S'mores and more...

I started writing a post about enjoying s'mores in the summer and then it turned into so much more!

When the weather starts to warm up, my family and I like to cook s'mores using our fire pit in the backyard.  One thing I have learned is the marshmallows roast the best if you wait for the flames to go down and you are left with hot coals-unless you like to catch them on fire! My goal is to have them turn a nice brown color.  If you do not have a fire pit, another method would be to use your BBQ to roast them. I had never tried this before, so I had my son roast a marshmallow over the grill. The marshmallow melted, but it did not turn brown.

We sometimes get a craving in the winter for a s'more, and the oven works in a pinch:

• Put a marshmallow and piece of chocolate between two graham crackers.  
• Wrap in a piece of foil (engrave your initials in the foil if you don't want anyone stealing your creation). 
• Place in a 300 degree oven for 5-10 minutes. Be careful when you unwrap them; they will be hot and gooey. 

One of my pet peeves about s'mores made outdoors is my chocolate does not always melt and is hard when you bite into it. Since I like my chocolate warm and beginning to melt, I decided to run some experiments. In the past, I tried to put chocolate on top of one graham cracker and cook it in the microwave. But I usually end up cooking the chocolate for too long and I end up with a mess. For my first experiment, I put some chocolate on a graham cracker and put it on a piece of foil and laid it on the BBQ grill.  This didn't work too bad, but a word of caution, don't leave it there too long or you will burn your graham cracker and your chocolate with completely melt! For my second experiment, I placed some chocolate on half a graham cracker and put my treat on a stainless steel turner.  I was excited as I balanced it carefully and placed it near the coals.  Everything would have been fine, but my husband accidentally bumped the turner and my creation fell in the fire pit!! By that time I just gave up and my family asked me why I don't just put my hot marshmallow immediately on my piece of chocolate. That's great if you can get in on quick and don't get distracted!

The messy result of using the BBQ to cook my s'more

All this experimenting got me thinking. Sometimes I like to create and enjoy being adventuresome when it comes to cooking.  I also am trying to eat better, so this led me down the path of finding a recipe for homemade graham crackers and marshmallows. Therefore, I began another experiment making s'mores with homemade graham crackers and marshmallows.  The results were mixed. I had some frustration with the marshmallows, and figuring out the best way to put it in the pan to set up. I realized too late how quickly the marshmallows set up. I ended up with a sticky blob, but the taste was better than they looked. At this point I wondered what I got myself into, but I am stubborn and wanted to see the thing through. I then moved on to the graham crackers. Although making them was easy, the process of rolling them out proved more difficult. The dough was on the dry side and I was not able to roll it out as thin as I'd like. On the plus side, my family and I thought they tasted great, but they seemed more like a cookie than a cracker.  I am aware that the issues I had were most likely operator error and if I try them again, I will make some adjustments. For the finale, I made a s'more (in the oven) with my homemade creation and the result was very tasty. My curiosity resulted in a lot of work for me, but in the end I learned some new ways of doing a job and I realized it didn't have to be perfect.

Lately I have been using dark chocolate, as I prefer that to milk chocolate. I heard about using other candy in place of regular chocolate. Share any variations you enjoy in the comments.