Mini Pineapple Cheesecakes

We had people over for the fourth of July, and I was itching to make a no-bake pineapple cheesecake.  However, I remembered the last time I did this, I had a ton of leftover cheesecake, and we're pretty low on fridge space these days.  So I compromised and made much simpler and cuter mini-cheesecakes.

You will need:
-2 containers phyllo shells
- 1/2 block cream cheese (low fat is fine) - softened
- 1/2 tub cool-whip (do NOT use low fat)
- 1/2 can crushed pineapple - drained
- 1/4 cup sugar

Procedure:
1.) Whip cool whip, cream cheese, pineapple, and sugar together.
2.) Spoon into phyllo cups.
3.) Chill for one hour and serve.

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

 It's been an interesting week for the Barefoots.  In the past week, we have made yogurt, cheese, and ice cream. The yogurt and cheese were fine - we did the yogurt in the crockpot, and the cheese I combine a few recipes from the internet.  But the ice cream? Ooooooh the ice cream....
Ice cream has been on our summer to-make list, but we don't have an ice cream maker, so we were going to borrow one from a friend.  We just hadn't gotten around to it yet.  Then we got invited to another friend's house for dinner, and I offered to bring dessert.  Then, I offered that if they were willing to let us use their ice cream maker, we would bring the already made ice cream custard.  It totally worked out, and I am now yearning for my own ice cream maker attachment for Darth.

I adapted this recipe from Epicurious.  I wasn't sure if the ice cream would work with 2% milk, but it works really well.  I added an extra egg, just in case, too, so here is my ingredient list.
2 cups heavy cream - AT ROOM TEMPERATURE (divided into 1 1/4 cup for caramel and 3/4 cup for custard)
1 1/4 cups 2% milk
1 1/8 cup sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 whole eggs

Then follow the recipe, except keep in mind that if you pour cold cream into hot caramel, the caramel will instantly cool and harden, so make sure the cream is at room temperature, or heat it up a bit.

Let Me Eat Cake!

I have to make a cake this weekend for my sister-in-law's bachelorette party, so I did a trial run today.  It came out pretty good.  And by pretty good, I mean amazingly delicious.  Considering I didn't use a mix.

But what even goes into a cake?  Because if you had asked me this morning, I would have said, "cake mix, eggs, oil."  But instead, I would now tell you, "butter, sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, eggs, milk, vanilla".  In that order.  All into the kitchenaid.  Proper recipe is here. I baked my cupcakes for about 25-30 minutes, and my cake for about 40, and the tops were crispy-crunchy and the insides were fantastic.  

I would like to try making my own cake mix to have handy (probably using powdered milk), but this recipe was so easy that I'm sure I will turn to it in the future.  I also might give it a try with applesauce instead of half the butter, but 1/2 stick of butter for an entire cake was one of the lowest amounts I could find in the recipes - but if anybody has seen any other ideas, please share!  

You. Must. Make. This.

Tonight we had our annual passover dinner, my friend Boston and I.  I feel the need to explain to my newer readers that I'm not Jewish, but I grew up in a community where I have a lot of Jewish friends, and I have many family members who are Jewish via conversion and marriage.  So, every year, we get together for Passover.  Boston makes traditional Jewish Passover foods, and I embrace the challenge of cooking dinner without using anything leavened.  Or any kind of legume.

This year, my old roommate Sam came along as well, and we had a lovely unleavened meal together, although not a traditional seder, as I did not clear a chair for Elijah or hide any matzoh.  I learned the hard way today that downtown Baltimore is a hard place to find matzoh or kosher for Passover chocolate chips.  Fortunately, Sister Barefoot (one of the aforementioned family members married to a Jewish person) had recently stocked up on matzoh, and Boston said that the regular chocolate chips would be okay, so I just used semisweet store brand.

I used this recipe, but reduced the amount of butter and sugar by a little bit.  I would say that I used 4.5 sheets of  matzoh (unsalted), 1/2 cup plus two tablespoons butter, and 3/4 cup brown sugar.  I did not use the vanilla, since my vanilla was kosher but not for passover.  I'm going to repost the recipe here, which is the creation of David Liebovitz, for posterity.

Because if I lose this recipe, my life will become sad and empty.

