Friday, July 11, 2008

Oh my...

If you need a chocolate fix - say brownies - and you have no eggs, are you out of luck?

Nope! This was the case last night, and I found THIS incredible recipe on Allrecipes.com. And Oh, My is an understatement!


Here is the recipe with pictures. I made a few changes, as suggested by one of the commenters on Allrecipes.com.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
  • 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 cups white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan. In a heavy saucepan combine the 1/3 cup of flour and water. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until thick. Transfer to a mixing bowl and set aside to cool. {This took a while. I used a whisk. Lost track of time. Just suddenly noticed that I had a very think glue-like mixture.}
  2. In a small saucepan, melt butter. When butter has melted, add the cocoa and mix until smooth; set aside to cool. Beat the sugar and vanilla into the cooled flour mixture. Stir in the cocoa mixture until well blended. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt, stir into the batter until just blended. Add chocolate chips. Spread evenly in the prepared pan.
  3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool before cutting into bars. {Mine took closer to 28 minutes. I used a 9X11 pan though.}
These were just wonderful! And egg free! I'd like to know what kind of magic is going on with the flour+water=glue stuff. But I can just live in ignorance. With these brownies.


They weren't NEARLY as sweet as boxed mixes. Which meant they were PERFECT with a dollop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of chocolate sauce on top.


Oh my.

This is what it looks like now!

The kitchen is completely done and functional! And gorgeous! Enjoy!




Of course, it now has dirty dishes on the counter, canisters on the sink, etc. But it was nice and clear for a few hours :) Long enough to snap a few pictures!

I am so please and I really think this will help the resale value of our house. Wouldn't you be happy with this kitchen if you were looking for a new house?

Monday, July 7, 2008

This is what my kitchen used to look like.....



Yes. That is it. It is the original 1946 kitchen. No dishwasher. Only about 3 feet of usable counter space - if you put the dish drainer under the sink.

Erin, over at The State That I Am In, has issued a cleaning up the house challenge. We are to write about our feelings about cleaning. And boy, do I have some feelings!

We are currently in the final stages of a kitchen remodel. It has been a wile ride! My house has been a disaster since the middle of May. Here is the story, in pictures, and you can see all the mess I've had to try to stay on top of.

Mid-May: Purchasing Cabinets. They had to go somewhere: in my dining room! My dining table got moved into the entry/living room because you can see cabinets stacked clear up to the pendant fixture in the dining room. OMG! And there were 2 huge base corner cabinets in the garage that we couldn't even get in the house (since I couldn't lift them.) Seriously, you may be thinking, "Aww! What is the big deal? So you eat in the living room." Yes, a living room full of furniture that I now have to navigate around when cleaning or serving food. And it is doubly far from the kitchen!


Early June: Demolition

This actually went ok on the uppers. They were only held on by a few screws and a bracket. No big mess to take them down and put up the new uppers. But the base cabinets... oh, there was a huge surprise waiting on me down there.


Base cabinets were fairly simple to remove. But when we pulled out the sink base (a huge 5 foot monster!)


we found this...


There are simply not words to describe what I felt when I saw this, the Hilton-Marriot-Waldorff-Astoria of mouse houses! After DH checked it for remains, I got the task of scooping it into the trash - and sucking the rest into the vacuum cleaner.

I hate remodeling. I hate cleaning. I hate being away from home because I have no usable kitchen. I hate coming home from 10 days away to a nasty, black, mildewed toilet and bathtub. While waiting on the counter-top installers to come on Tuesday, I get to clean the bathroom. Joy. But at least they clean the kitchen when they leave. :)

So, now you know more about me. And how I have been CRAZY for the last 6 weeks - can't clean when stuff is all over the house. At least on Wednesday, I'll get to put my kitchen together and restore my house to its former, pre-renovation, minorly cluttered state. What bliss!