Vegas Brownies

Whenever I think of Las Vegas, I think of bright, flashy lights, extravagant shows, slot machines, black jack, and the phrase "winner winner, chicken dinner!" This coming from a girl who had never been to Vegas before this last week. On Wednesday, my boyfriend Ryan and I met another couple in Las Vegas for a vacation.  Now I don't know how to gamble and didn't feel like my black jack skills were up to par with the level of players that were at the tables, so I stuck to the slots machines with my friend, Lucy.  One particular marchine yelled "Hotshot!" and played jazzy music everytime a certain picture came up---I'm pretty sure that phrase and song will forever be burned in our minds after playing it so much.  The hotels were amazing, I felt like we were in some sort of fantasy world.  My only complaint for Vegas was the SMOKINESS of every single casino.  Coming from Austin where practically every restaurant and bar is "smoke-free," I was overwhelmed with wave of smoke that hit you everytime you walked into a hotel casino.  My clothes smelled like it, my hair smelled like it, and my eyes would get red and itchy from staying in it. Blah. 

Also, while I didn't lose a ton of money, I didn't come out on the upper end either. Pretty sure electronic slot machines only let you win enough to keep you playing, then make you spend it all and lose it again on the same machine.

On another note, the weather was really nice and one of my favorite parts of the trip was getting up in the morning and going running on the strip with Lucy.  Best way to sightsee when it wasn't nearly as busy as it would be later in the day.
One of the stores along the strip was an M&M store---four floors of M&M madness.  Whenever we ran by it, I immediatly thought "hey, I should get fun M&M's from there and make something for my blog." Ding, Another lightbulb. I remembered seeing a recipe for some really delicious looking blondies on another blog awhile back using pink and red M&M's for Valentine's Day. Perfect!  So dragging along the boys, we went back to the M&M store later that day so I could mix and match my own colorful arrangement for my blondies.

As soon as I got back to Austin, I immediately wanted to set to work on these. I couldnt't wait to use my pink mixer.  I found the recipe online from here for Brown Sugar Blondies and once again, I was thrilled by it.  Recipe called for MELTED butter.  Doesn't get much easier than that.  No room temperature stuff for these tasty treats. 

These blondies were so simple to make. I only wish I had doubled the batch so it would make more of them! They are sweet and buttery and wonderful. (And pretty with my personal color choice of M&M's)

I was too meticulous with the placement of M&M's on top of the batter. The recipe says to sprinkle 1/3-2/3 cup of M&M's over the top, but I individually placed them and didn't put enough so they looked kind of bare taking them out of the oven. No worries. I had some extra M&M's leftover and sprinkled them on top afterwards.

 This recipe is definitely going in the "make-again" folder. Hope you try it and enjoy!