text
stringlengths
9
94.9k
In a previous post I talked about our decision of trying to cut out as much sugar as possible from our diets. One of our favorite meals has been Nachos. We don't look at the calories anymore, just the sugar intake. You can purchase all these ingredients with no sugar, you just have to look. I can buy all this stuff at our local grocery store, but if for some reason you cant, then any of the "organic" type stores (Lucky's, Trader Joes, etc..) should have them. Even my extremely picky 7 year old loves this meal!
Proud Mama: No more pull-ups!
I'm pretty laid back when it comes to potty training. At least I have been with my middle child, Lilly. I had my third baby when she was 2.5 so although it would have been nice to have her in underwear, I really did not have the time, or energy, to get her potty trained.
We tried here and there at first, and she kept having accidents. Finally, she was pretty much potty trained soon after she turned 3, and was entering school. From day 1 at school, she was in underwear. The teachers were fine with it which was great. She had a few weeks where she had a couple of accidents, but soon we were finally there.
A while ago, my husband and I went to see Kevin Smith at a comedy show. He was there to make people laugh, of course, but surprisingly, he also made people think about their health. He took us on his journey of weight loss. I don't know if you've noticed, but he has lost quite a bit of weight! It was pretty simple how he did it too. He stopped eating sugar. That's it. Taking sugar out of his diet made him a healthier, leaner person.
Being a stay at home mom is great! I love being with my babies, and being able to take care of all of the family stuff.
I try to help make a little money any way I can to help out. I'm pretty busy throughout the day with one thing or another, so I needed to find something that I can pick up at any time of the day to work on. I have my crocheting business, but sometimes, when it's slower, I wanted to have something else that I could do.
FREE Mickey Mouse Glove Applique Crochet Pattern!!
Recently, I've been making different characters into Easter/Halloween baskets. I have an order for a Mickey Mouse one and I wanted to add some gloves to it. I went to look for a basic pattern to guide me, but there were no patterns for crocheted Mickey Mouse glove appliques. So I decided to whip some up and post the free pattern here for anyone else who may need some! Enjoy!
I feel like I should be playing Eminem's "Cleaning Out My Closet" as I write this.
I think that song would be too short for how long this took though. SO, as I mentioned in a previous post, I bought a lot of overstock on bathroom items at a closing grocery store the other day.
The problem, though, is that I didn't have any space for them!
We have a grocery store in our area called Marsh. It is by far the least shopped at store, and surprisingly we had two in our town. Kroger, Target, Walmart, and the plethora of whole food type stores definitely have covered the grocery market in our town. Why we had two Marshes is beyond me. Not surprisingly, one of them recently announced that they were going to close down, and all of a sudden, the parking lot was packed!!
On my way to becoming a teacher again!
I passed my Teacher exams!!
I love to crochet. Obviously, I am The Crocheting Mom after all! Up until recently though, I've gotten my patterns from other people. Then I started to figure out my own way to make things, but never really wrote it down. I've had people ask me before for my patterns, but they were written in scribbles, or my notes on the computer, in a sequence that only I would be able to understand. Until now. These past few months I've started to create my own patterns.
For me, having one baby was easy. Then, the transition from one child to two children was also extremely do-able. So, I figured, adding one more to the mix would be a breeze!
Boy was I in for a wake up call when I had my third!!!!
There are a lot of reasons you may need to make a pom pom. They are cute accessories you can add to any craft project that you may be doing. I make them often with my crochet projects. Here are a few of my items that I have added pom poms to.
Notice that there are all different sizes though. I have a couple of different ways in which I go about making these pom poms that can create different styles and sizes.
Canadian research ethics: Caught in a quagmire of privacy legislation?
This article, from the National Post (September 24) revisits, again, the cry from researchers that overzealous privacy legislation, at both federal and provincial levels, are preventing researchers from accessing individuals and databases. This quick overview of an article originally in the Canadian Journal of Public Health (July- August 2008, A. Harris et al) illuminates two important points that researchers and REBs continue to agonize over.
First, privacy legislation is making it difficult, if not impossible to access data that previously was available to researchers, even anonymized data stripped of all possible identifiers.
Second, and most importantly, the privacy legislation is difficult for many to understand and therefore, is applied and interpreted very differently by different agencies, data stewards and, I would add, REBs and researchers, who are obligated to understand the legislation as applied to specific situations, agencies, information across a variety of contexts.
