Brownies from Scratch

Ingredients

¾ cup butter (170 g)
1+½ cup sugar (330 g)
2 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
¾ cup all-purpose flour (85 g)
½ cup cocoa powder (50 g)
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt (optional)
3 oz (100 g) chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat Oven to 350
2. Grease parchment paper and place in 13X9 pan
3. Melt butter
4. Mix eggs and sugar, then add rest of ingredients
5. Mix until smooth
6. Bake for 20-30 minutes until you can poke a fork in and it comes out clean.

Home Made Crackers

I got this from www.101cookbooks.com

I only used all-purpose flour for this, and they turned out great. I also sprinkled parsley, rosemary, and garlic on top before I baked them. It's really a good idea to have a pizza stone for this.

Olive Oil Cracker Recipe

If you have trouble tracking down semolina flour, just substitute white whole wheat flour (or all-purpose flour), it will be make a slightly different cracker but should still work. To get creative with your crackers you can top them with lots of things before baking: freshly grated cheese, artisan salts, cornmeal, a dusting of your favorite spice blend, seeds, or a wash of your favorite flavored or infused oil. You can simply cut the unbaked cracker dough into various shapes using one of those pizza cutting wheels.

1 1/2 cups semolina flour
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (or all-purpose flour)
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 cup warm water
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

special equipment: pasta machine (optional)

Whisk together the flours and salt. Add the water and olive oil. Using a mixer with a dough hook attachment mix the dough at medium speed for about 5 - 7 minutes. Alternately, feel free to mix and then knead by hand on a floured counter-top. The dough should be just a bit tacky - not too dry, not too sticky to work with. If you need to add a bit more water (or flour) do so.

When you are done mixing, shape the dough into a large ball. Now cut into twelve equal-sized pieces. Gently rub each piece with a bit of olive oil, shape into a small ball and place on a plate. Cover with a clean dishtowel or plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 30 - 60 minutes.

While the dough is resting, preheat your oven to 450F degrees. Insert a pizza stone if you have one.

When the dough is done resting, flatten one dough ball. Using a rolling pin or a pasta machine, shape into a flat strip of dough - I can usually get down to the 4 setting on my pasta machine w/o trouble. Pull the dough out a bit thinner by hand (the way you might pull pizza dough). You can also cut the dough into whatever shape you like at this point. Set dough on a floured (or cornmeal dusted) baking sheet, poke each cracker with the tines of a fork to prevent puffing, add any extra toppings, and slide into the oven (onto the pizza stone). Repeat the process for the remaining dough balls, baking in small batches. If you don't have a pizza stone, bake crackers a few at a time on baking sheets. Bake until deeply golden, and let cool before eating - you will get more crackery snap.

Makes a dozen extra large crackers.

Football Cookie

If you click on 'chocolate chips' in the labels section, you can find the recipe for this cookie cake.
To do the above:
After baking the cake, cut it into the shape of a football.
Take a strainer and fill with powdered sugar, and dust the cookie until it's completely white
Cut parchment paper to resemble the stripes of a football, and press them down on the cookie
Take a strainer again, and fill it with cocoa, and dust the cookie until it's all brown.
Remove the parchment paper carefully, and you'll have the white stripes
Take ready-squeeze white icing to create the stitches.

Now you'll be ready for next year. Since Football season is over now.

Washing Dishes by Hand

Keep a bar of soap on the sink edge for those times you only have a few dishes to wash. Then you can just rub your scrub brush on the soap, and it will be the perfect amount for what you're washing. If you do this, you won't run out of liquid soap for large loads as quickly.

Pancake Mix

These pancakes are delicious enough to eat without syrup. Here's the batter ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/4 cup milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons melted butter

Organizing Office Supplies

I got this idea on Hints from Helouise. Use your empty vitamin bottles to store things like thumb tacks, rubber bands, and paper clips. If you have little ones that put these things in their mouths, they have a safety cap on to prevent them from opening.

Fancy Soap

Since Macy's was giving away free cosmetics as their punishment for over-charging customers, Dylan went and brought me back some 'Euphoria' body wash. We try not to use soap with harsh perfumes and chemicals like that when we take baths. So, I'm using it to clean the house.
I put it on the scrub brush when I clean the toilet bowl, and on the mop when I clean the floors. As Fly Lady would say: "Soap is soap".
Now, our house smells so 'Euphoric'.
Thanks Dylan!