Let the Family Fun Nights Commence!

Ever since we have moved to CA, my husband and I have revamped how we want our week nights to go. One thing we added was a Family Game Night. We figured the middle of the week seemed to be a good time to do this and saw it as a way to look forward to the rest of the week.

We decided that we wanted to spend more time with the kiddos after dinner and came up with family Game Nights during our Wednesday nights. We talk with Princess Pea on Sundays, during our family meetings, to see what she would like to have for dinner on Wednesday. We also let her pick out a board game to play after everything from dinner is put away (and if Cuddle Bug and Jelly Bean let us!).

The first week went well. We had a variety of foods to eat since we were doing a trial run of how the night went, and if need be, change up some things. We decided to have one main course and add two to three sides to the course, along with a special dessert. Last week we had pizza, hot dogs, and corn dogs. It was a bit much, dinner wise, but we thought Princess Pea would like to pick and choose what she wanted to eat from the choices we had to offer.

This week, we asked what Princess Pea what she would like to eat. She told us she wanted hamburgers with ketchup, miracle whip, mustard, cheese, pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes (a first time to hear this request for tomatoes). We also wanted some fruit with the fruit dip I made in the past for birthday parties. The hubby wanted cucumber salad and homemade potato chips. I opted to get one potato and one sweet potato just to change it up and I thought of a fun dessert.

The hubby picked up some magazines at our local commissary to see if there were any coupons in them. I flipped through it one day and found some to use, but they also had recipes for desserts and casseroles. One of the recipes caught my eye so I decided to take a closer look to see what it was all about. The recipe was called Double Chocolate Chip Cookie Marshmallow Treats. Mmm.... marshmallows..... Being the good, pregnant mother I am, I made these, along with some "homemade" caramel brownies, for dessert. They turned out to be a hit with the kiddos that I wanted to share the recipe with you!

What you need:

Betty Crocker Double Chocolate Chip Cookie mix*
11 regular marshmallows, cut in half to make 22, but only use 21
Smucker's hot fudge topping*
sprinkles

*The recipe calls for double chocolate chip cookie mix from Betty Crocker, but since our commissary didn't have it available, I went with the regular chocolate chip cookie mix. I also grabbed a big dark chocolate bar since our family are fans of the dark chocolate.*

Directions:

1.) Mix and bake the cookies according to package directions. The package claims it makes 2 dozen regular six cookies (teaspoon size cookies vs. tablespoon size cookies). I managed to get 21 cookies out of the mix so I guess it depends on how "rounded" you get your cookies, lol.

2.) While the cookies are baking, cut the marshmallows in half and set aside.

3.) Once cookies are finished baking, take them out of the oven and immediately put the marshmallow on top, pushing down on the cookie. Let it cool for a minute on the cookie sheet before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely. (The cookie directions, at least on mine, says to let them it for a minute before moving to the cooling rack).

adding marshmallow to cookies

4.) Since I did not buy the Smucker's hot fudge topping, I did a double broiler and melted the chocolate bar with a couple tablespoons of unsalted butter. I added maybe a tablespoon of corn syrup once the chocolate was all melted and smooth to kind of get it to "set up" the chocolate once it would start to cool. Anyway, make sure the cookies are cooled completely before adding the chocolate, hot fudge or otherwise. I didn't want my marshmallow to melt completely especially since the chocolate would be hot. BE SURE NOT TO MISS THIS STEP!! I just spooned enough melted chocolate on the marshmallow to let it run off the side of it a little. 

Melting chocolate on the double broiler

Chocolate added to marshmallows.

 

5.) Lastly, add the sprinkles on top and you're finished! I let the chocolate cool completely before I dug in. Of course I got these knocked out while everybody took a nap, so they were nice and cooled off by the time dinner was ready.

Don't mind the color of the sprinkles. They were the only ones I had on hand, lol!

Finished product!!

I hope you get to enjoy these as much as my family did! I think these will make another appearance not too distant in the future! ;-) :-P 

Until then, happy cooking and many blessings to you and your family!