4 to 6 sheets unsalted matzohs
1 cup (230g) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 cup (215g) firmly-packed light brown sugar
big pinch of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (160g) semisweet chocolate chips (or chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate)

1. Line a rimmed baking sheet (approximately 11 x 17″, 28 x 42cm) completely with foil, making sure the foil goes up and over the edges. Cover the foil with a sheet of parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 375F (190C).

2. Line the bottom of the sheet with matzoh, breaking extra pieces as necessary to fill in any spaces.

3. In a 3-4 quart (3-4l) heavy duty saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar together, and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the mixture is beginning to boil. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add the salt and vanilla, and pour over matzoh, spreading with a heatproof spatula.

4. Put the pan in the oven and reduce the heat to 350F (175C) degrees. Bake for 15 minutes. As it bakes, it will bubble up but make sure it’s not burning every once in a while. If it is in spots, remove from oven and reduce the heat to 325F (160C), then replace the pan.

5. Remove from oven and immediately cover with chocolate chips. Let stand 5 minutes, then spread with an offset spatula.  Allow to cool (preferably in the fridge) and then crack matzoh into pieces by essentially folding the parchment paper into sections to break off pieces.  

Salted caramel is really in lately - sea salt & caramel brownies, etc. are popular in cities that are not slow to food trends, so this is a great recipe to use to impress your friends. (Baltimore now has cupcakes, and we're starting to get fro-yo.  Sadly, not near me.)

What is neat about this recipe is that you actually make caramel. I've been terrified of making caramel for a long time now, but it turns out that, like fudge, or salad dressing, it's pretty easy to do.  The biggest tip I can give you is that if you turn the back burner on, but then move the pot to the front burner, don't wonder why the brown sugar and butter aren't properly melting.  It's because you took the pot off the heat.

So everybody is going to head to their nearest grocery store, grab a box of matzoh, and make this tonight, right?  Don't wait until next year!  I think I'm bringing this to Easter even.  I may actually grab a box of matzoh to keep until Christmas, because my mother in law makes this with saltines, but I think the matzoh gives the brittle a bit more heft.

Pavlova

Have you had pavlova?  It's dessert pizza, with meringue for crust.  We had my aunt and uncle over for an Irish themed dinner and I made pavlova, which is technically from Australia or New Zealand, but it came up on a list of Irish desserts and I've been dying to make it.  When I announced I had made pavlova, my aunt said, "the last time we had that, we were in Ireland."  So, I felt pretty victorious.

This recipe is adapted from Joy of Baking.
Pavlova Meringue
Ingredients:

• 4 egg whites 
• 1/8 tsp cream of tarter 
• 1 cup caster sugar (just grate it in the food processor)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp vinegar

1. Whip egg whites and cream of tarter until soft peaks form.    
2. Add caster sugar slowly, a few tablespoons at a time.  
3. Whip until stiff peaks form and egg whites are stiff and glossy.  (Joy of Baking recommends beating until sugar is no longer grainy.)
4. Add vanilla extract and continue to beat.  
5. Sprinkle cornstarch and vinegar over the top of the eggs and fold in with a spatula.  
6. Spread pavlova into a circle on the un-shiny side of foil or the waxy side of parchment paper.  
7. Bake at 250 for 75 minutes.  

Mine was underdone in the center and stuck to the parchment because I used the wrong side and undercooked it a little.  I would even consider going 80+ minutes and then turning off the oven and letting it cool completely with the meringue inside.  

To make the rest of it, just mix 1.5 cups heavy cream with 1 cup confectioners sugar and beat with a mixer until it forms whipped cream.  Spread over filling and top with sliced berries and other fruit. (I used sliced strawberries, blueberries, raspberries.)  

We finished this off and licked the platter clean.  I highly recommend making it if you have the time - it's a crazy-easy dessert that packs a really impressive punch.  

Thanksgiving Begins

So I received a lovely recipe card box and recipe cards from my sister in law at my bridal shower.  For a little while, I was like, "I have two recipe binders...how could I possibly also use recipe cards?"  Then I started dealing with using several unwieldy cookbooks in the kitchen and decided that I should transfer my thanksgiving recipes to the cards.  

