bangarang brownies.

it has become clear to me that i cannot tell a story without making some sort of 90's pop culture reference... so i'm just going to lean into it.

i was watching an old video from college of my friends & me hanging out, being weirdos, talking about nothing, really. but every.single.thing. that came out of my mouth was some sort of obscure reference to a movie, tv show, or song. once i noticed this... i was concerned, lol. who & what even am i?? just a millennial idiot box brain blob composed largely of 90's american pop culture tidbits?

it's partially true. a real product of my generation i am. can't be tamed. 

it is kinda funny (& special!) that peter and i get along so well because his well-rounded youth was spent not watching television and he doesn't understand any of my weirdass references. so i don't drop them around him anymore. but i mean, this does make me feel better knowing i'm actually not solely chocked full of nonsense and do have some other things to say, haha. 

there's just something fun & cool when you throw out a random line from a movie or song in a certain situation and someone else laughs and gets it. this is really a significant factor in many of my friendships actually, lolz. nostalgia is my THANG (in fact - as i write this, my friend & i are texting about the new mary poppins that comes out this xmas. hiii allison.)! 

so back to bangarang brownies - these brownies are bangarang. hello!!!! and bonus points because i live with someone named peter and i get to say "bangarang, peter" a lot. 

also. "oh there you are, peterrrrrr."

wow, this youtube rabbit hole i'm in is becoming the exact tangent i had on 'the little rascals'  25th anniversary from this old post about grape juice.  because this hook 25th anniversary video is equally amazing.  and bless you movie people for making 25 year reunion compilations of my ultimate faves. 

apparently food things & childhood nostalgia go very much hand-in-hand for me. 

growing up, i wanted nothing more than a colorful food fight like in 'hook'. like the colors of these tulips! brownies really have nothing to do with the movie 'hook' except for the fact that i shouted 'bangarang' when tasted THIS incredible brownie batter:

^would like to frame this. you should have seen my face when i tasted it. eyeballs exploding out of my head. the flavor is incredible. 

i would even stop right here and freeze this batter in mini cupcake tins to have little bite-sized frozen treatzies... but i dunno much about raw egg consumption, so do what you will.

the kahlua + espresso really do the damn thing for me. YUM.

^ left one section mallow-free just for variety. 

i would highly recommend serving these while they're warm so the marshmallow is still gooey! all the textures are stellarrrrrrrr. yer gunna love it. 

Bangarang Brownies

Makes 12-15 brownies

Total Time: 9x13 inch pan - 40 minutes, 8x8 inch pan - 1 hour

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened - browned is ideal! you can follow this brownie recipe here for browned butter
  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • 3 eggs, room temperature
  • 1 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp. fine sea salt
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
  • 1 TB espresso powder (optional, but delicious)
  • 1 TB Kahlua (optional, but also delicious)
  • 12-15 big marshmallows

Instructions-

Brown the butter in a pan (follow these instructions in my other brownie recipe), let cool in a bowl in the fridge for 5 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a 9x13 or 8x8 pan with parchment paper and spray lightly with cooking spray. While the browned butter is still warm, add to a large bowl or stand mixer with the brown sugar, mixing until glossy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix. Add the vanilla, flour and walnuts separately, mixing in between additions. Finally add the espresso powder and kahlua and mix to combine. 

Spread the brownie batter in the prepared pan and bake according to the size of your pan and thickness of the brownies:

9 x 13 inch pan -  check at 20 minutes

8 x 8 inch pan - check at 40 minutes

When the brownies are not yet baked all the way through, remove from oven and top with large marshmallows. Raise oven heat to 450 degrees F and broil the marshmallows until golden, about 5 - 7 minutes. Do not over-bake the brownies.

 

qp

ireland.

christmas eve in dublin!

traveling to ireland was the whole goal behind planning this europe trip. in my schemey little head i figured... yeahhhh christmas in dublin. that will be rad and cute as shit. 

i was only partially correct - christmas eve in dublin was rad and cute as shit. christmas day in dublin = total ghost town. 

we stayed in a little airbnb cabin in dublin one, on the north side of river liffey. it was very minimal & simple, but it was really all we needed for a few days in dublin. staying on that side of the river was just fine and there were plenty of places to walk to, but we discovered it was way more happening on the south side of river liffey. everything was very walkable.

even though most restaurants & businesses were preparing to close down for the next couple of days, we had SO much fun on christmas eve. we decided to grocery shop for our christmas day meals since we found out everything would be closed on christmas day (and pretty much everything the day after christmas, too). look how insane the grocery store check-out was on christmas eve:

^ we found our namesake pubs. donoghue is my grandparents' last name on my mom's side, and then there's peter! didn't find any zerkel anythings when we were in germany, but lots of peter things!

we knew we weren't going to be able to go to the guinness storehouse or jameson distillery once we found out everything closes december 25th & 26th, so we really did it up on christmas eve.

