S'mores Brownies

I somehow persuaded everyone to go eat lunch with me today at Bangkok House, my new favorite Thai place in Lexvegas. It is birthday week, after all, so that's really all the excuse we needed to get out of the office, not work, and not eat whatever else we brought for lunch today. Anyway, right after I showed him how to personalize ring tones, John "gently reminded" me that I should blog more, especially since he thinks he's hot stuff now that he has his own blog. I'm not one to get in a "blog-off," but just because I'm still in procrastination mode, and becuase I made something really good this week, here is a new recipe and a blog update for y'all.

S'mores Brownies
adapted from Food Network
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, finely processed
1/2 stick melted butter
1 box Ghirardelli brownie mix
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup water
1 egg
almost a whole bag of marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350. In a 9 x 13" pan, sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, combine graham cracker crumbs and butter. Press down into the bottom of the pan. Bake for 15 minutes, remove from oven to cool.
Meanwhile, make brownies according to package directions (mine called for oil/water/egg - yours may be different - but I highly recommend using Ghirardelli brand). Pour batter over the graham cracker crust. Bake until almost done, taking brownies out of the oven with about 5 minutes left to cook. Then, pour marshmallows all over the top of the almost-done brownies and stick them back in the oven to melt/get golden brown on top, about 5-7 minutes depending on the oven. Allow to cool completely before cutting. Enjoy!

The Food Network version tells you how to make the brownie part from scratch. This weekend, though, there just wasn't time for "made from scratch" brownies. So I used a box, and everyone here thought they were just fine. No complaints from broke and hungry grad students! These were seriously the bomb for me. I loved them. And I don't even care for s'mores all that much.

Happy Birthday Week to us all!