When I was growing up, I got used to the sight of him sitting down at the kitchen with a bowl of shelled nuts and a nutcracker. He’d crack away, and I’d sit next to him and crack an almond here or there, since they were my favorite. Every now and then, he’d crack a walnut and I’d be in awe, since those are really tough to manage.

Well, my dad still snacks on nuts, and he also likes them in his baked goods. When given the choice between chocolate chips or nuts, he’ll go nuts all the way. But I say, why choose? So these brownies are full of both chopped walnuts and chocolate chips. Hello, old school brownies!

I am so incredibly beyond excited that Friday looms. This week, I had to drive about 25 miles each way to a class and then sit all day and learn. I love learning, but I don’t love driving. I also don’t love sitting for long periods of time. Being in motion is key.

Movement is a friend. When we don’t move, we get all sore and achy. I’m sure you’ve had that same experience. Still, a day loafing on the couch is warranted now and then. Do you have any of those in your future?

Some of life’s finest moments revolve around a couch, a blanket, and a classic dessert. Sometimes I opt for truffles, if Kenny’s been a sweetie and kept my supply nice and stocked. But when there are no truffles, a brownie will do just as well!

Confession: as much as I love the velvety texture of a brownie without any mix-ins, there are times when I really crave that extra crunch. A brownie with walnuts and chocolate chips has enough crunch to make anybody happy.

These are fudgy enough for any picky brownie eater too, in case you couldn’t tell. I’ve never made a cakey brownie in my life, and I don’t intend to start now!

Hope your weekend is filled with good snacks and lots of downtime. If you want that extra dose of relaxation, try a nutcracker. It can be very satisfying. Just ask my dad!

Well, you might not realize that if you don’t live near an east coast beach town. For those of us who are in the know about boardwalk treats, we get the joy of candy shops with thick slabs of fudge for sale everywhere. It can’t be beat!

I’m not due to hit the beach for another month or so, and I could just throw up my hands in despair and decide to wait. Or I could make this rocky road fudge, which takes about five minutes to put together and tastes oh so beachy!

For her birthday a few weeks ago, we gave my daughter a doll and a tricked-out stroller. She really wanted an American Girl doll, but I mean, come on. They’re a hundred bucks a pop, and that’s before clothes and accessories. Plus, she’s a child. Can she really take care of a hundred dollars’ worth of anything? We had doubts.

I’m glad we got her the cheaper doll, since she’s been dragging it around by its hair or swinging it by its arms. I feel really badly for the poor doll. She’s probably wondering why she had the rotten luck of being adopted by this crazy family.

The other day, my mother brought over the doll cradle that I used when I was growing up, and I was actually surprised to see that it was in pretty good condition. But then I got to thinking about it, and I took pretty good care of my toys. I was never neat, and I was certainly no angel of a child. But somehow, the toys stayed nice.

With my kids, it’s a totally different story. They’re not precisely destructive, but they’re not good at understanding how caring for something lengthens shelf life. So in yet another episode of Mir’s Mom Guilt, I ask you: how to create learning opportunities for them? Short of confiscating all their toys, that is?

I’d like to see somebody try and confiscate anything of mine. I’d be pretty fierce. Especially if they were trying to take away dessert. Not happening!

Whenever I’m in a hurry, I make fudge. Seriously. The whole thing takes less than five minutes, thanks to our good friend, Mr. Microwave. And after the requisite chill time, it’s time to dig in!

This fudge is loaded with mini-marshmallows, walnuts and lots of chocolatey goodness. Your inner rocky road fanatic will be quite pleased!

If you can’t get to a beach town this summer, here’s the next best thing. Give it a shot!

Not me, unfortunately. My beloved Indianapolis Colts exited the season before the playoffs, so I selfishly stopped caring too much about the outcome of any games, except to hope that the Patriots don’t once again take it all. Tom Brady must’ve made a deal with Satan a long time ago to be both talented and good looking. I have issues with that man.

