Browned Butter Brownies-what every drunk nerd needs :)

Last weekend, my husband and his good friend from college went over to a co-worker's house to hang out and play Axis and Allies for 7 hours.  Yes...7...hours...

Anyways, I offered to make some treats for them to take since they would be fed dinner at the party.  I found the recipe for browned butter brownies originally from Bon Appetit magazine, circa Feb. 2011.  I had made these once before and swooned over the smell of browned butter that wafted throughout my house.  Hear that, Scentsy?  Make THAT happen.

Here's the recipe if you, too, want to have a glorious smell in your house:

Browned Butter Brownies

Ingredients:
-10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1 inch pieces
-1 1/4 cups sugar
-3/4 cup cocoa powder
-1 tsp (or just pour a bunch in, like me) vanilla extract
-2 large eggs
-1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour
-1 cup lightly chopped nuts (I used candied pecans)
-2 tsp water
1/4 tsp sea salt (or just kosher salt) for batter, another 1/4 tsp to sprinkle on top before baking

How to make 'um:

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line 8x8 pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.

2) Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat until butter stops foaming and browned bits form at the bottom of the pan...stirring often, about 5 minutes.
                                  How to Brown Butter 

3) Remove from heat; immediately add sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, 1/4 tsp sea salt, and water; stir to blend.

4) Let cool 5 minutes.

5) Add eggs to mixture 1 at a time, beating by hand until thick and shiny.

6) Add flour to mixture and beat vigorously by hand 60 strokes.  (Yes, very specific.  This is why I typically hate baking)

7) Stir in nuts and pour batter into pan.  Sprinkle remaining 1/4 tsp sea salt over the top.

8) Bake at 325 degrees until toothpick comes out clean--25-30 minutes.

Recipe found at: cocoa-brownies-with-browned-butter-and-walnuts

**So there you have it.  Deliciousness in a pan.  Hideki and his friends gobbled them up pretty quickly, had a few beers and apparently texted me at 1 am to bring more.  Uh, good thing I was asleep guys, or I would have been saying a big "Hell to the No!"

***Disclaimer:  I have nothing against nerds.  Seeing as how I compared my daughter to a Lord of the Rings character in the last post, I think I fall firmly into the "nerd" category myself.  :)



Bon Appetit! (said in my best Julia Child voice)

"What an excellent day for an exorcism"

Ever have a day when your child is doing their best Linda Blair impression?

Not the spewing of green vomit like my husband thought, but the full-on demon possession complete with change in personality and kicking/screaming fits??  I'm not talking about simple little tantrums.  I'm talking about red-faced breath holding until the scream of a thousand ring wraiths hits your ears and possibly deafens you.

No, I wasn't about to link up the Exorcist clips here.  That movie freaks me the hell out.  I should make a video of Gaga one day and compare to the above.  Sigh.

It always seems like children have the uncanny ability to act their worst when you are busy preparing for visitors / getting ready for work / inviting the President over for dinner / defusing a bomb because Bruce Willis was busy that day...Maybe it's because we're not paying the same amount of attention to them or maybe they can sense your anxiety and get stressed out themselves.  I try my best to be calm because I don't want her to have a bad day either, but sometimes enough is enough!

Mmm...M&M's...now I'm better.

"You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only.....three"

My little girl loves to dance.  It started before age 2 with an obsession with Lady Gaga and has expanded to include Katy Perry, Pink, Cee Lo Green and under her daddy's influence, Michael Jackson.

Now, Hideki and I certainly didn't grow up listening to such controversial lyrics.  I listened to a lot of 50's-70's bubblegum/easy listening/Carpenter's type things and quite honestly, still enjoy OCCASIONALLY hearing those songs.  Ha, especially Bread's "I want to make it with you" because my mom tries to convince me it's innocent!  Uh huh, sure.

Hideki listened to 70's hippie rock like Crosby, Stills and Nash, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Kansas.  Actually, now that I think about it....his favorite song when he was 2 was Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls," so I think we found the culprit.

So when our daughter is listening to Cee Lo Green's "Forget You" (the edited version, of course), we cringed when she started repeating the lyrics.  Until we heard this:

"Oh, she's a gold deer, oh yeah, don't ya know, dear?"

Thank god her sweet little mind changed those lyrics because I just KNOW she would be marching around the church nursery screaming them at the top of her lungs every Sunday.  Oh, and telling our pastor about them.  Except she doesn't always pronounce the "th" in his name, so we often hear her calling him "Pastor Naked."  Oh, the horror.

So I would like to show you a video of Little Gaga dancing.  And point out that she dressed herself....and that we NEVER let her watch the music videos of the songs she likes.  And we don't even have cable, so she's not getting her dance moves from somewhere else.  This is all from her little mind. 
Enjoy.

This one's for you, Hideki...

Ooh, look!  Another mommy blogger who talks about food and home life?  She'll need a scandal if she wants to make it popular!

Alright, I'm a 29 yr old stay at home (mostly) mom in the Land of Oz with one 3 yr old child and don't plan on having another one for 2 yrs.

And I sometimes wish I could add a few Depakote sprinkles to her Cheerios...

Talk amongst yourselves.

Anyways...this will mostly be for friends and family for updates on my Little Gaga and a way for me to express myself without using quite as many curse words and chocolate bars.  I may post recipes I've made, talk about our organic vegetable garden, or simply talk about this kooky Hebrew-speaking child I created.

"What do you want to do today, Gaga?"
-"Challah hana habab-ta."
"Ok, I'll take that as a 'I would like to play blocks.' "

Hope you enjoy. :)