Chewy Gooey Goodness

Oh yes. Oh yes, yes, yes. Oh my, yes!


I saw this recipe a couple weeks ago and have been waiting to make them for some occasion. I finally decided that "Sunday" was occasion enough! It's kind of like eating a magic bar, but with a brownie base. Pay more attention than I did though; 1/2 cup of the condensed milk does not equal the whole can! And, the salt and the almonds are divided (at least I did catch that without a mistake!) This post comes to you courtesy of Rachael Ray, but I can no longer link to her recipe because it no longer exists. Good thing I wrote it down when I had the chance!

Coco-loco Brownies
MAKES 16
Prep Time: 40 min
Bake Time: 35 min

1 2/3 cups sugar
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cups natural almonds, toasted and chopped
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups shredded sweetened coconut
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

1. Preheat the oven to 325°. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish; line crosswise with a 14-inch piece of parchment paper, allowing the ends to hang over the sides.
2. In a large saucepan, cook the sugar and butter over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until bubbling. Remove from the heat and stir in the cocoa powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt; let cool for 10 minutes. Whisk in the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Whisk in the flour, then stir in 1 cup almonds. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and spread evenly with a spatula. Top with the remaining 1/2 cup almonds and the chocolate chips.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the coconut, sweetened condensed milk and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Spoon the coconut mixture in dollops over the surface of the batter. Bake until the coconut is golden-brown and the brownie layer is just set in the center, about 35 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting into 16 bars.

Now go forth and bake! Oh, yes!

Like a Fire is Burning?

Yesterday in church, just as the Sacrament was almost finished being passed to the congregation, we were all surprised that the fire alarm started beeping. Beeping isn't a strong enough word. Blaring, wailing, screaming, causing us all to go deaf, is more like it. And, if you were already deaf, the lights that accompanied the siren was also causing any epileptic in the group to start seizing. We all looked at the bishop, who looked at the Stake President (who just by coincidence happened to be in the meeting) and for some reason, no one freaked out. Babies were not screaming, people were not jumping up and running for the nearest exit. The first counselor got up and left the chapel while the deacons and teachers continued to finish their responsibilities. Then the bishop said the building had been checked and there was no cause for concern (other than the loss of our hearing) and we would wait a moment before starting the testimony portion of our meeting while they worked on getting the alarm turned off. We waited for several very long minutes (I couldn't be macho any longer and had to plug my left ear) and then just before the noise quit, the bishop got up again and said the Stake Pres had asked him to continue the meeting as he was sure the alarm would be shut off any moment. Just after that, the noise did stop and we all were grateful.
The last man to bear his testimony said words to this affect, which I agreed with and wanted to share with you: When the alarm went off, we didn't panic. We looked to our leaders and saw they were calm. They didn't bolt out of their chairs to run for cover. In this world where panic over finances, politics, economics and various other calamities are happening, we would do well to look to our Priesthood leaders and follow their examples.
How blessed we are to hear from the leaders of the church next week. I'll be listening. I hope you will too.
P.S. Sorry I didn't give you a tissue alert before posting President Hinckley's photos earlier. I realize that was a problem for some... next time I'll give the proper warning.

A Week to Wait

Tonight I watched the General Relief Society Meeting and it gave me a little taste of what I might expect at General Conference next week. I'm so excited for it! President Uchdorf's talk tonight was amazing! It was perfect and exactly what I was needing to hear. I can hardly wait for next week's spiritual boost. Conference is the best.

But I still miss him...


He was the best, ever.

Dinner and a Movie

Actually it was movie and dinner. Last night we went to see Nights in Rodanthe. It was a double date.



I'm not going to say anything about the movie except, bring your tissue.

After the movie, we went to Iggy's for dinner. I debated between the cheese enchiladas and the coconut shrimp. Since Kim ordered the shrimp, I ordered cheese enchiladas, rice and beans. I ate a few bites of the enchiladas and then tried the beans. Oh, big mistake! Huge! It was like licking the bottom of an ashtray (no, I've never done that, but I can only imagine)! Uck, yuck, nasty, gross! Then, just to make sure, Kim tasted the beans. He agreed with me. Cheryl smelled them and said I was right. Bud was too smart to taste or smell them. He took our word for it. We decided to ask if the beans always tasted/smelled like that. We were told conflicting stories, but the bottom line was they brought me coleslaw for a replacement. Not a big improvement. The best part of my dinner was Kim's shrimp, which he very kindly shared with me. I was going to take a picture of the beans for you, but my camera was misbehaving and wouldn't turn on. If it doesn't behave after I charge the battery, it's in big trouble!
Due to the above activities, we missed all but the last 5 minutes of the debate. Aw, shucks.

Quality Time

Wednesday night, I got to babysit Caleb. We are great friends. We played lots of games, and went for a walk.




And then it was bedtime...he seemed to not even care that Nana was putting him to bed instead of Mommy or Daddy. We read scriptures and sang songs and then this happened...

