Crockpot Brownies. {Yup. It's True.}

As if Valentine's Day last week wasn't cause enough for a chocolate binge, this week I continued the pure chocolate insanity in our house with making gooey chocolate brownies...in my crockpot... cause really why not?  And today is actually my One and Only's birthday (read: my husband) and we are giving chocolate yet some more love by presenting him with a warm fire of candles lit on top of more delicious chocolate in the form of a ridiculous triple chocolate cake tonight...my tummy hurts already.   

He's 36 today...funny story, last year we put 35 candles on top of his cake and I had the kids help me oh-so-carefully carry out his cake (all candles lit mind you) to him while singing...this took a while if you can imagine since we obviously didn't want the cake face planting it on the kitchen floor, talk about a fire hazard.  Now if you haven't already realized this about us, we are quite the picture taking family...eveything gets a picture, no lie.  You would laugh at the amount of photo albums and boxes upon boxes of un-photo album-ed pictures we have pre-digital camera age.  It's sad...no scary?  no weird of us?  Yeah, let's just say weird ;-)  

Anyways, by the time the cake got to my husband at the table and our picture taking frenzy ended the cake was half melted.  And it wasn't even an ice cream cake, ha!  Good 'ol buttercream under the intense heat of 35 candles AND a short walk to the table with toddlers AND picture-taking insanity from the likes of us just doesn't stand a chance we found out that day.  Let this be a lesson to you.  That cake wasn't very edible after that.  Okay...so back to the brownies...

They look good don't they?  And seriously from the crockpot, for reals.  No square or rectangular brownies here, nope, no sir-eee!  Only brownies made in the round...cut into pie slices, could anything be more fun?  I'm sure there is but for now let's just say this is pretty high up there in fun awesomeness.  Thanks.

Crockpot Brownies {adapted from MS Everday Food} -print this recipe HERE-

8 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

1 cup chocolate chips

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Coat the inside of your crockpot with cooking spray.  Line the bottom with parchment paper and coat the top of the paper with cooking spray.  Melt chocolate and butter together in the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl, stirring after 30 second intervals, until chocolate is melted.  Add in sugar and mix well.  Then add in eggs and mix well.  Set aside.  In another bowl, mix together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.  Add in walnuts and chocolate chips and mix well.  Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  Pour into crockpot and smooth top.  Cover and cook on low for 3 hours.  Uncover and cook for 30 minutes.  Insert a knife edge around brownies to loosen and place the crock (out of the pot) on a cooling rack to cool for 20-30 minutes.  Turn out brownies and re-invert on cooling rack to continue the cooling process.  

First grab 8 oz of Bittersweet chocolate and chop it up in to chunks...

Then melt your chocolate with the  1/2 cup of butter in your microwave.  Do this in small 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until the majority of chocolate is melted.

**PS. can you find me in the chocolate...I'm a regular Where's Waldo :-)

Then add 1 cup of sugar to the melted chocolate and mix well...

Then add your three eggs until nice and incorporated.  Now set this bowl aside.

In another bowl, mix together your  1 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp salt and 3/4 tsp baking powder...

Add your cup of chopped walnuts if you so desire some nuts in there...

And then add your cup of chocolate chips...

Mix well, making sure your walnuts and chocolate chips are nicely coated.  This helps so that they don't fall to the bottom of the brownie while it's baking, cause nobody likes when all the good stuff ends up at the bottom of the brownie :-)

Add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and mix until just incorporated...I'd say about 40 strokes or so if ya wanna get technical ;-)

Next cut a circle the size of the base of your crockpot from some parchment paper.  Spray your entire crockpot with cooking spray, lay down your circle of parchment paper and then spray the top of the parchment paper. This will make it easier to turn out your brownies when they are done.  

Then pour your brownie batter into your crockpot and smooth the top so that your brownies will cook nice and even.  Cook with the lid on low for 3 hours and then with the lid off for another 30 minutes.  

It will look more cooked at the edges and gooey-er in the middle when it's all done.  

Then while it's still warm, grab a knife and go around the edge with it and loosen your brownie from the crockpot.  Pull your ceramic crock from the heating element and let cool on a cooling rack for about 20 minutes.  Then flip your brownies out onto a cooling rack and let them cool some more.

  

Let them cool...

Admire them...

Cut into them...

And devour them!

Chocolatey and Gooey makes for the best kinda brownies!

Happy Friday!

XOXO,

Potty Chips

So, we reached a wonderful milestone a few weeks ago in our house can you guess what it was?

Nope, it wasn't that Penelope finally learned to sew her own clothes...

{good guess though!}

It does have something to do with these pictures though!  

