Double Chocolate Brownies

The other day, my supervisor and I had a discussion about brownies. We talk about food and share recipes often, and she's the one who introduced me to Nigella Lawson. So, it surprised me a bit that we were both talking fondly of boxed brownie mixes. But, in my short 22 years of life, I have yet to have a brownie so delicious as the Hershey's brownies. So, I've started yet another food quest for brownies better than those.

I have a few brownie recipes bookmarked, and thought I'd start with something simple which I was guaranteed to have all the ingredients in my pantry. So, this recipe won out. I believe it's a Martha Stewart recipe. The brownies are very chocolately without being overwhelming. They're dense and cakey. While not being the classic fudgey, gooey brownies, these would be absolutely amazing cut up into little cubes and mixed with vanilla ice cream. I wish I had some vanilla ice cream.


Double Chocolate Brownies

• 6 tbsp butter, coarsely chopped
• 6 oz semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used 4 oz semisweet, 2 oz bittersweet)
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare an 8x8 baking dish. The recipe calls for you to butter the pan, line it with parchment paper, then butter the parchment paper. I skipped the paper and just sprayed the dish with a cooking spray. *

Melt together the butter, chocolate, and cocoa powder. You can choose to do this over a double-boiler or in the microwave. I always opt for the microwave. If microwaving, just heat it up in 30 second increments, stirring after each session. Let cook slightly.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Using a mixer if you have one, beat together sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy. This will take approximately 4 minutes. Add the chocolate and mix until combined. Lower the speed and beat in the flour mixture.

Pour mixture into prepped pan and spread evenly. Bake approximately 35 minutes. Cool completely.

* A note on prepping the pan: The purpose of the parchment paper is to allow for easy removal of the brownies from the pan. This comes in handy if you'd like to cut up the brownies before serving them. it makes for easier and nicer squares. But I'm bringing these brownies to work, so keeping them in the pan is handy in a couple of ways. First off, my pan has a lid, which makes transportation very easy. Also, everyone's going to make a different size brownie, so I like to let them cut whatever size they want. If I were having a party, I'd go for the easy removal method.

New Schedule

Hello my lovely readers. Again, an absence of posts. I've decided, that for this (my final) semester, I'm going to set a specific day for baking. So for now on, I'll be posting something every Sunday, barring unforeseen circumstances. This way, I can plan for baking time, instead of waiting for it to appear. Also, with my new schedule, alot of the dinner cooking will fall to hubby, so I'm not sure how many savory recipes I'll get up here.

I do have a recipe for ropa vieja I made Monday (superduperawesometasty), but I did not get a picture. Sad times. Luckily, I had about half of it leftover, which I froze and will probably do something with later this week. So I'll post it soon.

Black-eyed Peas

Mmmm black-eyed peas. So simple. So tasty. A great meal can be made solely with black-eyed peas and rice. Aaah, heaven. It's what I had for lunch today. I always make these from dry beans; canned ones seem icky to me. It's really simple to prepare any dry bean, but it does require some time... but not active time. Just letting the beans boil or simmer for a long time, adding water when necessary. So little effort, so delicious.


Black-eyed Peas

• 1 lb dry beans
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• salt
• bacon or ham, optional
  

First, sort through the beans, pulling out any rocks, dirt clods, or bad beans. Wash the beans by placing them in a bowl, running water over it, and swishing them around. Pour out the water. Fill the bowl again, making sure the beans are covered completely, and let soak for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, swish the water around again, then pour it out.

Transfer the beans to a big pot and fill it with water. Throw in the onion and garlic (and if you'd like, the bacon or ham) and bring to a boil. Depending on the time you have, you can boil them the entire time, or reduce the heat to a simmer and let them cook for much, much longer.

I let the beans boil most of the time, and it took probably 30-45 minutes. You need to be very careful about making sure there is always enough water in the pot to more than cover the beans.

During the cooking process, season to taste, checking every so often.

Serve once the beans are soft and delicious.

Cabbage Rolls

Here's the cabbage roll recipe from yesterday,


Cabbage Rolls:

• 1 head cabbage
• 1 lb lean gound beef
• 1 cup cooked rice
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
• tomato sauce (I used Ragu)
  

The most difficult thing about this recipe was getting the the cabbage leaves without tearing them to pieces. After much frustration on my part - and the biggest leaves torn to ruins - hubby suggested blanching the whole head of cabbage before removing the leafs, instead of blanching the leaves afterwards (as all the recipes I'd seen had indicated).

Once you've got your leaves blanched and separated, cut the very thick part of the stem out. You can do so by cutting a little slit a few inches up each side of the stem, forming a very skinny triangle. Otherwise, if you don't remove the stem, the cabbage won't roll.


Preheat the oven to 350F.

While your cabbage cools, brown the ground beef. Once it's fully ground, season to taste. I used Chachere's. You can use season salt, salt and pepper, or whatever floats your boat. Add the veggies and cook until they have softened. My bell pepper bits were a bit too firm. You aren't going to bake the rolls long in the oven, so keep that in mind when deciding the doneness of your veggies. Once it's cooked to your satisfaction, stir in the rice until well combined.

Lay a cabbage leaf down. Spoon some of the mixture into the center, and fold the edges up around it. You'll make a triangle of sorts. Repeat.

You can place these on a baking dish or a baking sheet. Spread tomato sauce over the top of the rolls. Bake about 10 minutes.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009, y'all! The new year came in quietly for hubby and I - we were sleeping. I woke up with a migraine and sore throat, but I won't take that as an omen. 2009 will be a good year.

As with every New Year, we had the traditional black-eyed peas and cabbage. Now, I emphasize traditional because that doesn't seem to be the tradition here in Iowa. Very few people here seem to be aware of the whole eating them for health and wealth, an. d even fewer know of black-eyed peas. Unimaginable! I grew up black-eyed peas often, though cabbage not so much.

More on that cabbage. Mom always boiled it, and what kid is going to think "yum, boiled cabbage, I think I'll have some of that!" So, I never ate it until a few years, when I discovered it wasn't that bad. But, who wants to celebrate the New Year with not that bad. This year, I decided to try my hand at cabbage rolls. I looked at a bunch of recipes, then just sort of winged it.


End result? I liked it much more than I expected. Rolls are waaay better than plain ol' boiled cabbage.

I'll try to post the recipe tomorrow. I need to get to bed and sleep so I feel better for work.

Happy New Year!