Look at his little hand, still holding onto Yertle. Precious boy.

Pumpkin Bars

I said this deserved it's own post and I didn't want to keep you waiting so here we go.

Since mine didn't last long enough to even take a picture of it, I'm stealing a picture from this post by Melanie over at My Kitchen Cafe, who stole the recipe from Paula Dean. We're just a bunch of thievin' misfits out here.
I wouldn't really call them bars though. It's more like cake. And on the icing (which I call frosting, don't you?) I made mine with 3 cups powdered sugar because I needed to sweeten up that cream-cheesey taste a little more, but you do it however you'd like.

Pumpkin Bars
from Paula Deen

Bars:
4 eggs
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil (can substitute 1/2 cup applesauce for 1/2 cup oil)
15-ounce can pumpkin
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
Icing:
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 9 by 13-inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.
To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

Dang good stuff. (Paula didn't say that, I did.)

Keepers

I made dinner for Cheryl's birthday last Sunday. I know I'm not supposed to use company as guinnea pigs, but it's just the way I do things...sorry SJ, I'll never learn. I apologize for a lack of pictures but click through to the recipe and you'll get the pictures. We were just so dang hungry that I didn't pause to take out the camera.
On the menu-
Avocado chicken-
Zucchini Mozzarella Medley-
Buttermilk Rolls-
I'm saving dessert for its own post- it was the best!
Everyone raved (especially for the rolls) so I guess the guinnea pigs went home happy. Personally, I really liked the vegetables. I added a red bell pepper just because I had one on hand, and I think it worked well. You could even make it a main dish if you added some chicken (if you felt the need for meat) and mixed it up with some cooked macaroni.
These recipes are keepers in my book (and I'm getting really picky, so you know they're good!)

P.S.

Happy Birthday to you. We love you, we miss you.
And, Happy Birthday to Katie.

Baby Shower Cake

Since I haven't yet seen anyone post a picture, I will. This was a cute "cake" at Stacey's baby shower a bit ago.

This is a very low-cal cake! Isn't it cute? It's made from diapers. Extremely cute. Good luck on your delivery, Stacey! You'll be a fabulous mommy!

George Wins

Back when Hurricane George was going his thing, we had a big rain storm here (no connection, just a coincidence I'm sure).
Our little tree was leaning like crazy.


Bud tied the tree to the fence, but it didn't help. The poor tree could not make it.
The tree had to be cut up and tossed. Hmmm...does that mean that now I have room for a PEACH TREE to take its place? If I planted a peach tree, would it have the same problem that this other tree did, that of getting too much water (it comes under the fence from the neighbor's yard) and die before giving me of it's fruit? Maybe I'll just have to stay friends with the lady that gave me of her extra peaches a week ago. But I really wish I could have my OWN peach tree.

Somewhere Over The...

We saw this beautiful rainbow Saturday afternoon.

If you look closely, you can see a double rainbow in this picture.

Busy

Can't post today...too busy reading...The Host
Thank you, Kristina, for letting me borrow your book.

Martha, Molly, Susie or Betty

No matter what name you might use for someone who is into all the homemaking-type activities, call me what you may, but in the last three days I've made 3 batches of peach jam (whatcha gonna do when someone gives you a box full of peaches?), whole wheat bread, and zucchini bread (whatcha gonna do when you only plant zucchini in your garden?). I'm hopeful that the recipe I used for the zucchini bread will be a winner, unlike some of the other recipes I've tried lately. I'll let you know after it cools off a bit and I break it open.


I found these containers at Costco. They're called Snapware (I think). I love 'em.

Happy Birthday Sister

Today is my sister's birthday.

This picture was taken 2 years ago in England, at the Chatsworth House. We had such an unbelievable vacation that year. It was the best EVER!

This is in Tallinn, Estonia, same vacation.

Copenhagen, Denmark

St. Petersburg, Russia

And this one is the best place of all! I'm glad you're here!

It's still hard to believe we actually pulled this one off! I love having you just one street away from me! A dream come true, after all these years. Happy Birthday!

How Do You Say It?

This display got a smile from me.

Cartons of...soda, pop, bubbly, coke (in its generic form...I heard there's a country that calls ALL soda Coke, even if it's not Coke they're asking for or receiving). So what do you call it? I call it $$$ because when you drink enough of it, you get holes in your teeth and you have to go to the dentist to get them filled and when that happens, it produces my paycheck, so drink up! Anyway, cute display at Smiths!

I Don't Have To Wait!

Last week I said I was going to try these fabulous-looking cinnamon rolls. I tried them. I was unimpressed. What does it take these days to impress me anymore? Seems all these recipes I've been looking at are only good to look at, and when you try them out, they're disappointing. They looked great on the blog I took it from.


Look at that! It was so dang long!