So now, instead of a cookbook or laptop, I just have the cards.  I'm also a sucker for tradition, and I love the idea of having a box of traditional holiday recipes, even if I don't make every one every year.  I also love the idea of handing these down to my kids one day.  This one is for gingersnap crusted pumpkin cheesecake, which I'm taking to my grandmother's tomorrow.  

I found the recipe on Allrecipes and changed it a little bit.  

Crust: 

Ingredients:  

• 1 1/2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• Procedure:
• Mix brown sugar, crumbs, and butter together with a mixer until it reaches paste-like consistency.  
• Press into a springform pan.  This was really hard.  The crumbs did not stick to my nonstick pan, and it was very hard to press evenly or get a nice line.  This is the first time I've made a cheesecake in a springform pan though, so I think next time will go better.  

For the filling:

3 sticks cream cheese (or half a log from costco)

1 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups solid-pack pumpkin (in re-reading the recipe, I used 1 1/2 cans which is actually almost 3 cups...oops)

1/2 cup heavy cream 

1/3 cup maple syrup (remember to spray pam on your measuring cup before you measure this - it slides right out)

1 tbsp vanilla (I forgot this)

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon 

1/2 tsp ground allspice 

4 eggs

Oven at 325.

Procedure:

1) Cream brown sugar and cream cheese together with an electric mixer until fluffy.  

2) Add pumpkin.  Add heavy cream and maple syrup.  Add spices.  

3) Beat in eggs, one by one.  

4) Pour into filling and put in oven.  Cook for 90 minutes, let cool for 30, and then refrigerate overnight.  

Results:

1.) My cheesecake leaked.  I'm not totally sure what this is, but the pan that I baked it on came out sopping wet.  

2.) This is a very tall cheesecake, I think the 1.5 extra cups of pumpkin don't help.  Not totally sure what the crust will look like.  According to the reviews, as it cools, it will continue to cook and also possibly cave in.  

This is beginning to feel like a bad idea. 

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

Tonight we had our good friends over for dinner.  You know how you have that group of friends that every time you call them, they've got something going on and it's impossible to meet up?  Well, these aren't those friends - we have those friends too.  But somehow, the one night a month that we are free and have nothing planned, and we call them, it's miraculously the same night they have free and have nothing planned.  So we get together and eat food and play board games and it's awesome.  We usually play Ticket to Ride, but sometimes we go for Settlers of Catan.

Tonight, I made baked cod (this recipe, but I used garlic parmesean dressing and regular panko instead of croutons) with a leek and pea risotto and pumpkin bread pudding for dessert.  I made pumpkin bread yesterday, but when I went to take it out of the loaf pan it self-destructed and I got a mess of pumpkin bread - perfect for bread pudding.  So I tossed everything in the crockpot with some milk and it was pretty good - could have been improved with vanilla ice cream, but definitely something I would consider making for the holidays, especially for people that don't really like pumpkin.  Mr Barefoot doesn't care for it, but he made extra-sure to tell me how good the pudding was.  (I didn't use the allspice that the recipe called for, since we were out - I think that helped.)  I adapted the recipe from the "Best Loved Slow Cooker Recipes" cookbook we have, which is a great general slow cooker guide.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding:
Ingredients:
1 loaf pumpkin bread, left sitting on the counter all night because you were too lazy to put it away (or baked in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes to dry it out.)
1 3/4 cups milk
2 small apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
1/2 cup dried fruit (cranberries or raisins)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1 egg
1 8oz container greek yogurt (I used vanilla but you could probably use plain)

Procedure:

1. Cut bread into 1-inch pieces, place in a greased slow cooker
2. Pour milk over bread, let soak in for 10-20 minutes while you core and chop the apple
3. Stir in dried fruit and apple pieces 
4. Combine egg, butter, yogurt, brown sugar, and any spices you would like into a small bowl
5. Pour over bread and apples.
6. Allow to cook on high for 2 hours (if you have a demonic slow cooker like ours) or on low for 4 hours.  

Blueberry Crumble

There should be a picture here, but uh, we ate it too fast.