True enough, the legislation is more than difficult for even smart people to interpret. The “basic reader” on Canadian privacy laws published by the Canadian government that I keep on my desk is thick and heavy with enough very small print to make it a daunting task to try to find an answer to the simplest question. It makes a great paperweight but is not overly helpful in my own interpretation and application of the Acts.
According to the Canadian government, Canada has the most comprehensive privacy legislation in the world. Few would argue with that. At a federal level, there is PIPEDA and the Privacy Act. In addition, provinces and territories have their own privacy legislation statutes, and even the most educated persons are not always quite sure whether federal legislation trumps provincial or vice versa, on an ad hoc basis.
Ontario, interestingly enough, has both PHIPA (The Personal Health Information Protection Act) and FIPPA (The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act). PHIPA allows for the protection of the privacy of persons and the confidentiality of their personal health information. FIPPA is designed in part to protect individuals’ identifiable information held by institutions, guide institutions on how to handle information and allow individuals access to the information that an institution holds about them.
Most REBs in Ontario are involved with applying both PHIPA and FIPPA when reviewing researchers’ plans on accessing personal data and health information. Most researchers have to work within the constraints of FIPPA and/or PHIPA to access individuals and information. But it is a laborious task for all concerned. And many people aren’t even sure which act is which if they aren’t engaged with privacy issues on a daily basis.
I was also amused to find that while everyone refers to FIPPA phonetically, some also pronounce the acronym for the Personal Health Information Act (PHIPA) exactly the same, correctly pronouncing the “ph” as a “f”. Yet more confusion, no doubt, probably quite unknowingly, in many conversations….
While there are certainly clear distinctions between the Privacy Act, PIPEDA, PHIPA, FIPPA and other provincial statutes, it remains that the legislation created with the laudable aim of protecting Canadian citizens is unclear, the separate Acts can be difficult for both lay persons and academics to untangle and many institutions and agencies are either not applying the Acts at all, or interpreting and thereby applying them in an incorrect way. The valuable objectives and good intentions of protecting private information and those most vulnerable to a breach in privacy are obscured against a backdrop of confusion and a lack of guidance and clarity by governing bodies.
At the Dreamforce 2015 conference, cloud-based CRM provider Salesforce built on its key innovations from last year, with improvements to its development platform, Lightning, and its analytics offering, Wave. With its upgrades, Salesforce has continued to focus on personalizing customer experiences, making data actionable and democratizing the application experience for business users.
Salesforce built on these upgrades with enhancements to existing offerings, such as the Sales and Service Clouds, as well as with new service offerings at the Dreamforce 2015 conference. Announced at the show was Salesforce's foray into the Internet of Things -- the IoT Cloud -- which enables companies to take the massive streams of data coming from products, ingest that data into the Salesforce platform and generate actions based on the data in real time. Wind turbines could adjust their behavior based on weather or delayed passengers with airline connections could be rebooked while they are still in flight. The IoT Cloud is powered by Thunder, a sister development platform to Lightning, under the hood.
The IoT Cloud also reflects Salesforce's further entrenchment in its ecosystem. Microsoft, for example, is using the cloud to capture data on Office 365 usage, Microsoft's productivity and collaboration platform. Salesforce in turn is tapping into Microsoft's Azure for scalability given the massive volumes of data, then sending the data to Salesforce applications.
Users responded to the offerings at the Dreamforce show with piqued interest -- and some caution. Users are generally enthused by the enhancements to Lightning, which they said has made Salesforce applications' UI far more user-friendly.
The Health Cloud, which Salesforce announced on the eve of Dreamforce, targets the healthcare industry and aims to bring siloed patient data together to improve patient relationships. However, the Health Cloud is ambitious in scope, promising to stitch together data from legacy healthcare systems. But this kind of data integration has been a bugbear even in industries in which CRM systems are well-entrenched, such as retail, so healthcare may pose an even steeper challenge.
Wave, the Salesforce Analytics Cloud, still needs to establish its street cred among a wider base of users. While some companies welcome its business-friendly data visualization features and speed of implementation, many others are still heavily invested in other analytics tools and need to figure out where Wave fits in to their plans.
Finally, the IoT Cloud presents opportunities to corral and digest massive volumes of product and customer data, but it's a major undertaking that will take infrastructure and other adjustments for many companies.
Ultimately, Salesforce's moves at Dreamforce 2015 signal that the cloud-based CRM provider is moving well beyond its roots, though CRM remains at the core. Time will tell whether this expansion bolsters its foundation or extends CRM too far afield.
