Mint Brownie Cupcakes

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I made these cupcakes over the weekend to bring to the in-laws' family game night and annual corned beef and cabbage dinner. This recipe is from Taste of Home - I first made these for St. Patrick's Day last year and my mother-in-law loved them, so I think it's going to become a tradition!

As you might have guessed from the name, these treats look like cupcakes, but the texture is more like a brownie. The topping is very light, with marshmallow and whipped cream as the main ingredients. In my opinion you can't go wrong with mint and chocolate at any time of year, but I thought these would make for a fun and festive post for the holiday.


Mint Brownie Cupcakes

1 cup mint chocolate chips (I couldn't find these at our store so I chopped up a couple of Lindt bars)
1/2 cup butter, cubed
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Topping:
4 cups miniature marshmallows
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons peppermint extract
Green or red food coloring, optional
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream, whipped
Additional chocolate chips, optional

In a heavy saucepan, melt chips and butter; stir until smooth. Remove from the heat.
Stir in sugar and eggs. Combine flour and baking powder; gradually stir into chocolate mixture until smooth.
Fill paper-lined muffin cups half full. (The recipe says it makes 16, but I only came out with 14 this time.) Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean (cupcakes may fall in center). Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool.
In a large saucepan, cook and stir marshmallows and milk over low heat until smooth. Remove from the heat; stir in extract and food coloring if desired.
Cover and refrigerate for about 15 minutes or until cooled. (Make sure you cool long enough - last year I was rushing and my topping came out a bit soupy.) Fold in whipped cream. Spread over cupcakes or top each with a dollop of topping. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Sprinkle with additional chocolate chips if desired. Store in the refrigerator.

North Woods Wild Rice Soup

In honor of the last full week of winter (yay!), I decided to make one of our favorite soups. It's yet another recipe I got from my mom years ago, and I couldn't find any exactly like it online, so I'm not sure of the original source. It's simple and yummy, and it incorporates the state grain of my home state, Minnesota.


Not the prettiest picture in the world, but how do you make soup look pretty?

North Woods Wild Rice Soup

1/4 cup butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cups chicken broth
1 12-ounce can evaporated fat-free milk
1 cup cooked wild rice (I took a short cut and used one of those 90-second microwave packets)
1 cup chopped cooked chicken
1/2 of an 8-ounce package reduced-fat cream cheese, cubed

In a 4-qt. pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and carrot. Cook and stir over medium heat until carrot is tender. Stir in flour, salt and pepper. Add broth all at once. Cook and stir until bubbly. Stir in evaporated milk, wild rice, chicken and cream cheese; cook and stir over medium-low heat until cheese is melted. (We got about 4 servings out of this.)

Weekend Trip to Philly

Yes, it's Thursday, and I'm finally getting around to posting about our weekend. We took a quick trip to Philadelphia, and I thought it was a funny coincidence that Megan beat me by a couple days with a post reminiscing about her trip there a few years ago! I'd only been to Philly briefly on a family trip when I was 9, and Shaun had never been there, so we were happy about the chance to travel there together. We drove down with our friend Rich and stayed with his college friends (whom we have also become friends with over the last couple years), Matt and Jess, in the townhouse they just bought. A couple of Bens (also Rich's college friends) came and met us, and our ND drumline buddy John (who grew up here with Shaun and Rich) drove up from DC with his girlfriend Sarah. Got all that? There will be a quiz at the end. Seriously though, it was a great group and a fun weekend.

I unfortunately didn't get very many pictures with people in them, because I don't like being "that guy" stopping the action for everyone to pose or asking a stranger to take a group picture. Figures that afterward I usually wish I'd taken some anyway. But I do have a few pics to share (all taken by Shaun), as we were lucky enough to have absolutely beautiful weather for sightseeing - about 70 degrees on Saturday. So ready for spring!

Independence Hall, far and close

My dad lived in Philly for a little while as a kid and used to tell me when I was young that he was the one who cracked the Liberty Bell.

The Assembly Room in Independence Hall...even standing there, it was so difficult to comprehend all the history that happened in this very room.

Senate Room next door in Congress Hall

Hey, there are some people! Jess ducked behind us for the previous self-portrait, but Shaun was determined to get her in the next one.

We had real Philly cheesesteaks at Pat's...yeah, those disappeared too quickly to get a picture. The efficiency there is amazing. Can you see the line starting in the back left corner, wrapping around the building? It took us maybe 15 minutes to get through. Geno's, the competitor on the opposite corner, also had a crazy long line. It was quite the sight!

Our last stop on the way out of the city was the art museum and Rocky statue...no running up the steps on our full stomachs though.