Can you just check out that cute little tush with that Hello Kitty Underwear...

Underwear?

Did I just say UNDERWEAR?

Fo' Sho'!!

Little Miss Penelope is POTTY TRAINED...WoooooTheFreakin'Hoooo!

It all started a few weeks ago while we were waiting in line to check out at the store and she saw a big {Grab} bag of these Cool Ranch Doritos, well rows and rows of them actually, staring back at her, taunting her and giving her the perfect opportunity to have the biggest check-out lane tantrum of her short little life.  Boo to you check out lane junk food insanity if it's not candy it's the chips *said raising fist in air*!  There were screams and tears and some laying down on the dirty floor tactics happening...good times.  Let's just give a nod and smile to Eloise who was sleeping blissfully in her carseat shall we, since a momma only wants to handle one major tantrum at a time.  

The cashier smiled and laughed and thought she was so cute, 'oh, I miss this age' she told me. Uh huh, I can't wait to miss this age ;-)  Anyways...I came up with the snazz-errific idea telling her that I couldn't buy the chips today but that I would come back and buy her that WHOLE bag of chips if she started wearing underwear cause I figured that those days were a loooong ways off and the idea of having that whole bag to herself would quiet her enough so that we could get the heck out of the store.   Well, she totally stopped her fit and agreed.  Yay!  Momma 1 Child 0.  

But in the next few days boy did she prove me wrong!!  Apparently the love this girl has for chips is stronger than I thought, who knew?.  That little enticement was all she needed.  The next day all she wanted to do was go on the potty...and the next day...and the next day.   Finally I was brave enough to ask her if she wanted to wear underwear and she was all for it!!  Even saying that Ellie could have all her diapers.  To this day she has been wearing that precious Hello Kitty underwear with zero accidents and many public outing under her belt!  She was as easy to train as Noah, what a blessing!!  Now, she loves to tell us with her arms raised high above her head, 'I a big gurl.  I go to preschool barn?'  Cause obviously once you are potty trained that is your golden ticket into preschool, right?  :-)

So finally I made good on my promise and I bought her that big bag of chips.

Oh, how excited she was to dig in...

Potty training for these...pshaw, of course.

Now she is one happy camper...

and so are we!

Go Girl!

{what crazy or not-so-crazy things did it take for your wee one to potty-train?}

Cheerios Muffins...It's What's for Breakfast.

The other day the kids and I were dreaming about Spring and all the fun things that the change of seasons will bring to us.  Out with the snow and in with the warmer weather, blooming of pretty and colorful flowers, leaves on trees, trips to the playground and picnics, lots and lots of picnic!  

So we decided that even though we still have plenty of snow on the ground for any outdoor picnics maybe we could will Spring to come just a bit earlier by having ourselves a fun indoor picnic...an indoor BREAKFAST picnic in the morning that is!  Our spread included lots of fruits that yelled 'Spring is Here' as well as some pretty flowers in little glass bottles cause what's Spring without all the color of beautiful blooms?

One of the breakfast treats that I made was a whole bunch of Cheerios muffins.  Whaaat?  I know what you're thinking, 'Cheerios in a muffin?'  Heck ya!  I always love a good muffin for breakfast and if I can make great-tasting healthy ones that my kids will eat that's even better!  And my kids devoured these ones,  for serious!  Let me just show you Exhibit A:

These babies are similar to how you'd make a Raisin Bran muffin but minus the raisins and the bran.  And since I don't care for raisins in my muffins this recipe is perfection in my eyes!  Dig it folks.

Cheerios Muffins -print this recipe HERE-

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup white sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking soda

5 cups of Cheerios

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups buttermilk

In a large bowl, mix together your dry ingredients and set aside.  In another bowl, mix together your wet ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients making sure to incorporate well.  Cover your bowl with plastic wrap and wait about 45 minutes for the cereal to soften.  Pour batter into a lined muffin tin and bake at 375 degrees for 15-18 minutes.  This recipe should make about 2 dozen muffins.  

**You can keep this batter in your fridge for up to one week, just store in an airtight container!**

Alright!  So first place your dry ingredients together into a large bowl...

Then add your 5 cups of Cheerios!

I add my Cheerios whole, just as they are.  This gives bit of crunchiness to your muffin.  If you wanted you could also crush your Cheerios before adding for a less crunchy texture, your call.

Next you are going to place your wet ingredients into a smaller bowl.  

Now, if you do not have buttermilk on hand (cause really who does) you can make your own.  It's super duper easy.  For every cup of buttermilk you need for a recipe you just place 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar in a cup and then fill the rest of the cup with skim milk.  So for this recipe you will use 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and then fill the remaining 2 cups worth of space with your milk.  Easy, right?

