It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas....holiday baking on a budget for Walmart

Today I was Supermom. Up at the crack of dawn to make our kitchen look a bit like Christmas (you'll see why later), made healthy breakfast for all of us, one school bus caught, one on time preschool drop-off, a little "me" time, a preschool pick-up, a lunch made, a walk to the neighbor's to drop my little one off so I could meet a producer from "More for My Family" on Yahoo Shine, and then I spent the next few hours filming a short gig on baking holiday gifts on a budget for Walmart. Then the producer left, I snapped the kitchen back into shape, made my children dinner and poured myself a (much deserved) glass of wine. Oh, and did I mention that it's my birthday? Had my extraordinarily thoughtful neighbor not popped over with flowers, I might have forgotten myself!

I promise to post the video once it airs. But, for those who cannot wait, here's the recipe for the Cinnamon Chocolate Brownies with Chocolate Ganache that I whipped up. I must say, this was an excellent challenge: come up with a homemade holiday gift that is under $5/each, including the packaging. I am proud to say that my recipe came in well under that amount. I shopped for all of my ingredients at Walmart ($19.29, and I have tons of flour, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla left over) and the festive mylar gift bags were only $1 for 20. One batch made 14 decadent little gifts, at just $1.50/each! Since my children have together come up with 27 teachers they'd like to give a gift to this holiday season, this tried and true recipe and packaging find are going to come in handy!