With all that cinnamon-y goodness inside! It made 24 large rolls, as promised. One pan came out tasting like onions. Evidently I have a pan that holds odors, even when you scrub it (because after I baked the rolls in it, then it smelled like cinnamon). The second pan didn't taste like onions, but the rolls just were unappealing (even though Brandon said they were good, but he was probably just trying to be nice). Yep, save your vanilla pudding for something else- I didn't think these were good enough to even keep the recipe. I guess from now on I'd better try it first, like Samuel keeps telling me!
So, I guess I'm not going to get fat on those rolls like I thought I might. However, I'm probably still doomed. I went to Costco yesterday and as I was making my way to the fun stuff (C-fold towels, laundry soap, paper towels, yep...all the fun stuff) my eye caught hold of the Christmas items that had already arrived, and lo and behold (don't you all say that at Christmas time?) there among the other chocolate items were THESE!

YES!

They're back! You can read how I became addicted here. Needless to say, when I saw them at Costco I immediately put one in my basket. And then I looked to see that no one was watching me and I put another one in my basket! With two bags in a box and two boxes in a package and having bought two packages, I should be all set for the next...20 minutes or so! I don't have to wait until December for my truffle "fix" after all!

Ward Dinner

Saturday night I was expecting Karen and Brandon and Caleb to come to our ward dinner at the park. I got a text message from Karen that said "might not make it. much traffic. go Cougars" and then in about 30 minutes they arrived! I was really surprised because I thought they'd given up on trying to get out of Provo (and can you believe BYU stomped UCLA by such a score? Awesome!)
This is Caleb waiting for the water balloon toss to start. Sorry Karen, you've been beheaded.
Here's the action...




Then we go from a happy guy with a balloon to a sad guy with a broken balloon.

He really was having fun on the swing...

And although it's a bad picture, I have to show it anyway for two reasons...

#1, to show that Karen and Brandon won TWO of the counting jars by making the closest guess to the number of items in the jar (gummy bears and hot tamales) and
#2, to show that Caleb wanted Nana to hold him instead of taking pictures.

Finally! He Has a Name

On August 25th Karen and I went to The Quilted Bear to order a name magnet for Eliot for my bragging board. The woman said it would take about a week or so for the name to come it. I waited. And then I waited, and waited some more. Then I called the store. After much explanation for what I was talking about, the lady said it wasn't there yet. I waited some more and called again. This time I talked to someone else who said she'd call the crafter to ask what the delay was. She called me back to say the crafter wasn't home but she left a message. I continued to wait. I called again (by this time I have the phone number memorized! If ever you need it, call me and I'll recite it for you). This time the new saleswoman was very helpful. First she commiserated with me and agreed it shouldn't be taking this long and she'd call the crafter again and call me right back, which she did. I was told the crafter would be bringing the name magnet to the store on Friday after 3:30 and the store would call me when it arrived, which they did. I picked it up and it looked so lame! After all that waiting (from 8/25 to 9/12) and then it looked so dumb. My gripe with it was that the i was too close to the l, and the t was absolutely messed up. And, since I can't show it to you in its original form (because I didn't take a picture of it until after I "fixed" it, I'll just quickly tell you that the t had this horizontal line hooked onto it at the top of the t on the left side so it looked pretty much not like a t at all. I wondered if I could scratch that part off. The answer is yes!
So now Eliot is represented on both the tile wall and the brag board at my house. Hurray!

I Love To See The Temple...

Yesterday I needed to go downtown for a meeting. I took my camera with me so that after the meeting was over, I could try again for a good summer picture of the temple. I'll give you the best shot first.

Yep, that will do. I want to make a picture grouping of the temple in the four seasons. I have a good one in spring and winter, so I'll need to make one more trip in a few more weeks to get a good fall shot.

This is looking across the reflective pool.
They have the Christmas lights on the trees
already! At least the tree
I looked at had them.




The flag was at half-mast for a remembrance of 9/11. If you click on the picture, you can see Angel Moroni through the spires.











Is your favorite shot different from mine?

I'm Probably in Trouble

A few weeks ago, Karen and I went to pick up pictures from Sears a photography studio which shall remain nameless, of my five grandchildren. For whatever excuse they used at the time, the pictures were not ready. Because the pictures were not ready, they offered me a free photo sheet. I didn't feel like that was worth much because I already owned the cd with ALL the pictures on it with a copyright clearance, and I could get whatever size sheet I wanted from Costco for less than $2, so I was unimpressed with their offer of a free sheet. However, Agnes was dressed pretty cute and so we asked if the offer could be applied to a new sitting. The photographer said yes. Great! Lights, camera, action.

Oh, but then there's the issue of Agnes' parents disliking "professional" photograpers taking their children's pictures.

My father once wrote in his journal, "Forgiveness is easier to get than permission." Why didn't I know he thought that when I was growing up?


I don't know how Agnes' parents will feel about us having her picture taken, but perhaps they'll forgive me for not asking permission. When we got home, Laura asked us what took us so long, and we didn't really explain. Does that add lying to the growing list of offenses?

Agnes had a wonderful time at the photo session.