Fudgy Brownie Dessert

First of all, the most important thing to tell you, is this brownie batter is made by throwing everything in one pot, that's right ONE.  I love anything that cuts down on dirty dishes!!  

So, my husband requested this delicious dessert Friday night, luckily I was able to use his phone to take pictures...yes, my camera is still getting fixed :(.  At least his phone can take really good photos, so I just had to share it with this dessert with the rest of the world!  IT IS SOOO GOOD!  I've made these brownies for A LONG time, like years, that's how are delicious they are on their own, but one night after I'd made them my husband looked through our fridge to try and take them up a notch.  

This is the glorious masterpiece he came up with.  Now we just make the brownies just to have this...

 Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. unsalted butter
• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate (pictured below so you'd know what it looks like)
• 1 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2/3 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda

Toppings:

• vanilla ice cream
• dulce de leche, or caramel
• shredded coconut
• whipped cream
• we've also added chopped nuts before, there's no right or wrong, let your imagination run wild! :)

In a medium saucepan melt butter and unsweetened chocolate over low heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.  Once it's melted remove from heat.  Stir in the sugar, and then add the eggs, one at a time, and mixing in completely with a wooden spoon after each egg.  Stir in the vanilla.  Then add the flour and baking soda, and mix it all together.

Pour the batter into a greased 9x13 cake pan and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.  Let cool for a few minutes, then assemble the masterpiece.  We spread a layer of dulce de leche, or caramel, on the brownie, then top with the vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, shredded coconut, and on this one I drizzled a little more caramel on top.  Sorry there aren't more pictures of the process, but with just having to throw it all in one pot, I felt there wasn't much I could document...again with the one dish...I know, I know...

Hope you enjoy!

For a printable version of this recipe click here.

Zucchini Raisin Bread

This is the first year we don't have our own garden :(.  It's kind of sad.  I miss going out there everyday looking for new fruits or veggies that are ripe and ready to eat.  One of the things we planted every year was zucchini.  I learned very quickly that I needed to have a good zucchini bread recipe, because we would get A LOT of zucchini.  I found this recipe a long time ago, and over the years I have experimented with it, and changed it.  Thank you to my father-in-law for giving us some zucchini from his garden so I could make some yummy bread!

Warning:  I lost the charger for our camera, so all these pictures were taken with my phone, sorry about the quailty...

Zucchini Raisin Bread

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. vegetable oil
• 1/2 c. applesauce (I like to buy the no sugar added applesauce in the individual serving cups, and one serving cup is a 1/2 c.  Also, if you don't have any applesauce on hand, you can use 1 c. vegetable oil instead. The applesauce just keeps it a little more healthy).
• 3 eggs
• 1 3/4 c. sugar
• 3 tsp. vanilla
• 3 c. all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 Tbsp. cinnamon
• 2 c. grated zucchini
• 1 c. raisins

Coconut Crusted Chicken

I've made this YUMMY recipe a couple of times now, we are big fans here!  Sorry about the fuzzy pictures, my camera is still getting fixed :(

What you'll need:

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 c. coconut milk (it comes in a can, and it can be found in the Oriental aisle at the grocery store)
• 1/2 all purpose flour
• 1 c. Panko bread crumbs 
• 1 c. shredded coconut
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• vegetable oil
• sweet and sour sauce for dipping*

DIY Captain America Shield

My son has become OBSESSED with superheros!  It's kind of sad, he went from toddler to BOY overnight.  

I'm still adjusting.  

Something fun that has come from this new obsession is we now get to play superheros, A LOT.  We switch back and forth between them, usually playing Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and Hulk.    

In order to play we've come up with different things we use.  My son got a little hammer/screwdriver toy set, maybe 2 years ago, so we use the hammer as Thor's hammer.  For Hulk he just runs around and 'Hulk smashes' things :), and for Iron Man he pretends to shoot 'blue lasers' (is what he calls them).  We had a birthday party to go to a couple of weeks ago, so I took my son to the toy section at Wal-mart.  

 He wanted to buy EVERYTHING!  Afterwards the one thing he kept talking about was this Captain America shield he had seen, and how badly he wanted it.  It was like $15, and it was just basically a frisbee with a little hand strap, so it gave me an idea!

We were out of milk, so I made a trip to Costco, (I could have gone to Wal-mart, but I knew if I went to Costco the milk would come in this box, and it is the perfect size).

We first cut out a circle...

Baking Soda and Vinegar

I found this awesome idea and wanted to try it out with my little guy, he LOVED it!!  He calls this his 'science experiment'.  Great for a rainy day, it kept him occupied for over a 1/2 hour!

What you need:

• a pan of baking soda
• bowls with vinegar 
• food coloring
• and something to squirt out the vinegar.  I used one of those baby medicine syringes.  (see picture further down).

 We took the syringe and pulled up the back to suck up some vinegar, my son then squirted it into the baking soda.  He loved the reaction it made!  It foams up, and then down and turns into this soft feeling almost moon sand texture.

How to Clean Car Mats

Another post about cleaning!  Yay!  This post actually coincides with my previous post about cleaning my couches.  (Here's the link if you missed that post).  I've had my cute little car for about 3 years now, and while I've vacuumed it, plenty, I've never cleaned the car mats.  They were dirty.  Since we'd had success cleaning our couches with Resolve, I figured I would try it out on the mats.  I am going to be bold and show you what they looked like...remember I have a 3 1/2 year old, no judging here!

How to Clean Your Couch

A long time ago we paid to have our couches cleaned professionally.  It was pretty pricey, and took a VERY long time.  After a while they started to get dirty again, surprise!  Well, one day I came home, I don't even recall where I was, and I was greeted with a wonderful surprise, my husband had taken it upon himself to clean our couches.  He had what I considered a genius idea.  He took Shout, a scrub brush, and hot water and cleaned the couches completely.  It was amazing.  It's been almost a year or since then, and the couches again were looking like they needed some TLC.  I didn't have Shout, but I did have Resolve, since they are both stain removers for laundry, I figured they would have the same end result.  (The toothbrush is so my son could help me clean the cushions, he loves to do what we're doing).

I tried to get good pictures of how dirty the cushions looked...