So that was the touristy part of our weekend. Other than that, we spent our time just hanging out, playing some Wii and some board games. I have to say, after playing it only three times, that The Game of Things might be the most fun game I've ever played. I got it for Christmas after randomly discovering it online, and three of our friends decided to buy it after playing just once. It allows you to use some creativity, and if you're with the right crowd, it can get pretty interesting. For example...our answer of choice the first time we played, if we couldn't think of anything else, was a classic quote from a classic Christmas movie..."Bend over and I'll show you." Yep, just slightly ashamed to admit that that was our jumping off point. On that note, I think it's time to wrap it up for today. Happy almost-weekend!

Marjorie Johnson's Chocolate Cupcakes

If you've watched the Tonight Show within the last several years, you may be familiar with Marjorie Johnson. She's a baker from Minnesota who has won tons of awards, especially at the state fair. In addition to other local and national shows she's been on, she became an occasional correspondent for Leno after having several baking segments on his show. She always wears red and always talks a mile a minute.

Marjorie came out with a cookbook, and a couple Christmases ago my dad got signed copies for my mom, my sister and me:


I've only tried a few recipes, just because I have SO many recipes bookmarked from all sorts of sources, but these cupcakes have become a favorite. In fact, our friend Rich (a fellow chocolate lover), was quoted as saying, "If I could die for anything, it would be one of these." I guess that means he likes them! They're very soft and crumbly - I tried to show the inside, which resulted in a mess of crumbs surrounding the cupcake, so I apologize for the ugly picture. But just trust me...they're tasty.


Chocolate Cupcakes

Batter:
2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup Crisco
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place all ingredients in a large electric mixer bowl. Blend together on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping down sides of bowl. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally. Pour into 24 paper-lined muffin cups, filling half full, and bake for about 20 minutes.

Frosting:
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
6 ounce package chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In a microwaveable bowl, place milk, butter, and chocolate chips. Microwave for 1 minute, stir; if chocolate and butter are not melted, microwave for another minute. Stir until smooth. Add vanilla and powdered sugar and beat to a spreading consistency. Frost cupcakes.

On another chocolate note: I made Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake recently and served it warm...wow. She was right in saying that it causes moans and groans when you take a bite. Even Shaun, who is not nearly the chocolate freak that I am, thought it was really good!

I've been tagged! (and other randomness)

I just had to give a shout out to a couple of fellow bloggers, ladies I met online while we were planning our weddings at the same time. Lynsey at The Foster Following gave me the cute award that's hanging out somewhere over there ---> for being a good blog friend. However, I'm being bad and not tagging anyone at the moment, simply because I'm indecisive and read way too many fun blogs to narrow it down. (Plus, I've been meaning to organize and add some more to the list of blogs I follow, and I don't want to leave anyone out!) So I apologize for breaking the chain, but I just had to pause and say thanks to Lynsey. As other fellow recipients have said, it's still hard to believe there are real people out there who read my "gibberish"!

I've also been tagged by Megan at So, Now What? (and now Katie at Tote's Life!) to open the 6th picture folder on my computer, open the 6th photo, and blog it. Here's the 6th picture in that folder, which is a bunch of pics of our townhouse:


Not the most interesting picture...just the area between our living room and dining room. But it's potentially the cleanest our dining room table has ever been! I'm breaking the rules again and not tagging anybody for this, but if you read this and feel like taking part, go for it! Pictures are fun and I'd love to see yours.

A couple of random thoughts to end:

-Is it just me or does Ryan Seacrest's pause between "This..." and "...is American Idol!" get longer every show?

-I wrote a one-word note in my planner last night with something to blog about, and today I can't read it. I doubt it was important.

-Maybe I'm overly paranoid, but do you ever get the feeling that a particular person doesn't like you, even though, to your knowledge, you've given them no reason not to like you? And if so, do you wonder why you care since you're obviously not friends with this person? Ah well.

-I chuckled tonight when Shaun went to get some chicken leftovers out of the fridge for dinner and I had to remind him that it was Ash Wednesday...and he's the Catholic one in the relationship. I guess I was conditioned during my 4 years at ND! We instead took these wonderful, meatless, carb-fest leftovers out of the freezer - pierogi lasagna.

Okay, back to watching some Idol. Shaun has called Nick Mitchell/Norman Gentle as the winner already...he's from the town next to us, so if he ends up in the top 3, we're going to his parade. Ha.