I bought fresh blueberries at the farmer's market yesterday and they were pretty darn fantastic.  I'm not a huge blueberry person, but I like them with yogurt.  Last night it occurred to me that we still had vanilla ice cream we hadn't eaten, and I should make a crumble with the blueberries.  It was going to be a crisp, but uh, there were bugs in my oatmeal when I pulled it out.  Ew.

I used this recipe only I made a half-ish batch with about 1.5 cups of blueberries.  I think I used too much butter and not enough flour or something, because it wasn't quite as crumbly as I'd hoped.

If you are cooking a small casserole like this for two, I highly recommend owning a small stoneware dish for cooking them in.  Or two of these.  Either way, if you put it in the toaster oven, the whole thing cooks in about 15 minutes instead of 30.  Serve with vanilla ice cream and remember that, in spite of the bar, summer tastes delicious.

Chocolate Walnut Crumb Bars

The holidays are coming up and if you want a delicious treat to take to a party and impress everyone with, these are delicious and easy. This recipe is from my future mother-in-law and was a big hit at a recent party.

*Chocolate Walnut Crumb Bars *

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
1/4tsp salt
2 cups (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate morsels, divided
14 0z can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts

Beat butter in large bowl until creamy. Beat in flour, sugar and salt until crumbly. With floured fingers, press 2 cups crumb mixture onto bottom of greased 13 x 9 baking pan. Reserve remaining mixture. Bake in preheated 350 oven for 13 – 15 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

Warm 1 ½ cups morsels and sweetened condensed milk in small saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Spread over hot crust. Stir walnuts and remaining morsels into reserved crumb mixture; sprinkle over chocolate filling. Bake in 350 oven for 25-30 mins or until center is set. Cool before cutting.

Dipping things in chocolate

Mmmmm. Chocolate. My good friend Mama Awesome and I got together and dipped things in chocolate to sell at a bake sale.
What did we make? Chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate covered oreos, these, and these:
Look how much we made!
So recipe for chocolate covered stuff?
Take a one pound bag of melting chocolate and melt in a stainless steel or glass mixing bowl over boiling water. (Makeshift double boiler.) Add pretzels or oreos and stir gently. Quickly transfer to a nonstick baking rack. (Otherwise chocolate will harden.) Package and/or eat.
For rice crispies, buy pre-made rice crispy treats and add a stick, then dip in chocolate. Yum.

Super Delicious Easy Ice Cream Cake

My boss brought in this ice cream cake for our coworker's birthday on Monday and it was amazing. She told us how to make it, and this isn't so much a recipe as an instruction set:
Ingredients:

• 1 pkg Oreos - crushed
  
• Reese's peanut butter cups (or toffee/heath bar; or Nestle crunch) - crushed
  
• 1 container ice cream (normal sized), softened slightly so its easy to scoop
• M&Ms

Procedure:

• Take a pan you don't care about ruining the bottom of; or a cupcake pan with foil liners
• Fill the bottom with crushed oreos, add crushed reese's peanut butter cups
• Scoop in ice cream and smooth out (my coworker used cookie dough, but use whatever suits your fancy)
  
• Top with M&Ms

I think I will try this, maybe with oreos and Nestle crunch bars and topped with mint chocolate chip. Or maybe with crushed gingersnaps and that great pumpkin pie ice cream they come out with in the fall (what else could I put in there? top with some kind of caramel?)
:) Yummy!

Choice

Today is blog for choice day. Choice means a lot of things to a lot of people. To me it means having the power to make choices about everything that affects me, and leaving other people to their own choices. Other people disagree, and I respect their choice to disagree.
Today I choose cheesecake. This recipe is straight from Allrecipes.com, but it looked pretty good and I think I'll try it this weekend - it uses low fat cream cheese and fat free condensed milk.
Ingredients:

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 (8 ounce) packages low fat cream cheese (NOT tub cream cheese)
• 2 tablespoons Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose Flour
• 1 (14 ounce) can EAGLE BRAND® Fat Free Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
• 2 teaspoons grated orange peel
• 3/4 cup egg substitute product, fat free, cholesterol free

Equipment:

• 9 inch springform
• Mixing bowl
• Mixer

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray bottom of 9-inch springform pan with non-stick cooking spray. Combine graham cracker crumbs and sugar; sprinkle evenly on bottom of pan.
2. In large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Slowly add flour; mix well. On low speed, add sweetened condensed milk. Mix until smooth. Add vanilla, lemon and orange peel and egg substitute product; mix just until blended. Pour filling into pan.
3. Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until center is set. Cool 10 minutes; with thin knife, carefully loosen cheesecake from side of pan. Cool. Chill.

