Chocolate Mint Brownies

I just used two boxes of brownie mix and cooked it in a jelly roll pan as directed.

Mint Frosting:

1/4 c softened butter

2 1/2 c powdered sugar

1 1/2 - 3 TBS milk

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

green food coloring

I doubled this recipe since I did the cookie sheet of brownies.  To make the mint frosting, cream the butter and sugar.  Add the milk 1 tbs at a time, beating until it is smooth and spreadable.  Beat in peppermint extract and tint to desired shade with greeen food coloring.  Frost the cooled brownies, cover, and chill 1 hour.  

Chocolate Topping:

3/4 c semisweet chocolate chips

3 tbs butter

I doubled this recipe too...Pour chips into microwave safe bowl, add the butter, and microwave on high for 1 1/2 min or until chocolate melts.  Stir until smooth.  Pour the chocolate over the brownies and smooth it with a knife.  Refrigerate for 45 minutes or until the coating hardens.  Bring brownies to room temperature, then cut into pieces.

Carmel Corn Recipe (the yummy, sticky, gooey kind)

1 1/2- 2 cups unpopped popcorn

Pop popcorn in air popper, sift out unpopped kernals.

2 1/4 c brown sugar

1 c butter

1 c light karo syrup

1/2 tsp salt

Mix together ingredients, heat on med to med/high, bring to a rolling boil.  Boil 1 minute, then remove from heat.

1 c sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla

Mix in sweetened condensed milk and vanilla.  Pour over popped corn and stir to cover.

Summertime Fun?

We have had such a busy summer so far!  The majority of the month of June we saw lots and lots of rain and cool weather.  Luckily we were able to plant the garden earlier in June and we have only had to water it once so far.  We have been running kids all around for baseball, softball, and soccer.  Cassy has softball games Mon and Wed. nights with a practice Sat. mornings.  Connor's games are Tues. and Thurs. nights.  Cassy has soccer three mornings a week at 8:00 am.  The whole Howard family has been busy doing fundraising so we can go to Jackson over the Fourth of July.  The girls have each hosted a "kids camp" at their houses.  The kids camp is a 4 hour block of activities and lunch.  We hosted 24 kids on our camp day (including 4 Howard kids) and it poured rain and hailed (so much that it looked like we had a layer of snow), lightening and thunder.  You name it we had it, even about a half hour of sun.  The sun lasted just long enough to set out the food and for all the kids to get their plates full and their lemonade poured, then the downpour started and everyone came running in, plates, cups and all.  What a mess!  We were so glad when our turn was over.  We are possibly going to host another one in July and in August.  We'll see if we can muster up the energy!  This last Saturday we had a garage sale and a bake sale at Grandma Maddy's, the bake sale continued on over at the Bike Shoppe til we were out of goods.  Overall we did quite well.  We made $165 at the bake sale and $275 at the garage sale, with a few more items to go on to the ksl classifieds.  The kids and moms have worked really hard and we plan on doing a car wash tomorrow to finish up before we go to Jackson Hole this Thursday.  We have earned enough to just have to pay about $100/family for the condo in Teton Village....yay!  

We have also been very busy hosting birthday parties for Connor and Addy this month and we were so excited to celebrate Connor's baptism on Sunday, June 20th.  He was so excited to be baptized.  I will talk more about it in another post.

I will include some of the yummy recipes we made for the bake sale.