When you don't have a mix

And with this recipe you'll never need one again.

WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT BROWNIES (Courtesy: Recipezaar)
35 min 10 min prep

1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
*Whatever Floats Your Boat: 1-2 cup chocolate chips (semisweet, white, butterscotch, peanut butter) or raisins or chopped maraschino cherries or nuts or M&M's or Reese's pieces or miniature marshmallows

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Grease an 8 inch square pan or line with foil.
3. In a medium bowl combine melted butter and cocoa and stir until cocoa is dissolved.
4. Add sugar and mix well.
5. Add eggs one at a time and stir until well combined.
6. Stir in vanilla, flour and salt until you no longer see any flour (do not overmix).
7. Fold in "WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT"!
8. Spread in pan and bake for approximately 25 minutes.
9. DO NOT OVER-BAKE -- your brownies will come out dry. Adjust time/temp accordingly or your oven. If you do the knife/toothpick test, it should come out with moist crumbs, not clean.
10. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

*I added in a cream cheese swirl: 8 oz cream cheese, 1/2 c sugar and 1 egg. Yum!

Giving Auntie Anne a Run for her Money

I made soft pretzels wrapped around hot dogs for dinner last night. Picky Brad raved. Actually raved. He's never done that before. I am now officially a successful homemaker.

Here is the recipe (which is obviously from the back of a flour bag):


To make the pretzel-dogs, I wrapped the 16-inch rope around the hot dog and proceeded with all the rest of the instructions (rising, boiling in baking soda-water for ten seconds, salting, baking, buttering and baking again). This recipe isn't as hard as it sounds. And it's worth it, man!

I replaced the shortening with an equal amount of butter and used much less water and baking soda for boiling since I had a smaller saucepan.