Dump Cake

So apparently I've never posted the recipe for Dump Cake. I am hosting some friends for a birthday festivity on Saturday, and since I'm a busy bee, I was concerned I would not have time to make a cake. Plus, dump cake is fantastic, everyone loves it, and apparently I can make it in my slow cooker. And if I put it in the slow cooker, it will be warm and delicious when we do eat it.
Dump cake is so called because you dump the ingredients into the pan.
Ingredients:

• 1 can crushed pineapple
• 1 can/bottle maraschino or other cherries (supposedly cherry pie filling works too)
• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• Spray
  

Equipment:

• Slow cooker or 9x13 pan.
  
• Pyrex measuring cup

Procedure:

1. Spray inside of slow cooker or pan
   
2. Dump in pineapple and cherries (distribute evenly, do not mix).
   
3. Dump box of cake mix on top (maybe for slow cooker)
   
4. Melt butter in microwave
5. Pour butter on top
6. Cook in slow cooker for 3-6 hours or until delicious; cook in 350 oven for 20-30 minutes or until delicious.
   

Pie

Pumpkin pie? Mmmmm. Made out of a real pumpkin. A really tiny pumpkin I bought at the grocery store that was labeled "pie pumpkin". It gave me instructions to microwave chunks of pumpkin and then scrape them out and mash them up.
I added them to some cream cheese, condensed milk, spices, and egg and made miniature pumpkin pies. Yum.
Recipe to come, once I have tried again to puree, probably using the food processor. It tastes pumpkin-y enough, but its not very uniform in color or texture - the pumpkin is a little stringy.
I did get to use my mortar and pestle to grind up the allspice, which was good for getting out pent up law school aggression.

How do you make pumpkin pie? Real pumpkin, canned pumpkin, or grocery store?

PYOP - Pick Your Own Pumpkins

Yes, dear readers, it is That Time of Year - pumpkin patching time, that is!
This weekend, hopefully, I will be out picking pumpkins with the boyfriend and his family. I am also cautiously optimistic that we will be able to pick apples and butternut squash. Hopefully I will have my camera charged and assembled for this event, and then can take pictures.
I hope its just slightly cool so we have to wear jeans and ruggedly outdoorsy jackets and look like an L.L.Bean ad. Weather.com says rainy :-p and 58. But its only a few showers.
I am determined to try making a pumpkin pie from scratch this year. Mark, his family, and my family don't like pumpkin pie, so I'm not sure who is eating my pie.
I am debating whether I will tackle the crust of the pumpkin pie myself. I usually use store bought crusts, for a variety of reasons, the biggest one being that I can't handle rolling the crust dough myself. Also, the amount of butter I have to put in a crust makes me uncomfortable.
I'm considering experimenting with a graham cracker crust for both pumpkin and apple pies. Especially if I use those cinnamon-covered graham crackers...
What is your favorite kind of pie? (And if you don't like pie, what is your favorite thing to do with pumpkins and/or apples?)

Simple Pleasures

I went to the farmer's market today. There is one in Hyattsville where I work that is open on Thursday afternoons.
I signed up for the newsletter. Because the cheerful guy telling me to sign up told me, "if you got our newsletter, you'd know that today we'd have PEACHES!" I told him I don't like peaches, but I signed up anyway. Then he said it, "we have berries." Berries...
I stopped by the vegetable stand first. I needed food for dinner. I bought green beans and redskin potatoes. Then I saw the berries. A little too expensive, but way too delicious looking to resist. I took a half pint of berries.
Then, on my way out, I stopped and bought a mini-bag of fresh donuts. If you've never seen a donut maker, they're awesome. The donut maker squeezed out four donuts into boiling oil and then they travel through and get flipped and then drain and then they fall. It's awesome. And they were delicious.
When I got home, I washed the berries. Then I ate about half of them before my better nature got to me and I decided to save some for Mark, and also to use them to top the cheesecake.
But one of the simple pleasures in life is standing barefoot in the kitchen, eating a perfect raspberry, fuzzy and totally ripe.
Often we think of food as fuel, or as the enemy. We sometimes stop thinking of it as what it is - simply delicious.

