Winter Wonderland...

At work the other day, I overheard a conversation referring to "North Carolina" as "up North," and by reference anyone who has lived there should be used to this weather.  Having grown up in Kentucky and North Carolina, let me say, as a "Northerner," that I would rather do a lot of things than bear these temperatures.  I do not like the snow in my front yard, the ice on my driveway, nor do I like having my heater on in this old house and not see a thermostat read above 65.  When conversing about the South, the only item that I take a large amount of pride in is our warmer climate, and will refer to this weather as my fellow Southerner Stephen Colbert did in last night's show as "the storm of Northern aggression."

So, to make "lemonade out of lemons," or ice cream out of ice...I guess, I chose to search through my cabinets yesterday for a reason to turn on my oven.  Sore about Sunday's bread disaster, I decided to make brownies instead.

Ordinarily, I am not for boxes, as they contain an insane amount of everything in this world that is bad for you, but when it comes to brownies- I admittedly have a long line of kitchen flops.  They are gritty, cakey, dry, gloppy- you name it.  I have even managed to cut open brownies and find scrambled egg whites.

Really?

And when one looks for a decent brownie recipe, they tend to be made with melted chocolate, which is just plain expensive and wasteful for someone like me to incessantly throw into the garbage.  There is a recipe on joyofbaking.com that calls for an entire pound of chocolate.  Now, lets say you buy a bar of Lindt chocolate at 4.5 oz a bar: at $2.50 apiece, plus- I mean- if you are going to spend that much on chocolate, you aren't going to put low-grade butter in your batter-

You see what I mean.  And I guarantee that in my case, it would go in the trash.  So, the search was on for the perfect, step by step, cocoa powder-using brownie recipe that would end in fudgy, chewy, and downright delicious brownies.  And I found it.  I found it here: Technicolor Kitchen Brownies.

They are everything and more, and I decided to make them even more special with a small flower cookie cutter.

Here is a picture...

Warm, fudgy, and in my tummy.

Have a beautiful day, and keep warm.  I will be in my pjs and fluffy socks, knitting a bow for tomorrow's post (I hope).  And maybe a loaf of bread.  I don't stay down for long.

Rachel Bee