Let's go to the MOOVIES!!!

I, like so many, many, other people, am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. Really REALLY huge. So I have now seen it twice. In less than five days. This, of course, means, that I have been in a Movie Theatre twice recently.
That got me thinking about popcorn, (you know), because in Movie Theatres there is lots of popcorn EVERYWHERE. :)
I was just wondering how you guys go about eating at Cinemas. Do you buy candy, or bring your own Popcorn?

(Sorry about the very short and incoherent post, I got about 5 hours of sleep last night, and still have to pack for two weeks of vacation...)

C.C.

Are they Cupcakes? Or are they Brownies?

A few months ago, I ran across this recipe while in a waiting room somewhere, and loved it immediately.
I was planning on making them for Father's Day, as the article suggests, but I forgot (of course!), and so I created them on Independence Day.

Here are a few things I learned:

Its best to make the brownie/cupcakes the day before you plan on serving them, just don't decorate until the day of. This way, they have a chance to cool, and you won't spend a good portion of the day in the kitchen.

GREASE THE BAKING CUPS. This seems obvious, and I am sure all you experienced bakers would do this anyway, but I skipped this step because the baking cups told me I did not have to. I DID HAVE TO, as it turns out. :)

Skip the dying of the icing and sticking it in a bag and all that. I tried that, made a huge mess, and it still did not work. On the second batch, I used black piping gel (it had sparkles, an added bonus for the "grill") that we picked up at the grocery store for like 3 dollars. Way easier, because not only does it use less ingredients, it has easier clean up, and is VERY easy to put on the cupcakes.

Make a glaze of confectioners sugar and water to brush on the cupcakes before you sprinkle on the sugar crystals for "embers". Otherwise, the crystals just fall off. I believe the recipe calls for putting the "grates" on and then the "embers", but that is just silly because embers on a real grill are below the grates, and the glaze is easy to assemble, as well as being clear.

I could not find any orange sugar crystals, so I used a combination of red and yellow. It seemed to work just as well, so no problem there...

Okay I think that is it :)

I did have one problem which is that I could not find and caramel-cream candies that were GF!! So i just used the non-GF kind, had my sister stick them on, and did not eat those brownies.

The Whole Batch:

 The "Hot Dogs":

 The "Kabobs":

A GF Fourth!!

First of all, let me start out by saying Happy Birthday America!! (Also, Happy Canada Day, even though that was a while back...)

Second, I hope you all had a nice Fourth of July, I know I did!!

This year was way easier food-wise than last year. For starters, we had less people over, and some of my friends that came were GF too, so that helped, but mainly it was just that I have been GF for over two years now, and this was my THIRD GF 4th of July, so I just am more comfortable. It also helped that my mom made all the food, and she is really good about cooking GF.

So I ate potato chips and a hot dog, and peppers. I made some really cute brownie-cupcakes (details posted soon), which were verrryy verryyy yummy). And after the fireworks, 2 friends and I split a pint of Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream. Needless to say, that kept us up for a good long time, far later than was probably healthy. :)

What did you all do for Independence Day?

C.C.