Who loves movie night? I do!

It’s kind of amazing that after so many years and experiences, movie night still makes my heart go pitter-patter. There’s just something unquestionably fun about breaking out of the nightly bedtime routine with my kids and letting us all relax and enjoy a great movie!

On December 8th, Minions was released, and we’re celebrating with this candy-coated movie night minion popcorn! You’ll love it as much as you love those little yellow guys in goggles.

Typically, I hold my kids to a pretty tight schedule. As a teacher with 16 years of experience, I believe strongly that routines are a necessary part of raising children. They help provide structure, teach people what to expect, and instill a certain degree of both security and discipline.

But now and then, all of that can just go away. Shoo. Let’s have a good time!

If you have a Minions movie fanatic at your house, the best way to make that little person happy is to do a Target run. You can get the movie itself (the Minions Metal Pak Blu-ray/DVD Deluxe is a Target exclusive with 40 minutes of Target Exclusive content), you can buy minion books, toys and swag (my son has the PJs and he loves them), and you can also shop for movie night snacks!

This popcorn is easy, quick, and irresistible. When I served it to my kids, they swarmed around it like the cute little vultures they are. It disappeared!

All you need is microwave kettle corn, blue and yellow jelly beans, honey roasted cashews, and some yellow candy melts. Four ingredients and you’re good to go! When you serve this yellow-coated popcorn with the Minions movie, it’s bound to be a night everyone will remember. Plus, all the kids get to stay up late. They love that.

You can even make the popcorn with your kids. I’m pretty sure that they’ll snag a jelly bean or two while you’re mixing everything together, but that’s to be expected. Hey, it’s part of what makes this popcorn fantastic. Kids love eating the food they make themselves!

Now that we’re all set for movie night, it’s time for me to sit back and relax and eat popcorn with my kids while we all laugh together. The best part is, Target is offering a $5 gift card with purchase of the MetalPak edition of the Minions movie, so now I get to go and spend it on something for me. Will I go for candy or lip gloss? Decisions, decisions. But I’ll worry about that later. For now, it’s showtime. And if you have movie night snack ideas, be sure to share them in the comments below!

You know, the ones that don’t have eyeballs or gummi worms all over them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I saw a spiderweb chocolate tart a week or two ago that was so gorgeous it made my mouth drop open.

These truffles are easy and a perfect Halloween party treat. They’re simply marzipan dipped in chocolate with some orange flair! Orange is the new black and all. At least, this time of year.

The onslaught of holidays between October and January makes the descending temperatures more bearable. I mean, we’re distracted, making cute crafty things and getting our inner Martha Stewarts on. It’s fun. But what happens January 2nd? Ever thought about that?

Pure freezing sadness, people. Seriously. It’s cold and bleak, and the winter stretches on through the next two and half to three months. Maybe Valentine’s Day helps a bit, but there’s just no way to love February.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, except to tell you to get your holiday on while you can. Because after that, it’s all about those sad trees with no leaves. That’s why the yellow, orange and red-leafed trees give me pause. Beautiful, yes. The beginning of the end, also yes.

Okay, now that I’ve depressed you, I’ll lift your spirits with these truffles. I dipped them, but my kids helped with the piping. Can you tell? I decided to sacrifice straight lines for happy children. Besides, they look more Halloween-like this way anyway, with all the twisted lines. Right?

These could not be easier to put together. Buy marzipan at the store, check. Dye it orange with food gel, check. Roll into balls and dip into melting chocolate, check. The orange candy melt flair is optional. Just use a chocolate melting candy you like. Ghirardelli is my favorite, since the quality of their melting chocolate is pretty great.

The best thing about dipping marzipan is that it doesn’t want to fall apart in the chocolate melts. It goes in and out like a charm. No worries, mates!

When all’s said and done, you have yet another Halloween treat, and this one is cute and snazzy. It would be a welcome addition to any grown-up costume party, so if you’re lucky enough to have plans, take these along! If not, join me. I’ll be cowering behind my front door, avoiding trick-or-treaters and thinking about summer. Because those cold months, they’re a-coming!

But you see, kids, I love holidays. Before holidays, there was darkness and cold. Holidays bring sprinkles and light. So you can bet that Irish or not, I’m getting into my St. Patrick’s baking groove.

But before I do that, I want to take a minute to remember Mr. Spock. As you know, Leonard Nimoy passed away a few days ago, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t say anything about him. Because, though you may not suspect it, I used to be kind of in love with him.

