by Christine on February 28, 2010
in Cooking
One of the moms in Basketball Girl’s class is expecting twins in a few weeks. Here’s what I made for the baby shower:
Oh, to be eating for three!
For those of you who would be like a super-easy, always-a-winner potluck recipe, here’s my foolproof brownie recipe (adapted from the old Joy of Cooking recipe):
Best Brownies Ever
5 squares unsweetened baker’s chocolate
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
Preheat oven to 350. Melt the chocolate, butter, and salt together over low heat. While the butter mixture is melting, beat the sugar, eggs, and vanilla together until creamy and smooth. Add the flour and beat until just blended. After the chocolate mixture is completely melted, cool for 5 minutes, then add to the sugar/flour mixture. Beat on low speed until the chocolate is well blended in. Pour into a 13 x 9 pan or spoon into a greased mini-muffin pan. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 (even if you’re making the muffins). The mini-muffin version is crustier and liked even by my husband, who isn’t a big brownie fan.
I love this recipe because it takes only about 10 minutes to assemble the ingredients, but tastes so much better than a brownie mix.
Basketball Girl and I spent the last several days up in the Sierra Mountains at a little old log cabin resort with some friends from school. This photo was taken less than three hours from our house, where the fruit trees are already blooming:
And here’s some of the non-stop sledding action from the hill between the cabins. My child is the one in the back with no gloves, jacket, hat, or snow pants. Not that she didn’t HAVE those things. But getting her to actually WEAR them is an epic battle.
Whoops, girl overboard!
No wonder she’s a trifle stiff today.
A weird (and very dirty) space alien in a pink plaid sweater landed for Valentine’s day.
This actual packet of Corn Nuts, wrapped in a piece of plain white printer paper. (I’m not making this up.) Who says romance is dead?
To be fair, he knows I couldn’t eat chocolates because I got a warning from the doctor last week about my too-high blood sugar. He also knows I like Corn Nuts. And he did write me this poem. But just sayin’…
At least in Northern California. This tree was blooming a couple of days ago in the grocery store parking lot.
Meanwhile, my stepmother sent me this photo of the deck behind their house in Northern Virginia:
I wish I could be in both places at once.
Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
George Carlin
US comedian and actor (1937 - 2008)
When the decorations start falling off.
Basketball Girl did such a fabulous job decorating our house and barn for our silver anniversary that I almost wish we could have another big party to enjoy them again. Or at least leave them up until next Christmas. Unfortunately, blue painter’s tape and mylar don’t seem to be a very happy marriage, and our sparkly house is starting to look a little droopy.
As a parent, you find yourself saying all kinds of bizarre things to your children. Things you never, ever dreamed you’d hear coming out of your own mouth. This morning’s entry, as I drove Sunny to school and we saw the same woman we had seen the previous day, being dragged out of her house in handcuffs by the police: “Sunny, don’t point at drug dealers!”
I think I must have just about the only husband around who can dig ditches, split firewood, wear homemade dayglo tie-dye pants without embarrassment, analyze financial statements, build his own stereo speakers (that’s some of my favorite quilting fabric decoupaged to the sides of the speaker, by the way):
and write a poem like this, which he surprised me with at our 25th anniversary party:
25 Years… Half-Step Epic
Sunrise and sunset mixed up forever,
Fall, winter and spring confused,
I lost the calendar and measured time
by anticipation of our time together.
[click to continue…]
My husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary last weekend with a square dance party/marshmallow roast at our barn. We are grateful to all the friends and relatives who helped us end our first quarter-century with a hoot and a holler, especially my sisters, one of whom flew all the way from Boston with her daughter for our anniversary party, and our best man J.C., who came up from Los Angeles and swept floors, hauled firewood, and generally slaved to help us get everything ready.
It wouldn’t have been my kind of party without lots of food:
These people may just look confused, but they were actually a finely tuned square dance mechanism, executing the Virginia Reel:
The fiendish Left Hand Star almost destroyed our square in the second set:
And hey, who are those two old people?
(Thanks to our friend Mary W. for the photo and my sister Carol for the party hats.)