For more Dreamforce conference news and trends, check out our roundup below.
The Dreamforce 2015 conference was marked by Salesforce's commitment to tackling new industries with offerings including the IoT and Health Clouds but also by customer re-evaluation of older services. A year after their releases at Dreamforce 2014, Salesforce's Analytics Cloud, known as Wave, and its application-development platform, Lightning, still face adoption challenges among users. The conference also signaled the start of a deeper relationship between Salesforce and Microsoft, which could open doors for the IoT Cloud.
From the Internet of Things (IoT) to data analytics and creating their own applications, Salesforce customers had a lot to talk about at the Dreamforce 2015 conference. Salesforce's new IoT Cloud was a hot topic at the show as users explored whether the platform, which aims to connect billions of data points from many different Web-connected devices, made sense for their businesses. One year after their release at last year's conference, Wave, or the Analytics Cloud, and the app-creation platform Lightning got upgrades in advance of this year's show and were met with some mixed reactions. Companies also shared their stories of how overcoming data challenges and moving to the cloud helped streamline their business processes.
As you may have noticed, there are several Sacramento Private Investigator and Sacramento Security Service agencies on the web to choose from, so why choose us? At JMN Investigations & Protective Services, we pride ourselves on providing professional services at competitive industry rates. At JMN Investigations and Protective Services, we control our overhead costs to give you the Client, the best value. In addition, JMN Investigations & Protective Services utilizes only LICENSED AND INSURED PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS and SECURITY COMPANIES. Our preferred partners have been extensively vetted for; experience, subject matter expertise and proper insurance and licensure. We take the fear and uncertainty out of choosing a single source- Risk Management provider.
JMN Investigations & Protective Services is a premier provider of Sacramento Security Service and Sacramento Private Investigator services, since 1999.
Why put your company at risk with an inexperienced Security Service or Private Investigator? We have remained in business, in part because; we don’t let our clients down! In addition, we have the financial resources to support our operations and keep your business safe. Trust our Sacramento Security Service and Sacramento Private Investigator to keep your business on track.
LAZ wrote: Meanwhile, I have detailed my experiences in making waderoberts' hominy casserole here. If you tried this dish, I'm curious to know what you thought of it. (Be honest. While I believe I executed it well, I don't have anything personal vested in the recipe and Wade doesn't seem to have posted here in over a year.) If you didn't try it, why not? And if there's anyone out there who's tried a hominy casserole before, how did this one compare?
Looked great, tasted...not so great. The Cheez Whiz was tough to take. I could not, however, imagine a better execution.
figmolly wrote: I really enjoyed the dish I prepared too (is it too gauche to label it a favorite?). Having never cooked green mangos before I was skeptical leaving the skin on, but they proved delicious and almost more vegetable like. Thanks, sazerac!
How could it be gauche to praise sazerac's recipe? Although I'm sure the execution in your skilled hands was as good as it could be. It was a great dish.
Looking back at sazerac's pronunciation, I can see one of the things that might have attracted you to the recipe.
Was it difficult to make? And would you ever use a dish like that as part of your catering repertoire?
It was actually very easy to make and I will definitely make it again for home and possibly catering. I didn't love the presentation and would probably cook the fish seperately so it didn't fall apart as much (for catering; at home I don't care as much about presentation). sazerac mentions an alternative version where the turmeric is sprinkled on the fish which is fried and added to the sauce. I may try that. I will also add a little more heat next time...I made it after the dip and I didn't want to be known as the Hot Queen so I kept it tame.
Aaaah, the dip. I tripled GWiv's recipe and started with 25 whole steamed jalapenos and 1 steamed habanero. I steamed the peppers and garlic in aluminum foil in a 325 oven (lower than I would go for roasting) until they were soft but not browned. I cut the stems off of the peppers, but didn't remove the seeds. It doesn't give any indication in the recipe that this should be done, but my dip was super spicy even with only one habanero (and no fresh). I did add about a teaspoon of fresh garlic and a few extra soda crackers and olive oil to try to tame the heat (if I had more feta I would have doubled the other ingredients without adding more peppers). I really loved the flavor and it actually tamed with chilling and the fresh veggies - still I could only eat a small amount. Just made guacamole yesterday and didn't have fresh jalapenos so he added a touch of the dip and it spiced it up nicely.