But no matter what happens with the actual game, I never pass up a chance to make amazing football food. And what better than a giant hunk of fudge shaped like a football? Nothing, I tell you. It’s the best!

This past weekend we had Monday off, so we bundled everyone up and drove out to the Baltimore Inner Harbor to their world-famous aquarium. It’s an amazing place set right over the water, and the building is ingenious. The whole building basically mimics the levels of the ocean with visitors descending via ramps as they fish-watch (or shark-watch) into darker depths.

And of course, there’s the dolphin show. Kids love a good dolphin show, and actually, so do I, as long as we stay out of the splash zone. Do you ever wonder why people like sitting in the splash zone and getting purposely doused with dirty, fishy water? And the day we went, it was about 10 degrees outside. Why would you do that to yourself? Then you could turn to a fishy water popsicle if you venture back outside.

The only bone anyone has to pick with the Baltimore Aquarium is its price tag. It’s $40 a ticket for adults and $25 for kids. We’re a family of five, so do the math. Let’s just say that we had to make sure we saw every inch of that aquarium, or we would feel that our money was not well spent. And we also were mean parents and refused to buy anyone a stuffed dolphin. The little angelic children were really mad about that.

When we got home, I wanted two things: a blanket and some fudge. Luckily, both were readily available. As you know by now, fudge is not hard to make. Watch!

My only caution to you would be to be much smarter than I was. For the football molds, I used a plastic candy mold. MISTAKE. I should have used something bendy, like silicone. Live and learn. Getting that fudge out of the mold was sheer hell. That’s why it’s not featured in my video.

We can survive any number of freezing cold aquarium trips if there’s fudge at the other end of the rainbow, so bear that in mind. And if you care about the Super Bowl outcome, good luck to your team! Unless it’s the Patriots. They don’t need no more help.

Happy New Year! It’s my first post of 2016, and I’m so excited to see what this year will bring!

If there’s one food I want to see lots of in the coming year, it’s homemade bread. We’re all familiar with the yeasty goodness of bread that doesn’t come in plastic bags from the grocery store, and it’s so easy to get a perfect loaf with just a little help from my best friend, a.k.a. the bread machine. Life was so cold and dark before we met!

Luckily, fresh bread is always possible, and this one is special. It’s made with mostly whole wheat flour, which will help you stick to your healthy eating resolutions. It’s also full of walnuts for an extra protein punch, not to mention sweet Craisins® Dried Cranberries. It’s a loaf worth making!

On a day like today, I really need the extra sustenance. Studies have shown that today is one of the trickiest of the whole year. People drag themselves back to work and school from the celebrations of weeks past and realize that winter is ahead. If you look at it that way, it can be pretty grim.

But there’s so much to look forward to! Good TV, for instance. A lot of shows took mid-season breaks, but now they’re back. I’ll get to find out if the world ends on Heroes: Reborn, or find out if the world ends on Once Upon a Time. Now that I think about it, maybe I should stop watching television shows that deal with any coming apocalypse. It might explain those disturbing dreams I keep getting.

When I wake up after a night of dreaming and prepare for a day of work after a too-short winter break, I need to have a motivating force to propel me out of bed and into the cold, dark morning. And that force is bread, pure and simple. How could breakfast get any better?

If I’m feeling energetic, the best topping for this bread is cream cheese. But honestly, if I’m in a rush, I’ll eat it alone. There’s so much flavor happening here. Plus, the walnuts provide protein while the Craisins® give me that sweet zing I crave every morning. And with the whole wheat flour, this healthy bread gets me through until lunch. When I have more of the bread, of course. I made sandwiches with this for my kids, and they had a ball calling it “crazy bread.” For years, they’ve referred to Craisins® as “Crazies.” I love it.

And if I’m not packing my Craisins® into the best bread ever, then I’m sending them to work and school with everyone. This time of year, when packing lunches gets harder and harder as we try to find new foods to make everyone happy, we know we’ll always be good with Craisins®! After all, fresh fruit is hard to come by in the winter, but these magical “Crazies” equal a fruit serving.