No joke. I think I was about eight at the time and firmly entrenched in my Star Trek phase. I even had a uniform, that of the ubiquitous red-clad anonymous officer who always winds up getting killed in every episode. I went to conventions. I memorized all 79 original episodes. And yes, I thought that Spock was a lot sexier than Kirk.

Though both my childhood crush on Spock and my obsession with the show both ended by the time I hit adolescence, I still love the show and anything connected to it, especially Leonard Nimoy. When he showed up in the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies I got super pumped, and I say with absolute sincerity that he left the world a different and better place than he found it.

I realize all this has nothing to do with my St. Patrick’s treat today, but you know, my mind jumps around. Doesn’t yours?

These are the first Rice Krispies treats I’ve posted on my blog, and why? Well, honestly, because everyone can make Rice Krispies treats and they’re as old as America itself. But when you shape them like shamrocks and dip them in white chocolate melts dyed green, that’s another matter entirely.

Oh, and the sprinkles. Did I mention the sprinkles? I ordered them special from Amazon. They’re Wilton brand. Wilton, I love you. If you ever want me to do promotional posts for you, call me. I use your stuff and promote it for free, though, including your holiday-themed sprinkles.

And you know, shamrock krispy treats are strangely appealing to anyone who comes across them. I saw so many pairs of eyes light up at the sight of these lucky little treats that I’m convinced even more that holidays need to be celebrated with food. Not that I really needed to be persuaded of that.

So even though I’m not Irish, enjoy these. I’ll have more to come as we get closer to the big day! And to all my fellow Star Trek fans out there, I can only say:

Live Long and Prosper.

Earlier today, my son threw away a broken paper fan. As he was getting rid of it, he eyed the plastic casing for the fan and said, “Maybe I should keep this. It might be useful.” I, the anti-hoarder, made it pretty clear that a broken fan plastic casing would never, in any way, be remotely useful.

Now, if I were to hoard anything in this world, it would be baked goods and chocolate. Earlier, I pulled a chocolate-dipped peanut butter Oreo out of the freezer and munched on it. It had been triple-wrapped and frozen since December. But you know, that stuff never gets hoarded for long. Somehow, even with things frozen away, I can’t forget about them.

Now that it’s Girl Scout cookie season, you can be pretty dang sure that I’m storing several boxes of GS cookies in the freezer as well. I’m one of those people who pulls out a sleeve of Thin Mints several months after prime GS cookie selling season and serves them to grateful house guests. If a Thin Mint tastes good in Feburary, its cool appeal is even more seductive in the heat of summer.

Now, I’m a Tagalong girl, and that ain’t no lie. But these right here are for you Thin Mint lovers out there. It’s a little bit of an extreme approach, but you know I’m all about decadence.

So what’s going on here? Simple. Chocolate cookie dough (egg-free, of course!) sandwiched between two Thin Mints and dipped into white chocolate. Yep. I did that. Feel free to let the binge session commence.

These are actually super simple to make, and you can either do fun drizzliness with the white chocolate or you can dunk the sandwich in whole. Or both, in my case. And if you have leftover cookie dough, make truffles!

These traveled with me to a housewarming party for some dear friends of mine, and boy, is their new house clutter-free. Seriously not one bit of mess in sight. So I added to it slightly with these bits of Girl Scout madness, and while they could hoard them, my guess is that everyone at the party ate them already. Moral of the story: don’t hoard, unless it’s chocolate. You can make Girl Scout season go a long way!

Confession time: I am not happy about this year’s Super Bowl. If you’re wondering why, just know that my hometown is Indianapolis, Indiana, a.k.a. home of the Colts. For those of you who follow football, you are probably realizing right about now that Tom Brady (along with his pretty face and his snooty supermodel wife) ranks pretty low on my list of famous people I’d hang out with.

So with the Patriots in the Super Bowl against Seattle (my feelings about them can best be described as “meh”), I have to fall back on treats. Not because I’ll be watching the game with any attention, you understand. Instead, I’ll just be hitting the buffet.

Since the Super Bowl hits so close to Valentine’s Day (if you’re reading this, Kenny, make dinner reservations before it’s too late!), I figured I should make hearts along with the footballs. And you know, they go surprisingly well together!

Whenever I’m dipping anything in chocolate, I like to simplify. You can use homemade brownies for this if you want, but I used a mix. Because Kenny doesn’t eat gluten, I used a GF mix, but you pick your favorite.