It was fun making Trixie Pea's Mac N Cheese for the potluck. I had tasted this recipe before and had actually watched her make it once at my house. I had been looking for a chance to put my own spin on the dish, and this turned out to be the perfect opportunity. I didn't really change the basic recipe all that much because it's pretty dammed good as it is, but I've never followed a recipe to the letter in my life, so I had to change up something. I doubled the recipe that she posted on LTH. In addition, I added some ground mustard, halved serranos and tomato paste to the roux before making the bechamel sauce. I later removed the serranos before adding the cheese to the finished bechamel. I ended up using 5 different cheeses; Fontina, Aged Reserve Gruyere, 5 year aged English cheddar, a mild bleu and some Parmigiano Reggiano mixed in with the panko on top. This was by far the richest (and most expensive) mac N cheese I have ever made. About the only things I would do differently next time is to maybe use a little more tomato paste than I did to give the cheese sauce a richer color (or use an orange cheddar) and I'd probably mix the panko with a bit of melted butter or truffle oil before topping the dish for better browning. I hope everyone enjoyed the dish. There wasn't much left at the end, so that's a good sign.
Sunday was just great. Due to WBBM's traffic lies and my precautions, I arrived awfully early and found very little to set up. I have to start by thanking Molly and Justin for being excellent hosts. They got everything organized and remained helpful from start to finish - providing a utensil or pointing people to supplies they needed with patience, graciousness and aplomb. I think they got a kick out of everyone coming to their place for a change.
This was my second LTH event, but I found everyone as friendly and delightful to talk to as I've read. Conversation ranged from proper internal use of drain cleaner, to lost cities in distant lands to the social skeleton key that is the 40 Year Old Virgin.
That said, there was much memorable food. My eating was divided unintentionally to three courses. Salads, appetizers and meats from around the world.
Two memorable tastes from each one: As others have said, Ramon's goi ga (a la jygach) was a refreshing blend of of flavors and textures. Despite her claims, I don't think a culinary mishap got anywhere near that dish. I also very much enjoyed the Terrasinis' spicy pickle. I heard that Mrs. Terrasini dialed back the spice for the masses. Well, let loose the hounds! I would certainly like to taste the uncensored version.
Wustlmike's olive oil flatbreads and the Giles's sardine dip married nicely. I returned for 2nds on the eatchicago-inspired pissaladiere tarts as prepared by KennyZ. And if he truly made the puff pastry as he intended, my awe in addition to my kudos.
Meats of the world yielded, among other fine contenders, Cathy2's preparation of extramsg's brined pastrami. As I showed pictures in this thread to my foodie Boston friend Abby, she immediately eyed the pastrami. "That looks great!" she wrote. It was, Abby. It was. And the piquant bites I had of JoelF's nuea naam tok as turned out by thaiobessed were a great pleasure indeed.
I realize that I forgot to add a starch plate. Or a Nubian plate. Sadly, there were many dishes I lacked the capacity (fortitude?) to try.
And for the desserts, I find myself echoing others' - Kennyz's herby fire-mint-chip ice cream made the mint chocolate chip I enjoyed as a youngster seem like a silly childish thing. Although I cannot remember if it was ultimately sorrel or another herb that finally made it in. Also, I greatly enjoyed Cookie Monster's prep of Bruce's butter cookie dough cobbler. Then again, I'm liable to go Manchurian Candidate for some stewed fruit and a crumble topping.
More than anything else, I loved being a part of such a large-scale, cooking-focused endeavor. With so many people excited to cook and serve others, dozens of hands darting this way and that to stir a pot or plate a dish, my foodie-predilections felt right at home rather than the fringes they normally occupy. It was just enriching to be in the mix with other like-minded cooks and eaters. And that was what I'll remember best.
Of course, many thanks to all the people who made this possible - especially the organizers and the hosts.
I look forward to the picnic with great anticipation.
Last edited by gastro gnome on June 25th, 2008, 9:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I have to admit that I was not as fond of the radish dish as some other LTH'ers. I kept playing with it to evoke either the intense freshness and spicy undertones of raw radishes or a more flavorful cooked variety. I tried adding sauteed shallots and some fresh thyme, but do not think this greatly changed the taste all that much. The addition of the radish greens were a riff on the suggested variation of watercress in the posted recipe. I had so many lovely greens that it seemed a shame to go out and buy watercress. In retrospect, I might have added more. Some of you may have been wondering about the bread I served underneath it. I was trying to evoke the open-faced sandwich that I believe many of us have enjoyed. I intended to toast the rye bread into croutons, which I think might have been better than the sop the fresh bread became. But those are some deliciously 'enriched' slices of bread that I brought home with me, buttery with some radishy-notes.