You might be fighting off a case of the post-holiday blahs, but remember that good things are still in store! Fresh bread and good TV make life better. Instead of making New Year’s resolutions you can’t keep, focus on the joys of life and make this a year to remember!

To find Craisins® and other products (like new Craisins® Fruit Clusters), look in the dried fruit section at Walmart!

Nah, they’re too popular to miss me. And when I pass a scoop shop, I walk in. But at home, I’m too busy concocting fun ice cream flavors. This one is perfect for your summer celebrations because I think it’s totally original, plus it’s easy. Three base ingredients, everyone! It takes about two minutes to throw together.

You know what takes a lot more time? Like, a lot? Getting my hair done. Which is bizarre, because I have low-maintenance hair. It’s curly. But ever since the grays began popping out like overeager distant relatives who keep coming by to visit unannounced, I have to get it dyed every few months, which takes hours. And I should be doing it more often because the grays come back in a much shorter time. I’m just never up for sitting in a chair for hours on end.

When I was getting my summer fun shade put in yesterday (eggplant, woohoo!), the hair washing person began giving me my scalp massage and head rub. I always dread this part of the appointment. I know a lot of people enjoy getting their heads rubbed, but I have never been one of them. I mean, they’re not massaging sore muscles. Can they put that pressure on my quads instead? Or if we’re keeping it close to the hair, my completely f-ed up neck muscles?

But I always wonder if it’s rude to ask the head rubber to stop her good work, so I sit through it quietly and try not to think about anything funny, like what it must look like for me to be reclining in a massage chair in sweats and sneakers while a bored-looking hair washer rubs my forehead.

It’s awkward moments like this where I dream up ideas for baking, or even better, ice cream flavors. And this one is definitely worth trying.

To make this ice cream, you’ll need those Nestle filled chips, the cherry flavor. They’re so good. You’ll also need roasted salted walnuts. Those are your two mix-ins. But the ice cream itself is what I’m talking about here. Ready?

Cool whip. Sweetened condensed milk. Cocoa. That’s all, folks. Mix, fold in your chips and walnuts, and freeze overnight. When you wake up in the morning, you’ve got amazing chocolate ice cream with the best crunchy bits! It’s like a summer miracle. Heck, summer itself is a miracle. Ice cream just makes it better.

You probably can’t do anything to control those grays replacing the color in your hair other than face the stylist. And you definitely can’t do much about awkward moments other than take your mind elsewhere. So free your mind, and the ice cream ideas will follow!

Take my husband, for instance. I knew him for 7 years before we even thought about dating. I mean, it’s not like I never noticed him. He was super adorable. How could I not? But for some reason, it just didn’t click for quite some time that he was the man I was meant to be with. Luckily, we both figured it out.

I feel the same way about these brownies, though on a slightly less major level. I’ve made brownies for years. I’ve loved rocky road anything for years. Why have I never done this?

These are incredible. Rich, fudgy (and gluten-free too, though you’ll never know it), dense brownies packed with marshmallows, walnuts and chocolate chips, topped off with more of the same. Let’s just say that if these brownies don’t do it for you, nothing will. I mean that most sincerely.

If you don’t have oat flour and have no problem with gluten, just use flour. I need to bake gluten-free a lot for Kenny (my aforementioned soul mate) so that he doesn’t start eating the kids’ snacks and get sick. But you can use flour. Either way, you won’t notice a difference!

If you can wait to cut these, I’ll admire your restraint. If you can’t, you’ll get a lot of melty chocolate and marshmallow pulling at your knife. I managed to hold back until all was cool, but I had the pictures to think of. You have no such restriction!

If you’ve ever had anything staring you in the face for years before you finally saw the light, you need to make these. This recipe is easy, quick, fun and the best moment of enlightenment I’ve had this month!