Twelve Days of Christmas: Finally, the menfolk!

 

And here they are at last... the lads in all of their Christmas finery!

On the Tenth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, ten lords a-leaping!

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, eleven pipers piping!

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, twelve drummers drumming!

The Piper is Mr. Wonderful's favorite. He likes all the gold glitter! Speaking of Mr. Wonderful, yesterday was our 25th wedding anniversary. Here's a little bonus pic to commemorate the occasion, which I couldn't show you yesterday without spoiling today!

Our final recipe for the week is a highly customizable, 5-ingredient, slow cooker hot chocolate recipe. Pretty great, huh? Just what we need for the holidays! This is the original recipe. I made it as suggested, except I used half milk chocolate and half semi-sweet chocolate chips for less sweetness. If you decide to make it less rich, don't skimp on the evaporated milk; instead, use 2% milk instead of whole milk and/or half & half instead of heavy cream. Mind you, as it is, it's rich but not overly so. It is quite sweet with the milk chocolate chips, so if that's not your taste, substitute with semi-sweet chips. I haven't tried using only semi-sweet, but I think I will. See? Lots of ways to customize!

Slow Cooker Hot Chocolate (half recipe)

3 c. milk

1 (12 oz.) can evaporated milk

1 c. heavy cream

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 c. milk chocolate chips

Place ingredients in slow cooker and cook on low about 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally. Store leftovers in fridge. The surface will set when chilled, just give it a whisk before reheating.

*I gave mine a good stir about every 30 minutes to make sure the chocolate chips melted properly and didn't sit on the bottom of the slow cooker and then gave it a good whisk before serving. Mine was ready in about 2.5 hours.

*****

It's the whole song tomorrow!