One technical note. In order to avoid overcooking them, I cooked the radishes in three different groups based on size and stopped the cooking when each was done. This might be impractical in smaller batches, but I think it helped to preserve some texture.
I found the Derby Day salad straightforward to prepare. I think that the largest possible platter to avoid too much mounding of the lettuce is ideal for service. Or perhaps I put out a bit too much lettuce. I found that most of the flavorful toppings disappeared faster than the greens themselves. Maybe I should have upped the ratios there. As LAZ mentioned, I found the pecans a little vexing. I have never candied anything before, but I am pretty sure that even this dialed-down version could have turned out better. Not much of the sugar and butter really clung to the pecans. I think that perhaps melting the butter in a smaller pan and whisking to incorporate the sugars and white pepper before pouring over the pecans might work better in the future.
Of course, the star of this dish was the dressing itself. I chose this recipe to showcase in-season strawberries and was somewhat uneasy with the choice of bourbon as a flavoring agent. I have had it in some sweets but seldom in other applications. Well, the worries were gone with first taste. What a wonderful dressing this was. I did dial back on the lemons and increased the booze a bit as LAZ pondered doing in the original thread. It was probably closer to 3/4 of a cup of lemon juice and 1/3 or more of a cup of bourbon. I also did not measure the olive oil very carefully, but I think it was less than 2 cups. I just started whisking the non-oil ingredients and adding the light olive oil slowly until a rich emulsion had formed. Maybe call it 1 2/3 cups. Because of the addition of the mustard and honey, I found that this kept emulsified in the fridge very well. It was still integrated by the time I had poured it at the party despite being made some hours in advance.
So that's my cook's take on this little experiment. I really enjoy reading people's account so how the cooking went so do post about your experience!
Perhaps you started with bigger heads of lettuce than I used for the original salad. I probably should have given the measurement in cupfuls of greens for more accuracy -- but since I didn't measure them, this would have been difficult! The bibb lettuce I used was about 4 inches in diameter.
gastro gnome wrote: What a wonderful dressing this was. I did dial back on the lemons and increased the booze a bit as LAZ pondered doing in the original thread. It was probably closer to 3/4 of a cup of lemon juice and 1/3 or more of a cup of bourbon. I also did not measure the olive oil very carefully, but I think it was less than 2 cups. I just started whisking the non-oil ingredients and adding the light olive oil slowly until a rich emulsion had formed. Maybe call it 1 2/3 cups.
Ah, I thought your version had a bit more bite -- I imagine that was the reduced proportion of oil rather than the higher level of bourbon. I typically use a standard 1 part acid to 2 parts oil for vinaigrettes, and I don't bother with whisking but just pour everything into a jar and shake it up.
Thanks so much for trying my recipe. It's so fascinating how different cooks can start with the same recipe and end up with varied results because of different methods and equipment, variations in ingredients and so on, not to mention different tastes, even in a simple dish like this one. We touched on that in this thread.
You have to wonder how large restaurants manage to come up with consistent results when they have so many different cooks.
Perhaps it would be fun sometime to do an experiment in which a group of us all make the same recipe and then we compare the final dishes.
LAZ wrote: Perhaps it would be fun sometime to do an experiment in which a group of us all make the same recipe and then we compare the final dishes.
Sounds like a great idea to me. When/Where?
nr706 wrote: Sounds like a great idea to me. When/Where?
Maybe it would be better to figure out the recipe, first?
One criterion I can see is that it should be a dish any competent cook can make, rather than something that requires a lot of practice to get right (e.g. barbecue). Ideally it should be something that can be served cold or at room temperature, so the venue needn't have a kitchen.
And perhaps it ought to be part of another event, so that the prospect of a large quantity of something all the same doesn't seem so boring!
My original, inadvertent experiment of this nature was with cookies.
I enjoyed making Bridgestone's Christmas Meatballs, as I have been somewhat obsessed with charcuterie over the past few years. This was an interesting project for me because even though my wife is of Swedish descent, not very many family recipes from the 'old country' seem to have made it the present.
The wife enjoyed the meatballs (they reminded her of stuff her grandmother used to make for her when she was little) and I received several positive comments about them, including 'exemplary' and 'textbook.' I personally prefer a spicier, more aggressively seasoned rendition but that's just not the nature of the Swedish meatball. These were subtle and aromatic, with faint but distinctive notes of freshly-ground clove and allspice. Because I knew I'd be re-heating this batch, I felt like they needed a sauce, so I created one with the pan drippings that were rendered after I fried the meatballs, by creating a roux in the pan and adding beef stock to it. I also re-emphasized the clove and allspice in the sauce and then ran it all through a chinoise. Thinking about it now, some thinly sliced, sauteed mushrooms would have been a nice addition to the sauce, too.
