S'mores Bars

Do you know the scene in The Sandlot where Smalls is heading over to the clubhouse to be told the drastically revised edition of the story of THE BEAST by Squints, and after he explains how his mom made him do dishes before heading over (the same parents who don't even attend the block party on the 4th of July???) to hang with his new friends, Ham asks him if he wants s'mores, and Scotty, in his innocence, verbally wonders how he can have some more of something he's never had before? (If that's not a lesson in keeping your thoughts to yourself, I don't know what is. Forget not knowing who Babe Ruth is, but where did he live that he never heard of a s'more!) For me, I don't have any fond memories of summertime evenings spent near a bonfire roasting marshmallows to assemble s'mores, getting my daily dose of carcinogen in, but it reminds me of The Sandlot. EVERY TIME.

If you want to skip the carcinogen, and frankly I feel that's the only flavor missing in this recipe, and want a less messy and make ahead-able s'more, I highly suggest these cookie bars. The dough is used as the base as well as the crumbly topping, and what's great is that the dough is made with crushed graham cracker crumbs. Once the base is partially baked, it gets a sprinkling of chocolate chips (I used those over the Hershey bars, marshmallows, and the remaining cookie dough that gets crumbled on top.

What you get is a gooey and rich s'mores bar that you'll be able to take anywhere (very transportable), and can be eaten at any time. Like, say, breakfast. Or any time you need to take a break, because s'mores remind you of good times.

Recipe after jump

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S'mores Cookie Bars
Recipe from Hersheys.com

Yield - 16 bars

Ingredients -

1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars (1.55 oz. each) (or enough chocolate chips to cover bottom layer)
3 cups miniature marshmallows

Directions -

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8-inch square baking pan. Beat butter and sugar until well blended in large bowl. Add egg and vanilla and beat well.


2. Stir together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Press half of dough in prepared pan and bake 15 minutes.


3. Arrange unwrapped chocolate bars over baked layer, breaking as needed to fit. Sprinkle with marshmallows, then scatter bits of remaining dough over marshmallows, forming top layer. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or just until lightly browned.


4. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars.

Starbucks Natural Fusions Coffee & French Press giveaway winner

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest!

The winner today is the 6th commenter, Sandra. Congrats! I'll be contacting you to collect your info so your coffee can be shipped out ASAP.

Stay tuned for more giveaways in the future, and thanks for reading. =)

River Run 10k Race Report

This actually took place, um, last Saturday? I don't know. But it completely crapped me out, probably both mentally and physically. I mean, I'm not brooding over it kind of Prozac mental, it just kind of made me really tired. If you've been keeping up with my Daily Mile, I think I've only run once or twice since then. Apparently, I took last week easy.

I have a habit of picking races with inappropriate names. For example, this race course ran along the lake, not the river.

The temperature was bad with a humidity percentage of fail. The shaded sections were nice and breezy, but the contrast of the coolness of the shade with the inappropriate sun beaming down on your skin was terrible.

Mile 1 - 7:43
May have been too fast. There was a really steep downhill and I didn't make sure to slow down after it ended.

Mile 2 - 7:56
That's more like it.

My brother ran the 5k. Hello, brother!

Mile 3 - 9:20
I forgot how bad that hill was, exactly. It slowly steeped up, then suddenly was completely almost vertical. I AM NOT KIDDING ABOUT THAT. I never really recovered.

Also, running on a brick road is ridiculous and I can see now why Dorothy chose to skip along down the freaking yellow brick road instead of running. Never mind that she was wearing heels.

Mile 4 - 8:20
I guess this was getting better.

Mile 5 - 9:45
This was the point where I mentally checked out. I got passed by a few people, and passed some people, and kept other people in my line of sight, but that was all I was able to do.

Mile 6.2 - 9.59
Works out to an 8.18 pace. I really had nothing left except to make sure I didn't get passsed by anyone. This was successful. I saw some of the 5k walkers walking three in a row. There was a gap between one of them, and I momentarily considered running between the gap, though I did not.

Total - 53:05

My slowest race this year. I feel I paced this terribly, and I didn't take the heat and course conditions into account. I did place 4th in my AG group, and I've never placed top 5 here so I'm happy about that. I wasn't really looking for a PR, but I wanted a time close to what I got at the Sunburst, which is why I didn't like my results here. However, it was a slow race for everyone, though that isn't much of a consolation for me.

The Skipper presented me with my age group medal!

In the end, it's all Al Gore's fault. And if you ran the 5k, YOU DID NOT NEED TO TAKE ALL THE GATORADE, LEAVING NONE FOR ME. Thanks for nothing. Maybe my brother took one, but he let me have some.