End of an Era

Most people know by now that Conan O'Brien is taking over for Jay Leno at the Tonight Show in June. It seemed like a long way off when NBC announced it back in 2004, but the year is now here, and tonight is Conan's last Late Night show. Based on some of the comments I've seen on articles about Conan this week, it seems you either love him or hate him. I fully admit my sense of humor can be silly and childish (Shaun always says how easy it is to make me laugh), but I love pretty much everything Conan does. I started watching Late Night in college because that was the only time in my life where I was guaranteed to be awake for the whole show - and I got hooked. When I moved on to the real world, I knew that I shouldn't be staying up that late if I had to get up at 6 or 7 the next morning for work, but all too often I did (as did Shaun...we're night owls...it's a problem) . We've seen so many hilarious moments: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog making fun of Star Wars fanatics, Conan going to Finland and visiting their (female) president that he looks like, the Walker Texas Ranger lever, Barack Obama suggesting Conan as his running mate back in 2006 before he was even officially running... I'll stop for your sake.

We're especially sentimental about the end of Late Night with Conan because we had an awesome experience going to a taping of the show back in June. We were on our honeymoon for Shaun's actual birthday, and I wanted to do something separate and special to celebrate when we got back - so I surprised him with Conan tickets for the following week. We took the train into NYC, made our way to 30 Rock, and got a decent enough spot in line that we had seats in the third row on the aisle! And when Conan came out to chat and warm up the crowd before the taping started, by some luck he ended up picking Shaun to go down and say hi to the drummer (James Wormworth, who was filling in for Max Weinberg at the time), and Shaun got some souvenir drumsticks. On his way back from the stage, Conan stopped him and wanted to compare height - he joked, "You're taller than I am, and I'm 6'9" with the hair." (Not really, lol - Shaun is about 6'8".) Our faces hurt from laughing before the show even started. The rest of it was a blast too - Mike Myers was the first guest, and he ran up and down the aisle before and after the interview, so we both reached to high-five him as he sprinted by. The whole experience was just so much fun!

So, we're a little sad to see Conan leaving Late Night and New York - although it'd be nice to visit California eventually, so maybe we can plan a Tonight Show taping. It's probably a good thing for us that he'll be on an hour earlier starting in June! He might have to change up his quirky style a bit, but he's just so naturally funny that it's hard to imagine someone watching him and not laughing. That's just my biased opinion though! It's going to be weird without Conan for a few months...but on those nights when we're up too late, I suppose we'll give Jimmy Fallon a shot. If you're a night owl too, what are your favorite late night shows? (Or if you're not a night owl, how dumb do you think we are depriving ourselves of sleep?!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

First, let me start off by apologizing to anyone who may have watched Important Things at my suggestion. It wasn't horrible, but definitely wasn't as good as I had hoped...just kinda weird. I'll probably keep watching for awhile to see if the show finds a groove, because I know how funny he can be.

I was busy in the kitchen this week - I sent a belated birthday gift to my dad consisting of Homemade Samoas Bars, which I found on Baking Bites and knew I had to make since my dad loves coconut...and "Spreads", which I saw on Pioneer Woman and thought would make a nice, easy addition to the package. Obviously the bars were a little more time consuming than the spreads, but they were both incredibly tasty. Then I had a night of baking and a night of frosting sugar cookies. Once a month we have a Friday game night with Shaun's family and it gives me a great excuse to make a full batch of treats. Plus he had a work potluck on the 13th, so I doubled the recipe to make plenty for everyone. They were a success - the tray came back empty both times! Maybe not the most professional-looking cookies in the world, but they tasted good.


The recipe, funnily enough, came from a Minnie Mouse Valentine book we had when we were kids. I think in the story she was baking cookies for Mickey, and at the end they had this recipe. We tried it and it became the household favorite (and I apparently have the original plastic cookie cutter that came with it, as shown by my few undecorated "Be My Valentine" cookies).

Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter

2/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

Cream the butter and sugar. Then beat in the egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and salt, then mix with the butter/egg/sugar mixture. Chill the dough for 3 hours. Preheat oven to 350.

On a flour-covered surface, roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Bake cookies on a greased cookie sheet for about 8 minutes.

The number of cookies obviously depends on the size of the cookie cutters you use, but if they're all average size, I would estimate 3-4 dozen. In my opinion, they taste the best with a thin layer of buttercream.

For the frosting, I started with 1/4 cup butter and gradually dumped in powdered sugar - I would estimate around 2 cups - enough that when that's all mixed it's still crumbly and powdery. Then I just added milk about a tablespoon at a time until it was at a consistency I liked, and mixed in 1 tsp vanilla (and of course food coloring as desired).

So, back to Valentine's Day - Shaun and I aren't big on the holiday, but we got each other cards and ended up going out to breakfast since we had to get up early to drop his car off for maintenance. We're not usually morning people on weekends, but it was kind of a nice break from routine. We're just having a low-key day, watching a couple movies - even having leftovers for dinner. For dessert we're at least going to attempt our first fondue, a recipe I saw on Shauna's blog. And of course, we'll be watching SNL hosted by Alec Baldwin...that's sure to have some amusing moments! Enjoy the evening, however you do (or don't) celebrate!