A Yummy Study Break

With final papers to write and final exams to take on Monday and Tuesday, I don't have too many fun London updates right now. However, my friends and I decided to take a study break and acknowledge the fact that Valentine's Day is coming up! A bunch of us girls decided to have a potluck dinner tonight.

My roommate and I decided to contribute to the dessert menu by baking up something sweet. After all, who needs boys and bouquets when you can have...S'MORE BROWNIES!?

We had to make a few adjustments to the directions. A lack of mixing bowls meant we got creative with pots. Since we only have a giant baking tray, we prepared two batches of brownies in order to avoid making thin brownie crackers.

After perusing many recipes online, we decided to just add the marshmallows and crackers after the brownies baked. I was embarrassingly giddy when I found PINK and white mini marshmallows at Sainsbury's grocery store! Pink for Valentine's Day!! It's the little things...

Apparently the Brits don't eat graham crackers because this traditional s'more ingredient was nowhere to be found. Instead, we used plain "Digestives," a graham cracker-like biscuit with quite the...appetizing?...name. This biscuit brand is found in every store around London; I actually recommend the dark chocolate-covered variety.

We dealt with a minor crisis mid-baking. The brownies started to burn a little bit, but it was nothing a little scraping couldn't fix. The top looked a bit mutilated afterward, but no fear! The surface was then covered with marshmallows. We broiled the creation for a few minutes until the marshmallows were slightly brown. Then we pressed crumbled up crackers into the melted mallows.

Tada! Baking success!

I was worried there wouldn't be enough food for the 12+ people at dinner....HA! Us girls did good. There was a ton of food (and we managed to demolish most of it). Sauteed vegetables, cheesy sticks, salad, chicken, mac & cheese, pizza, lasagna, garlic bread, strawberries, cupcakes, brownies, ice cream....and everyone LOVED the s'more brownies!

This night felt pretty "American" to me. It was a table filled with young Americans, the meal was hastily eaten in less than an hour, the conversation focused on usual college-student topics, and the potluck was celebrating what has become a very Americanized holiday. 

Yet, this night was a fantastic memory to add to my study abroad experience. I was with many new faces in a new place, but the get-together made London feel that much more like home. Sometimes constantly moving from place to place--Boston to Virginia to London to New York--overwhelms me. Although I definitely have a passion for traveling and living in new places, I sometimes miss the familiarity of home: Shabbat dinner on Friday nights, watching DVR-ed episodes of The Office, taking a shower without having to wear silly shower shoes, tossing my laundry into a machine without sitting for hours in a damp laundromat, relaxing in bed without feeling guilty for being inside instead of exploring new surroundings. It's nights like these--taking a study break for a family-like, homemade dinner--that make it all worthwhile.

Plus, it helped that I had fantastic Valentines to share it with:

Lindsay missed the wear-pink-for-Valentine's-day memo

Hope everyone back in the States has a nice Valentine's Day tomorrow! I'm going to try to concentrate on my studies instead of the fact that in two days I'll be leaving for ITALY! :-)