Sometimes there needs to be chocolate

There are times we just need chocolate. Not like to have, but have to have chocolate moments.

I had one of those nights last week. And then there were brownies. I used to make a brownie recipe from one of my best go-to cookbooks, the Better Homes and Gardens red and white cookbook that everyone should have (more on that later). For 20 plus years, I have been using that recipe. It calls for melting chocolate in butter, adding sugar, vanilla, eggs and flour. But then I tried a recipe from Hershey's. I didn't have baking chocolate and needed brownies one day, so I used the Hershey recipe since it called for cocoa. Now I am hooked on this recipe. These brownies are just perfect. They have the perfect gooey texture, and I use Special Dark chocolate to make them even more decadent.

I used the Pioneer Woman's recipe for mocha frosting, though I cut it in half. I have used a dark roast recipe in this frosting, but this night we used a mocha flavored coffee and it really pushed it over the top.

These brownies were just what I needed. Gooey chocolate equals a happy Lisa.

One of my favorite cookbooks

We moved to North Carolina in 1993. We were so young, only out of college a few months. We hadn't even learned yet not to put everything we wanted on credit cards. We've come a long way since then, but this is one impulse purchase I am so glad we made.

This cookbook, called Southern Elegance, is a collection of recipes from the Junior League of Gaston County. I have no idea where we got it, because we live nowhere near Gaston County. Jeffrey thinks we bought it at a street fair, or maybe the Cotton Exchange in Wilmington.

One of the recipes is for Louisiana Barbequed Shrimp. This is not your typical barbecue. It's not even thick red sauce. Think lemons, Lots of lemons, And butter. Lots of butter. There's garlic, of course, and Worcestershire (Lea & Perrins) sauce and Tabasco, rosemary, salt and pepper. The sauce gets cooked briefly, and then gets poured over the shrimp still in their shells. The dish goes in the oven and very soon, there is delicious shrimp for everyone. This is one of our go to meals. We even entertain with this one. We put plenty of paper towels on the table along with bowls for shrimp shells. And we serve it with some crusty bread for sopping up the sauce. It makes a terrific mess but it is delicious!

You can tell we really like this recipe. Just look at the page.

This book is literally falling apart, but I will find some way to keep it. For some reason, this is also my go to book for a quiche recipe. Actually, I just look up the egg to milk proportion and make up the rest, but it's still where I look. I have a couple cookbooks like this one -- used and abused and messy.

Just like my kitchen.

Chicken + a cast iron grill pan = a fabulous dinner

I am trying to change the way I eat because I know it's what I need to do to be healthy. I have a sweet tooth but I don't indulge it every day. I don't snack between meals and I don't eat a bag of potato chips in one sitting. But I do have a problem with carbs.

So I've been looking for meals that are healthy, interesting and delicious. Watching "The Kitchen" on Food Network this weekend, I saw the hosts giving tips for grilling chicken breasts. That's what we did for dinner tonight. I didn't look at a recipe, but just cooked it like they suggested.

We pounded out the chicken breasts. I did two and the boy did two. He said it would be great therapy for anyone who had a bad day. And I'll be honest. He did a much better job on pounding them out than I did. They really did cook more evenly since we made them flat. All we used was Kosher salt, fresh cracked black pepper and garlic powder. A little Canola oil brushed on the grill and that was it.

There are chives and parsley in the yard that survived the winter, so we chopped some of them to add to some spring mix greens. All we added was a little olive oil and balsamic for a quick and light dressing. I topped the chicken breasts with the salad and a pinch of salt. I also made some roasted purple potatoes -- just a few pieces for everyone. That's a much better choice than making enough mashed potatoes for six people when we are only three, right?

I thought it looked great, and the proof was in the pudding. Or actually, the empty plates. Everyone loved it. You're probably wondering if my plate really has snowflakes on it. Yes, it does. Don't judge. I forgot to run the dishwasher and this is what was clean. I think Jeffrey got the random flower plate.

On a side note, we did have one small mishap. Jeffrey somehow flung balsamic vinegar into his eye. Naturally, the boy and I laughed. And then I got Jeff a damp towel. Apparently healthy food can be dangerous for some people, but we'll keep trying meals that are good for us anyway.

Cookie butter

How have I not heard of this before?

It can't be any kind of good for you, so I probably will not even try it. Because if I try it and like it I'll want more and that would be bad. I already eat enough things that are bad for me.

I saw a video on Facebook about making a cookie butter mug cake in the microwave, and I thought cookie butter? What the what?

Naturally I immediately Googled it and found that it's a real thing. I mean, Trader Joe's sells it so it must be a real thing in the civilized world. I live in the middle of nowhere, so I have to find this stuff out via the interwebs.

