Design: Garden Party

Our spouses' club has finished out our social year. Our last social was a lovely Garden Party. The original plan was to enjoy dinner outdoors and finish off with s'mores at the fire pit. The weather had other ideas and we were moved indoors. Our social chair managed to still prepare s'mores for us, so we didn't miss out on any deliciousness.

S'Mores Brownie Bars

If you follow me on Pinterest you know that I have a board totally dedicated to S'mores. I do not love s'mores more than the average person, but I think it would make a fantastic little bakery/shop. Just think how much fun it would be to visit a place dedicated to s'mores. You could roast marshmallows and make your own s'mores in the shop or enjoy many s'mores inspired goodies. I have a ton of great ideas for this s'mores shop. Maybe one day I'll find someone who compliments me in the business sense and will open one together.

In the meantime, I can experiment in my own kitchen.

Last week I made some yummy s'mores brownie bars based on this recipe from Erica's Sweet Tooth. I just made a slight alteration. The first alteration was that I used my own gooey brownie recipe (halved). The second alteration was instead of using a peanut butter swirl, we baked Take 5 bars into the brownie.

They were really yummy, but I did not take a picture. We just gobbled them up! I enjoyed the graham cracker layer on the bottom. The marshmallows on top were gooey and yummy. These are definitely a good take on a s'mores for when you're not near a campfire.

S'Mores Soirree

I've thought for a long time that someone should open up a shop specializing in s'mores. There are cupcake shops. Why not s'mores shops? I have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to s'mores and all the lovely varieties I have found.

To make up for this lack of s'mores goodness in the world, I planned a S'Mores event as a resident event. We had traditional s'mores, of course. But we also tried some different things. Here's the rundown of everything we had:

- honey graham crackers
- cinnamon graham crackers
- chocolate graham crackers
- gluten-free graham crackers (they happened to be shaped like cookies, so I think some people too them without knowing they were gluten free)
- Hershey bars
- Mounds Bars
- Peanut butter cups (my personal favorite)
- Peppermint Patties
- Little Debbie Brownies

The event started at 7pm and there were a few people inside figuring out what they wanted. I walked outside to check on the fire and there were a WHOLE BUNCH of people outside waiting. I was truly amazed at the number of people that came out for this event. Typically an event like this will draw maybe 30 people at the most. But I'm pretty sure we had closer to 100 people (if not more) at this event. It made me very proud of myself. Halfway through I had to run to the store to get more supplies because we ran out of chocolate. Oops!

I did not even get a chance to take many pictures because I was so busy keeping all the goodies stocked.

Indoor camping...that I can handle

My husband enjoys camping. I've been camping once in college. My roommate freshmen year begged me to go with her. I reluctantly went and and enjoyed it about as much as I thought I would. But it was good that I experienced it and can say with certainty that I don't enjoy camping.

Charles was gone basically all day on Saturday and I thought it would be fun to surprise him by setting up the tent for indoor camping. We enjoyed hot dogs and s'mores while watching 127 Hours. That is the movie about the guy who cut his own arm off. It was the closest outdoorsy movie we have, I think. My husband was pretty impressed that I set all this up for him.

Here are some pictures of our indoor camping:

We made hot dogs and topped them with cheddar cheese and BBQ sauce. We had never tried that before and it turned out pretty good.

My mountain range (I didn't want to leave the desk exposed)

Of course we had to have s'mores. (I think that's why I didn't like my only camping experience...we did not have any s'mores!). For our campfire, I used some taper candles. Instead of Hershey bars, we used Reese's peanut butter cups. Much better! Like my tree in the background? I cut a paper grocery bag and made the best tree I could.

Gotta camp under some stars!