Here's a little food trivia for you...did you know that most buttermilk is made with skim milk?  For reals, that's a true factoid from me to you!

So, here is all your wet ingredients all mixed up...2 eggs, 1 tsp of vanilla and 2 cups of buttermilk made with you own two hands!

Then pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and mix well.  

Cover and wait about 45 minutes before filling your muffin tins.

If you want, you can sprinkle a bit of sugar on the tops before baking, this gives the yummiest crunchy muffin top...DELISH!

Then bake at 375 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.

All done!

It's hard to resist a warm muffin right out of the oven, isn't it?

Still hot...

Maybe, we should smell our pretty flowers while we wait?

Okay, enough with the waiting...let's give one a go!

Check it...do you see those bits of Cheerios in there?  

Yeah, that's some good stuff I tell ya.

And now it's time to round up the kids and sit on our blanket cause our Spring breakfast picnic is complete!

nom, nom, nom...

Enjoy!

Anna Maria Horner Fabric Giveaway...Winner!

Well, it's about that time.
Time to see who won some rockin' Anna Maria Horner voile!!
Who could it be........
Is it you?

#107 is Timmi who said, 'and I like Smashed Peas and Carrots on Facebook!"

Yay and Congrats Timmi!!  

Please email me your snail mail addy so I can send off (2) half yard cuts of my buttery-soft AMH voile for you to enjoy!!  I can't wait to see what you make!!

The One Where We Made Valentine's Cards

First off...

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I hope you all are having a LOVE-ly day!  Really quickly I just wanted to show you Noah's Valentine's cards this year, I think they turned out so cute!  This is the first year we have officially done Valentine's since he is my oldest and this is his first year of preschool.  I was originally planning on just buying those pre-made ones that come with candy cause well, why not?  But then on Friday I showed him the Valentine card from 24-7-365 and he got really excited and wanted to do them...I was like, "Okay!!"  You don't have to twist my arm kid!

I took a few pictures, picked the best one and then sent them off to Costco.  They were ready to pick up that afternoon...easy peasy and oh-so-cheap (13 cents a print!)  I totally want to do these every year now!!  Here's how they turned out:

I added some funky little hearts down the side and wrote 'Happy Valentine's Day!' across the top using my most favorite site Picnik.

Here's the final product--with candy.  Don't you just love a picture of a picture :-)

Noah carefully signed his name to the back of each one, as well as one for each of his three teachers.  He is so excited to hand these out at school, although I think he was getting a little worried that all the lollipops were going into the cards and none would be left for home.   I told him I was sure he would get plenty of treats to bring back home...what no candy left for us, unheard of!

Okie dokie, that is all...now go enjoy your Valentine's day with all the ones you love.

We are going to indulge in some of these...

{chocolate covered long stem strawberries}

Mmmm....chocolate :-)

DIY Window Clings...for Reals!

The other week the kidlets and I were wanting to do a little decorating for Valentine's Day and I realized that we don't actually have much V-Day decor...weird.  So we did our very best at making our own pretties for the house, we cut different sized hearts out of cardstock to hang on the walls, we stamped little red thumbprints onto canvas to hang on the wall, and we made some red and white window clings cause we just love the chance to dress up our windows for any holiday :-)

These are really such a fun and easy craft to do with your little ones although you will definitely want to do this with adult supervision!!  Your kids will truly enjoy the outcome as they can stick and unstick the results as much as their inner Nate Berkus desires, so ya gotta love that.

DIY Window Clings

Small bottles of Puffy Paint

Parchment paper

Easy peasy list, right?

First, rip yourself off a nice sheet of parchment paper and lay it flat on your workspace.

Parchment paper looks like this (picture above) and can be found in the paper products aisle of your local buy-everything-under-the-sun-store *ahem* Target...next to the foil, paper lunch bags and plastic wrap.    

Then grab your puffy paint, any brand will do!  You can use whatever color you wish depending on what holiday you want window decor for or what you are celebrating.

Outline your shape first.  I usually free-hand my stuff but if you want to trace an object with a pencil first go right ahead with your bad self, it's all good to me.

After you make your outline, start filling it in with the puffy paint.

Until it is all painted, like so!

Then following your puffy paint bottle instructions, let it dry for 4-6 hours.

Once dry, just peel your designs off of your parchment paper...

Oooh, pretty!!

I love cute sayings :-)

Aww, isn't this one sweet!?!

Now, you can stick these puppies all over your window...

{PS. the shiny side--or top side--is the side that sticks!}

Muahhh!  

I love this stuff!!

Happy windows = a Happy Valentine's Day

don'tcha think!!

Enjoy!