Then I found pages dedicated to all the luscious but artery clogging things you can make with cookie butter. Kind of like the the pages I found the other day with recipes for your Peeps. I really need to stop looking at these things. Are there salad pages? Salad, green things pages? I need to go find out.

A quick trick to peeling hard boiled eggs, or not

I saw a video on Facebook the other day about a super easy way to peel hard boiled eggs. You put the egg in a small glass with some water, shake it around and voila! The peel comes off in one big piece and you are done.

Whew. What a relief. Because peeling a hard boiled egg is so difficult. You can't hear me saying that, but those of you who know me well enough can recognize my sarcasm even in print.

I found myself curious about this though, so naturally I Googled it. Side note - I am fascinated how quickly slang becomes real language, like using Google as a verb. I Googled "tricks to peeling a hard boiled egg" and in approximately .44 seconds there were approximately 40,500 hits. By about page 5 or so, I'm sure the results will be less relevant. But there is a surprising amount of time dedicated to something that seems so simple to me. And there are the videos. Plural.

I guess people with a physical disability or severe arthritis would really appreciate suggestions for other ways to do things many of us are blessed to consider the simplest of tasks. But why would anyone else put whole fresh eggs into a tennis ball to shake them around and scramble the egg inside the shell? Is cracking it open into a bowl and whisking really so much effort that we need a quick trick to get it done?

Scrambled eggs was the first dish I made on my own. I think I was 10. I grew up Catholic, and we had tuna sandwiches and hard boiled eggs fairly often on Fridays. I've peeled a lot of hard boiled eggs in my life, so I'm pretty sure I've got this egg cooking and peeling thing down without the helpful You Tube videos.

The amount of internet space devoted to working with what has to be one of the easiest ingredients is shocking. And now I have added to it. Make that 40,501 hits. I hope my blog shows up sooner than page 5 of the results.

My ridiculously large coffee mug

I love this mug.

I got it on our last trip to Disney, so one reason I love it is that it's a reminder of the wonderful time we had. On a side note, we went in November for my birthday. It's the second time we went to Disney for my birthday, as Jeffrey (of Pooh Sticks blog fame), likes to remind me. We haven't made it to Disney to celebrate his birthday yet. But we will.

Anyway, back to the mug. I also love it because it's Winne the Pooh. And it's a cute cartoon. And did I mention it is ridiculously large? This mug is from the Animal Kingdom park, though I think I actually bought it in the hotel gift shop at Port Orleans French Quarter. True to Disney's attention to detail, there is a Tree of Life in the bottom of the mug.

Jeff and I were talking about it this morning. He doesn't like a huge mug because then the coffee cools more quickly. And that's one more reason why I like it. It means I can drink all of the coffee sooner. I love a mug I have to hold with two hands. It doesn't matter what the temperature outside is. There is something very comforting about a mug filled with hot liquid warming your hands.

As you're reading this fascinating post, I'm sure you're wondering what I like to drink out of my mug. I love a dark roast coffee. It's really weird, but the darker the coffee I drink, the less likely I am to use sugar. Just regular coffee you'd get at a restaurant? Yep. That's getting a good amount of sugar. Espresso? Not so much. We have a Keurig. We usually use an insert and grounds rather than the K-cups. Sometimes, though, I splurge and get Folgers' Black Silk, my favorite K-cups. Jeffrey really enjoyed them this week. I think I had three out of the box. It's ok. As long as I had some....especially this morning. Now -- get your favorite caffeinated beverage and get out there and enjoy the weekend people! And feel free to tell us your favorite coffee and mugs in the Comments below.

Homemade strawberry syrup

I couldn't help it. I went to Lowe's last weekend and I got sucked over to one of the tables with someone giving away free samples. So, note to self, the rosemary olive oil bread is really tasty. There were also strawberries. And her selling point was that they were actually ripe and sweet, in January. And they were a two-fer purchase. So I bought a couple pints with no idea what I would do with them.

This morning I thought it was a pancake kind of morning. I opened the fridge and saw the strawberries. They were starting to turn on me, the traitors. I decided to make a quick syrup out of them. I combined 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar and cooked until the sugar was dissolved. I cooked it over low heat, mostly because I was unloading the dishwasher and drying rack at the same time and didn't want to have to babysit it. Then I rough chopped the strawberries. I added them to the simple syrup and turned up the heat. I boiled it on high for a few minutes, then turned the heat down to medium-high as the syrup darkened and some of the liquid had evaporated. You have to really pay attention at this point. You don't want it to stick and it progresses pretty quickly at this point. I also added a few drops of vanilla. I hate it when I see this in a recipe, but...I didn't really time it, so all I can say is that I cooked it until it was the consistency I wanted. All told, the strawberries cooked in the syrup for at least 15 minutes. Probably.

Honestly, what I made is probably more a strawberry compote than a syrup. Maybe if I cooked it for less time it would have been more syrup-y. What I do know is that it was just what I wanted.