Cupcake fat replacement

Last night I made applesauce cupcakes - that is cupcakes with applesauce instead of oil. I made a half batch, so just twelve, which is too many as it is. But they came out delicious and fluffy, which has been a problem in the past.
This time, I replaced the full amount of oil with an equal amount of applesauce. I had read somewhere to only use half as much applesauce, but that's not going to work as well. So I was making a half batch, so I used a half of a third of a cup (I love my OXO measuring cups that have half markings on them!) of applesauce. I also used egg whites, two egg whites instead of one and a half eggs. I whipped them up with the mixer for about a minute until they were at that almost ready to fluff stage, but not peaking or anything. I think this contributed to the fact that the cupcakes were not as dense as they were the last time.
I used the full half-cup of water. They say sometimes to reduce the water when using applesauce, but I didn't and it was fine.
Using unsweetened applesauce and egg whites takes out most of the fat from the recipe, and they taste just like normal cupcakes that you might make from mix. I was using white cake mix, and you really can't taste the difference.

Low-Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies
I tried making these as the recipe I found, but they were very dry, so I added an extra egg white. The mini chocolate chips make it easier to distribute the chocolate widely.

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup miniature chocolate chips

Equipment:
Mixer
2 bowls
Measuring cups.
Oven at 350

Procedure:

1. Cream sugars and butter together using mixer.
   
2. Add egg whites and vanilla.
   
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
   
4. Add dry ingredients 1/3 at a time, mixing thoroughly.
   
5. Place on a greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
6. Bake for 8 minutes.
   

Andes Brownies

In honor of my roommate's birthday on March 5th, I'm posting the recipe for Andes Brownies. I made these for her birthday three years ago when they had come out with delicious Andes baking chips. The chips have since disappeared from the grocery store, but regular Andes work just fine.
These are a great St. Patrick's day recipe, because they're green, and they're also good for Christmas. What they are best for though, is making people think you've put more effort into baking than you have.
Andes Brownies
Ingredients:
1 box brownie mix
eggs, as required by mix
oil, as required by mix
water, as required by mix
1 box Andes chocolate mints (if you work at Olive Garden, you could also just steal a lot of those mints) - I would say to use about 20 mints or so.
Equipment:
oven, as required by mix
mixing bowl
mixing utensil
1 gallon freezer locking bag (Ziploc, Glad, etc.)
rolling pin, hammer, or other smashing utensil
Procedure:
1.) Bake brownies as instructed on package. Clean mixing utensil. (And probably everything else, but I'll not dictate.)
2.) While brownies are baking, unwrap Andes and place into freezer bag. Work quickly, because your hands will melt the Andes if you take too long to unwrap them.
3.) Gently use rolling pin or hammer to smash Andes into smaller pieces. (You can use your hands but you may melt the chocolate.) You want each Ande to break up into about four pieces of relatively equal size. Don't get too anal.
4.) When the brownies come out of the oven, immediately pour the Andes bits over the pan, spreading the chunks as evenly as possible. Wait about 2 minutes for them to melt, then using your mixing utensil, carefully spread the melted, minty, Andes goodness around on top of the brownies.
5.) ALLOW TO COOL. This is key. Yes, they look delicious, but if you do not allow them to cool, you will not get the full Andes Brownies Effect. You can refrigerate them uncovered to speed up the process, but do not freeze.

The finished brownies will be soft and gooey, with a hard mint chocolate layer on top.

Using up the Fridge Chocolate Cake

So I sometimes like to experiment with cake mixes, and sometimes our fridge is full of half-empty cans of stuff that just beg to be turned into something delicious. This is today's.

Ingredients:
2/3 box of chocolate cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
1/3 cup of water
3 tbsp. sour cream
chocolate chips
1/2 can cherry pie filling (or you can use, I suppose, regular icing)

Hardware
8 inch square cake pan
Oven at 350

Procedure
1. Combine all indgredients.
2. Put in oven.
3. Cook for about 25-30 minutes.
4. Pour on pie filling, or allow to cool before icing.