold milk
2 Tbsp marshmallow creme (or fluff)
ice cubes
whipped topping

Place all ingredients except whipped topping in blender. Blend for 30 to 40 seconds or until smooth. Pour into glass. Top with whipped topping and drizzle with fudge sauce. Pour remaining fudge sauce into airtight container and refrigerate.

Serve and enjoy!

Creamy Slow Cooked Hot Cocoa

My MIL found this recipe posted on Facebook. I checked and followed it back to it's source - Creamy Crockpot Hot Cocoa @ Mrs. Happy Homemaker. It was very good and I will make it again although I don't see it being my go to recipe for hot cocoa. Two hours was longer than we normally want to wait for a warm cup of creamy, chocolaty, goodness. Maybe you and your bunch have more patience, if so you should def give this a try!

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
6 cups milk
1 tsp vanila
1 12 pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips (if you want it even sweeter you can use milk chocolate chips)

Combine all ingredients in slow cooker.

Cover and cook on low for about two hours, stirring occasionally until heated through and chips are melted.

Serve with or without mini marshmallows and enjoy!

Vanilla Banana Smoothie and Changes are Here!

We received a call from our boss Wednesday morning asking us if we would move to another gate. And WOW! is this gate a dream! It is near a decent sized town, Pearsall, the gate is electric (woohoo), trash is picked up for us here at the RV, meals to the rig are catered and they typically bring two plates for the gate guards! Oh, and we have a nice shade tree by the RV and lots of pretty green grass! The catering could cause some changes to this blog as I may be cooking less, it's also making meal planning a little more flexible, as on any given day I may or may not be cooking and will probably not know for sure until the day before. This is going to make shopping a little tricky but possibly a little cheaper as well. Here is a sample of the last two days:
Wednesday - Pork Steaks with Mushroom Gravy, Mac & Cheese and Green Beans

Thursday - Brisket and Ribs (That is a lot of meat) I had already made plans for King Ranch Casserole so it will be Brisket Sandwiches on Friday!

Vanilla Banana Smoothie
I found this recipe for a Vanilla Strawberry Smoothie and wanted to try it. I ended up with some really ripe bananas that were about to go bad so I substituted banana for the strawberries since the strawberries were frozen they would keep. It was very yummy!! Can't wait to try this again with the strawberries!

2-5 ice cubes
1 cup milk
1/3 cup cottage cheese
1 large banana, cut into chunks and frozen
1/2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Pour all ingredients into blender. Blend for 45 to 60 seconds.

Serve and enjoy!

Shared with:

http://katherinescorner.com/2012/07/19/thursday-favorite-things-blog-hop-linky-party-45/  Check out all the amazing things that will be posted there this week!

Nutella Banana Smoothie

It is time once again for the Crazy Cooking Challenge hosted by Tina at Mom's Crazy Cooking. This month's challenge is fruit smoothies. I actually had a little trouble finding a smoothie I wanted to make, that is until I came across this blog, Free Fruit Smoothie Recipes. This is a blog with nothing but smoothie recipes. Any type of smoothie you could want is on this blog! If you are wanting a good smoothie, but don't know where to start I would recommend checking out this blog!!

I modified this recipe slightly, to serve one instead of two and to suit our tastes a bit. This is the original version: The Great Chocolate Banana Smoothie Recipe. I used:

1 cup small ice cubes

1 large banana

3/4 cup 2% milk

1/4 cup vanilla yogurt

1 Tbsp nutella

Place ice in bottom of a single serve blender.

Adjust ice according to how you like your smoothie - less ice for more of a juice drink, more ice for more of a milkshake. (I actually did not know this before reading this blog.)

Add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.

Serve immediately. Enjoy!

Hot Cocoa Kit

My sister made up these yummy hot cocoa kits for everyone this year.

The Kit:
1 pkg hot cocoa mix
2 chocolate kiss candies
1 peppermint candy stick
20 miniature marshmallows

Make the hot cocoa adding the candy kisses with the mix. Stir till cocoa is mixed and kisses melted. Top with marshmallows and add peppermint stick.

She also made a couple of different candies for us - I'm still trying to get the recipes out of her!



Will post these recipes as soon as I get my dear sister to cough 'em up!