The very best thing about the meatballs was that they were remarkably tender. This was mainly a function of triple-grinding the meat, something that the sagacious Bridgestone advised in his recipe. It had a huge impact on the final product's texture, which was soft and delicate, and I definitely plan to apply the technique to future projects. The one downside of this tenderness was that, before cooking, the meatballs were difficult to keep spherical. As we rolled them and aggregated them for frying, they tended to develop some flat edges. This might have been exacerbated by my adding too much stock to the breadcrumbs that went into the balls. I'm not 100% sure.
In any event, based on the results, the feedback I received and the fact that the entire pan of meatballs was all but polished off, I'd pretty much call the endeavor a rousing success.
It was great meeting everyone at the potluck.
There were many outstanding dishes. I have been obsessing about YourPalWill's Cochinitia Pibil (made by aschie) since I put the first bite of it in my mouth. So...today I found myself at Tony's buying habanero chiles, banana leaves, achiote and five pounds of pork shoulder. I post on the results after Sat.
I also made Ramon's chicken salad (made by jygach) the night after the potluck.
I think next up will be KennyZ's mint ice cream.
JoelF's Thai Beef Salad (Neua nom tok) was a cinch to make. I grilled the skirt steak to medium rare (I'd probably go rarer next time--it "cooked" a bit in the dressing. I stay pretty true to the recipe (tho I added a handful of mint). I'll definitely be making this again over the summer (Thanks for the recipe JoelF if you're out there).
• Instead of using white sugar, I decided to use palm sugar which, I thought, would give the dressing more depth of flavor. However, my package of palm sugar appeared to have found an undiscoverable hiding spot in my cabinet. As a substitute, I used a combination of white sugar and turbinado sugar.
• Instead of all Napa, I used a combination of Napa cabbage and red cabbage for a crunchier texture.
Others asked me to share my culinary mishaps with the Red Velvet Cake. So, in the spirit of bringing it all to the table for my LTH friends, here are my mishaps and misfortunes with dessert.
The LTH recipe for Red Velvet Cake linked to two recipes. The first used a bottle of red dye. The second used pureed red beets. I elected to go with the beet version as I had no desire to ingest dyes. Since this was a Southern cake I felt it warranted dipping into my store of White Lily flour milled in the South. This recipe not only used beets, but also had melted chocolate in addition to the cocoa. The cake batter had no hint of red but, as they say, the proof is in the baking. Sadly, 35 minutes of baking did nothing to enhance the color. It looked like a basic chocolate cake. At this point it was 1:00 am and my bed was calling.
The next morning all that remained for me to do was to whip up a cream cheese frosting and slap it onto my nine-inch cake layers. I turned to the internet and picked a cream cheese frosting recipe under the mistaken impression that they were all pretty much the same. This recipe used three ingredients – cream cheese, butter, and confectioners’ sugar. Three ingredients that, despite my efforts at stirring, whipping, begging, and praying, refused to come together to form a frosting. “Perhaps it will firm up once it’s on the cake,” I hoped, as I attempted to spread this mixture on the cake. It did not, and just kept slithering down the sides of the cake and pooling onto the parchment strips I was using to keep my serving platter pristine. After ten minutes of spreading and then watching the slip sliding I accepted this cake as a lost cause and skimmed through the recipes to find a different dessert.
Staying with the chocolate theme, I selected Super Chocolate Brownies as per the recipe posted by tcdup.
I quickly mixed together two batches and heaved a sigh of relief when they emerged looking dark and shiny. After they cooled, I cut them into squares and placed each batch on a plate. As I was wrapping the plates with foil, one plate slid out of my hands and I watched in horror as one batch of brownies lay on the floor in tiny pieces! It looked like we would have only one batch of brownies instead of two - not the end of the world.
At 3:00 p.m. I packed the food, took it to the car and drove off to pick up Cynthia. I was sharing my kitchen disasters with her when, to my utter dismay and horror, I saw the second plate of brownies slide from their safely ensconced position and land upside down onto the floor of the car in, you guessed it, small pieces. Cynthia helped me salvage a few pieces but clearly this was not an appealing pile of brownies!