M&M's® Red Velvet Brownie Cupcakes

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #RedVelvetLove #CollectiveBias

As promised yesterday – the recipe that Anika I created – red velvet brownie cupcakes! We love to take a recipe that we already have used, then change it up and make it our own. For this particular recipe we changed the chocolate morsels, opting for dark chocolate instead of milk, we used coconut oil, and then used a red velvet flavoring along with M&M's®Red Velvet candies – we pretty much changed half of the old recipe I had originally written down from some magazine article years back. J

Anika wanted to help make something that was “her very own” creation to give her friends on Valentine’s Day this year, and that’s why we spent the afternoon brainstorming together different ideas that she could do. We ended up with making the brownies, and then placed them in individual bags and topped them with a variety of different icings, sprinkles, M&M's® and more. We then tied each brownie up with some curling ribbon. It was a very successful (and delicious!) practice run and I think it’s going to be a great homemade gift to give her friends this Valentine’s Day.

The recipe below will make about two dozen brownie cupcakes, but you can easily double it (or cut it in half) to adjust the amount that you will need.

Red Velvet Brownie Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of flour

1 tsp of salt

½ tsp baking soda

1 ½ cups of sugar

1 cup of coconut oil (in liquid form)

2 tsp of Red Velvet flavoring

4 eggs

2 cups of dark chocolate chips, melted

2 cups of M&M's® Red Velvet candies

24 cupcake liners

Clear treat bags

Curling ribbon

Variety of M&M's®, sprinkles, candies, and icings to top.

To begin, preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl, add the flour, salt, and baking soda until combined and then set aside.  In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, oil and red velvet extract until smooth. Slowly add into the dry mixture until completely mixed.

In a small bowl, melt the dark chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring every thirty seconds until they are melted. Slowly pour into the batter and mix. Add M&M's® Red Velvet candies and then spoon mixture into a paper lined cupcake pan.

Bake for 30-35 minutes and then allow the brownies to cool completely over a wire rack.

Then, have fun! Drizzle the brownies with icing, food color spray, sprinkles, and candies – whatever you’d like! Then place the brownies into individual bags and add a few more M&M's® for treats before sealing the bag with curling ribbon

You can find the M&M's® Red Velvet candies as well as original M&M's® at Walmart in the candy aisle as well as the Valentine’s Day aisle and displays!

For more M&M's® Red Velvet inspiration, be sure to visit the Red Velvet Love Recipes page. Join the #RedVelvetLove Pinterest Party taking place at http://www.pinterest.com/SoFabChats/ on Saturday, January 31 at 12:00pm ET for your chance at winning a $1000 Walmart gift card!

See more great M&M's® Red Velvet recipe and party ideas at myconfectioncorner.com/valentines-day where you can also download a coupon to save on your M&M's® purchase.

~Melissa

5 Tips to Keep Your Morning Stress Free

 This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #McCafeMyWay #CollectiveBias

Good morning everyone! Today is turning out great – the kids don’t have any school so we all slept in past 8, the sun has decided to shine very bright this morning, and I’m sitting here sipping on a cup of McCafé coffee. Mornings like this make me get even more excited for the summertime.

Unfortunately though, most mornings these days are not so laid back – as they consist of me dragging myself out of bed after a less-than-eight hours of sleep, getting the girls ready and walked to school, then coming back and getting Noah ready and off to preschool (3 days a week). It’s not really that bad, but little miss Emma is like me – not an early morning person, so it can be challenging to get her up and off to school on time every day.

There are a few things that I do every night to ensure that the mornings don’t have to be any more stressful than they already can be, and most of them having turned into an evening ritual on school nights.

1. Have your kids set out their clothes the night before. It’s so important to have them do this! If they are younger, make sure you help them set their clothes out. We normally do this between teeth brushing and story time, and I always have them place their clothes on the side of the couch (it’s just a weird habit we’ve formed) and then I can easily double check and make sure there’s underwear and socks. Let me tell you, when  I forget to check and there’s no socks, the next morning we somehow are all frantically looking for them!

2. Secondly, make sure homework is all finished the night before! I hate when I’m suddenly finding out about something due that day…at 7 am! Anika’s gotten better with showing me everything she needs to have done, and luckily the younger two don’t have too much homework…yet. J

3. Next, make sure breakfast is a no-brainer. The kids don’t get too many options on school mornings, but I always have a few choices available. It could be cold cereal, a protein bar, or a breakfast burrito that I made up ahead of time. I’ll actually make a couple dozen at a time and place them in the freeze and take a few out the night before, we can then warm them up and they have a quick hot meal to eat on our way to school.

Not everything I do in the mornings is just for the kids though, there’s a couple of things I like to do for myself to help keep the anxiety and stress at bay, especially if I know it’s going to be a day when I have a lot of things that I need to accomplish.

4. The first thing is to make a top five list. I handwrite on a little piece of paper the 5 things that I definitely have to get done the next day. There’s something about actually writing it down that helps it connect more in my head and I’ll find that when I do this often times I won’t even have to glance at my list, because the tasks are clear in my head when I wake up. Of course I do look at the list though – so I can cross the to-do’s off – because it makes me feel really good to strike a big pen line through those words!