The key to making this work is to not overbake the brownies. You have to take them out of the oven when they’re barely done. They should be super fudgy. If you don’t have that consistency, you won’t be able to shape them.

Of course, chill time is also required here. You have to chill the shaped brownies before dipping them into your candy melts, or all will fall apart. So be patient! When you’re done, you’ll have a treat that will sweeten even the sourest of Super Bowl matchups.

Enjoy the big game, or not. Either way, make sure you have good snacks!

Yes, just like that noteworthy song, here’s another hit for you! Because who can ever say no to a dipped Oreo? I can’t. You shouldn’t, either.

Especially when the Oreo in question is the limited edition Pumpkin Spice flavor. And I put a cute little candy pumpkin on top! Sorry, but the cuteness factor here is getting to me. I can’t resist my own creation.

Neither could my creative writing class, by the way. These were gone pretty fast. It’s a good thing I ate one before the kids got to them. I literally put them on the desk in front of me and a bunch of kids surged toward me. I feared for my life.

Yep, teens and treats. They act like they’ve never eaten before. But I didn’t blame them here, because these Oreos are delicious.

And if you saw my recipe last week for chocolate-dipped Reese’s Oreos, you know that I’m a big fan of money-saving hacks. Why go get these at a store when they’re crazy simple to make yourself?

Especially because dipped Oreos, for whatever reason, are highly overpriced. I’m not down with that. I believe in good quality for less, which is why I bake brownies that give all the best bakeries in town a run for their money.

Before I come across sounding too high on myself, I’d better go. To a bakery. To apologize, because bakeries rock. Maybe I’ll bring them another batch of these to make amends!

My mom used to say that to me when I was growing up and I’d be all miserable because the girls in my class were mean evil witches. My goodness, when it comes to psychological torture, girls have it down pat. I’m still bowled over by the behavior my classmates exhibited toward me when I was a kid, and I kind of wonder how they live with themselves today. Are they telling their own kids to go out there and make fun of the kid in class who doesn’t have the perfect designer outfit?

Anyway, I could write about this forever, so I’ll pause here and talk about the proverbial lemonade from lemons thing. Or in this case, brownie truffles from an epic fail.

I was testing out another recipe yesterday and it just tanked. I’ve been working on developing the Bronut (my brownie/donut mashup, premiere date TBD) and I couldn’t get them out of my donut pan in one piece. So instead of smacking myself on the forehead, I dug the brownies out of the pan, mashed them up with frosting, shaped them into balls and dipped them in chocolate melts. Voila! Brownie truffles!

And very high quality ones, too. This brownie recipe is my all-time favorite for fudgy factor. So you can be sure that these truffles are rich.

And gluten-free. My first test batch had oat flour in it. Unfortunately, I think my next batch is going to use flour. But these truffles are safe for all tummies!

We all love truffles. And basically, this is a brownie pop without the stick. I don’t like to fool with sticks unless I have a ton of time, which I don’t. So you get to hold this in your hands and revel in the fudge overload. You can make your own chocolate frosting, but again, we all are short on time. I did my favorite time-saving trick of heading to my local bakery and buying a small tub of their chocolate frosting. That way, you don’t have to deal with the stuff in a can (I’m not the biggest fan of that taste), and you can still cut down on steps.

Remember, every problem is an opportunity. I’m grown up now and I’d flatten any of those mean girls with all the sassiness in my adult arsenal if I could, but the truth is, I’m stronger and a better person because of what they put me through. And these brownie truffles are equally formidable.

But sometimes I want to make my own. It’s cheaper, pretty easy, and I can get creative. The hardest part about making a truffle is really just deciding to buckle down and do it.

During this week’s trip to the grocery store, I finally found the Pumpkin Spice-flavored Oreos. I’ve been waiting to buy these suckers since they came out last month, but it’s been pretty hard to find them. Until now.

If you’re familiar with the traditional Oreo truffle, it’s a marvel of simplicity. You crush or process the Oreos in to fine crumbs, knead in cream cheese, and roll the mixture into balls before chilling and dipping into candy coating. Here they are all rolled and ready to go!

There are a few changes here. I lessened the amount of cream cheese because limited edition Oreo packages are much stingier and have fewer Oreos. I also didn’t fully finely crush the Oreos, since I like more texture in my truffle. But you’re welcome to totally pulverize those cookies! Either way, it’ll work out great.

How could it not? What could possibly be anything but amazing but these ingredients? If you have a few minutes, I recommend making some of your own. You know, for those days where there’s no Godiva handy!