temple bar neighborhood was all christmasified and it seemed like everyone in the city was out and about with their families. all the pubs were packed and it was awesome. i loved that everyone was out on the town.

there are tons of pubs everywhere and lots of them had live bands playing which we enjoyed. hot tip: eat dinners fairly early - we had a hell of a time getting dinners on multiple occasions in europe because restaurants close their kitchens super early... on christmas eve most places closed their kitchens at 6pm and we were hauling ass all over the place probably looking psychotic running in panting "is your kitchen still open?!?!??!!!!!!!!!"

we ended up finding ONE tapas restaurant that still had their kitchen open (and this was like 7pm!) and we had a really great waiter with a cool life story. he talked super fast but he was so interesting and smart and knew more about american politics than most americans that i know. turns out he didn't actually work there haha, his friend who owned the restaurant just asked him to help that day. he was just bopping around to the tables and drinking wine with everyone. we were just SO relieved to be eating food so i having a grand ol time.

christmas day! it poured rain! woohooo merry christmas!!! also - picture a complete ghost town with nobody around and no businesses open to go sit inside. we went on a super long walk just to feel like we did something and get out a little bit.

back it upppp - we did go to christmas eve midnight mass at christchurch which was an interesting thing to experience while in ireland. it was a very old cool church and the choir singers were pretty incredible - they did perform a couple of classic christmas songs which made me happy.

we walked all the way to the bay and back.

^ here's our weird grocery store christmas breakfast and our weird grocery store christmas dinner. i don't hate it.

a funny little dublin experience since it was not what i'd anticipated (lolz obviously this very catholic nation would close down on christmas), but we had a good time anyway!

on to galway...

we rented a car and drove across to galway on the west coast of ireland. we stayed at another airbnb cabin in kinvara, a town about 30 minutes south of galway. we liked this cabin experience - as long as somebody knew how to maintain the woodstove (our neighbors in the next cabin bailed because they didn't know how to make fires in the stove and it was cooold...) and mentally get over the composting toilet situation, it was clean & cozy! basically all of the airbnbs we booked for this entire trip were under $100/night, so there were some trade-offs haha.

we had a great experience in kinvara. it was a small community where everybody knows everybody. the pubs were super cozy and we had a very special and authentic live music experience at one of the pubs - where i had the best irish coffee ever and sat by a fire (my pub dreams, realized haha)! some folks that chatted with us happened to be friends with our airbnb hosts. it was all very cozy & tight knit, which was the irish experience i think we'd envisioned we have when planning this trip. 

kinvara also felt straight outta BABE. not babe, pig in the city. OG BABE.

when we ever go back to ireland we will be spending a lot more time driving around the countryside! there's so much to see.

cliffs of moher!

SO CRAAAZY these cliffs are!

spoiler alert: we are about to get engaged. right. here.

backstory: i was being kinda grumpy & irritated with my camera and was mad at the sun for casting such strong shadows on the cliffs, HA. and i was pissed at the wind and having to adjust my hat & hair constantly. i just wanted to take some freaking cool photos of these freaking cool giant cliffs, mmmkaaaay. i was prob also on edge (literally, Lolololzzz) from driving on the left side of the road, and everyone knows i'm the most annoying backseat driver on earth. so, getting out of the car after an hour drive on narrow winding roads where i constantly thought we were gunna crash into the stone wall barrier (which seemed to be approximately 12 inches away from the passenger window at all times) - not the most relaxed version of me there could be. 

my only suspicions:

-pete let me sleep in that morning and didn't tell me to get up (which is very out of character hahah). he quietly made coffee and a fire in the woodstove so i wasn't cold when i got up. i just thought he was being sweet because it was almost my birthday :)

-he was also suddenly very into taking selfies on this trip. we had taken like a zillion selfies together in london and it continued in ireland...i was kinda like  heh??? what's this??  we're usually lucky if we take one selfie or get a photo of the two of us together during a given trip.

selfie time is here agaaaain

oh how majestic this place is. howbout a selfie!?

but really, it was so gorgeous and we were lucky to have such good weather that day. i surrendered wrestling with my big camera and put it away and also my hat. i was getting un-grumpy just taking it all in.

WHOOMP THERE IT IS

i handed my phone to a random guy to take our photo right here; i turn back and BAM pete is on his knee waving a loose ring in the air. reminder: it was very windy, there's a foreign stranger with my phone, and we're on the side of the largest cliff i've ever seen, so this moment was quite overwhelming for me. 

overwhelming in the best way, though. :)  thanks, petey, for this very epic & special memory. 

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy

hey so now we're engaged and i have your grandma's ring on (which means everything to me and i feel soooowowowwowoooooo crazy honored to have it)..... let's go have some guinness and celebrate! 

galway - so cute right now.

my forever boo.

loved you, ireland. we just got a tiny taste of you, but we made some very big memories. you are really something. 

 

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