5. The last thing I’ve started doing is prepping my coffee the night before! I never used to have to worry about this because Wayne would be up and gone to work before we left and he would make a pot of coffee in the morning, but lately he hasn’t been drinking as much coffee (or maybe he’s been running late and hasn’t had the time!?) so my fresh cup of brewed coffee hasn’t been ready anymore! I don’t normally drink more than a cup or two in the morning so I didn’t want to necessarily brew a whole pot, so I broke out my Keurig and started using McCafé pods to satisfy my morning habit - I was shopping at Walmart last week and they were demoing the McCafé blend and I liked it so much I bought a few boxes! The McCafé coffee is made with 100% Arabica beans – so it’s got a really nice flavor, and in fact I think there’s like 8 flavor options you can choose from too! The McCafé Premium bags and the coffee pods can be found at Walmart in the coffee aisle, as well as some other fun places peaking around aisles and corners!

So, those are my tips for keeping your mornings a little bit more stress free. Do you have some amazing tip that keeps your day running smoothly? I’m always excited to hear other people’s rituals!

If you need more morning inspirations, check out the Cooking Up Good website. It has recipes, sweepstakes, loyalty programs, coupons and more! 

~Melissa

Little girl growing up.

I made it through my crazy month of work! Today is my first day at home, with no schedules; no deadlines (until tomorrow!) and Wayne took the two little ones up to the Ag Fest in Portland so it was just Anika and I for a few hours. We made some delicious red velvet brownies that I’ll be sharing on here tomorrow and then I helped her pick out an outfit for a middle school dance she’s going to attend this evening.

She wanted me to take her over to her best friend’s house for a couple of hours before the dance so they could “hang out” (aka get ready and gossip!) and even though I was enjoying time with just the two of us I caved in and let her go over – but not without a couple of pictures first.

After I dropped her off and arrived back home I sat down for a moment and thought. It’s been so busy lately that I haven’t had much opportunity to do that, and I couldn’t help but think on how fast the kids are all growing – they’ll all be in school full time this fall – and how much my little girl is turning into a young lady.

She’s just finished up her first semester in middle school along with her first experience having finals in each class. She’s only a year and a half away from becoming a teenager. Where did the time go?

I’m glad I took those photos of her, and even though it was more of a twirl, a smile, and a “Can we go now?” moment at the time – she’ll thank me someday for capturing these moments that she can pass down to her daughters, and she’ll understand what a huge milestone it is – for the both of us – as I watch this little girl growing up. 

~Melissa

#AD Big Game Meal Idea: 5 Cheese Macaroni & Cheese & Hot Wings

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #GameTimeHero #CollectiveBias

Hey everyone! I’m actually getting pretty excited for the Big Game coming up next weekend! Why? Because even though I don’t follow football too closely, the team I root for will be playing…and I’m not working – which means it’ll be the perfect excuse for a family lounge day!

Yesterday evening we kind of practiced in our own little way. I worked day-shift but then stopped by Walmart and bought some hot wings from the deli and ingredients to make homemade macaroni and cheese, then came home and created my tasty meal for the family. We ate our comfort food around the table and then played games together for a couple of hours.

It seems the past week I've been so busy that we haven’t gotten to take the time to just relax a little bit as a family and I’m glad we sat down together and had a family night – that’s why I’m even more excited to watch the Big Game! Also, after a week of eating well it’s nice to have a special family Sunday dinner together.

I have made homemade macaroni and cheese in the past before, but never wrote a recipe down, so this time I figured I should write it down so I can (a.) remember it, and (b.) share it with you!

5 Cheese Macaroni and Cheese

What you need:

1 cup of shredded parmesan cheese

1 cup of shredded Romano cheese

1 cup of shredded Gouda cheese

1 cup of apple wood smoked Gruyere cheese

3 cups of shredded cheddar cheese

1 lb of macaroni noodles

3 cups of half and half

¼ cup of butter

2 Tablespoons

Green onion

¼ cup cooked and crumbled bacon

3 cups of crushed bread crumbs

Cook Macaroni noodles until ale dente. Drain and then pour into a large baking dish.

In a large cooking pot, melt butter over medium heat, and then add flour, stirring constantly until smooth. Slowly add in the half and half and then begin adding cheeses one at a time. Continue mixing until the cheese is melted completely. Pour mixture over macaroni and stir until cheese sauce covers all noodles.

Top with crushed bread crumbs and then add crumbled bacon and sliced green onions (to taste). Bake uncovered in an oven set at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

This guilty indulgence was a BIG hit with the family and makes a perfect main dish to add along with your other Big Game snack foods – like hot wings!

Tyson hot wings are located in your local Walmart deli and are really nice because they are precooked – meaning grab and go! I love to cook, but I always have certain items that I just buy instead of make – like these. They taste delicious and are a great price!

Do you have any plans for next weekend? Are you going out somewhere or staying home with the family? If you're out and about - make sure you keep your eyes open at Walmart for some of their delicious Tyson hot wings Demos! 

~Melissa

Favorite Moment From This Week

 I've gotta admit it, this last week I worked way too much for my liking, and this week will be the same. Fortunately I'm nearly through filling in and training new hires, so it looks like I won't be working outside of the home at all next month! I'm ready for a little break. As a new week approaches I looked back through all of the photos and events over the past seven days, and this stuck out more than anything else.

Emma got to read to her Papa for the first time. 

Before my dad left last Monday (after traveling up for her birthday party) Emma sat down with him and read from her Dick and Jane book - the same book we used to teach Anika how to read.

As I glanced over and watched them read I had to take out my camera and snap a few quick photos of the two of them sharing a special moment together. 

This by far was the best memory that I had this week.

What was your favorite memory?

~Melissa