Rainy Day to Catch Up

We've had about two weeks of great weather, and it looks like now we're about to have a week of rain. This is a perfect time to catch up on laundry, cleaning house, cooking and blogging about what we've been doing in the sunshine.  So today I baked the worlds best brownies. Here's the recipe. Try them. I promise they are the best. I got the recipe out of a Bon Appetit magazine that I picked up in a laundry room. I'll never make any other brownies again.

Brownies from scratch today!

Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter and Walnuts

10 T (1 ¼ sticks) butter

1 ¼ C sugar

¾ C unsweetened cocoa powder

2 t water

1 t vanilla

¼ t salt (generous)

2 large eggs, chilled

1/3 C plus 1 T unbleached flour

1 C walnut pieces

Position  rack in bottom third of oven

Preheat oven to 325

Line 8x8 pan with aluminum foil and coat with nonstick spray

Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium heat.

Continue cooking until butter stops foaming and browned bits form at bottom of the pan, stirring often, about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and immediately add sugar, cocoa, 2 t of water, vanilla, and ¼ t (generous) of salt.

Stir to blend.

Let cool 5 minutes (mixture will still be hot).

Add eggs to hot mixture 1 at a time, beating vigorously to blend after each.

When mixture looks thick and shiny, add flour and stir until blended.

Beat vigorously 60 strokes.

Add walnuts.

Transfer to prepared pan.

Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out almost clean (with a few moist crumbs attached), about 25 minutes. Cool pan on rack. Using foil lift brownies from pan. Cut 4 by 4.

OK, here's what else we've been doing:

Mt. St. Helens

Olympia, WA - Wooden Boat Festival

Astoria, OR and Cape Disappointment, WA

Vancouver, WA farmers market

Mt. Hood and Timberline Lodge

Cascade Dining Room at Timberline Lodge

Timberline Lodge lobby

Timberline Lodge staircase

Hiking ...

with my good friend Carolyn.

Bird watching

Biking - We are living on Dike Access Rd. which runs along the top of a dike between the Columbia River and farming land (corn, raspberries, grass, cattle). It's a level ride for several miles. Along the way we've seen many bald eagles and an elk that has joined the local cattle herd.

Driving in and out of Portland three times to get our computer fixed. Now we have doubled the size of our hard drive to accommodate all these photographs.