brownie – Fervent Foodie

Lunches, lattes, and lust-worthy onion rings {the week in food}

February 14, 2013 12 Comments

Over the years, I’ve developed a bad habit of eating at my desk and working straight through lunch. Bypassing a midday break means more work gets done, and, all else equal, I get to leave an hour earlier than I would otherwise. It’s a horrible, horrible thing.

Lately, in an effort to maintain my sanity and some degree of happiness, I’ve been making a conscious effort to break away from my desk every day for lunch. Most days, this means me, my salad, and my iPad huddled next to the fireplace in the back of Caribou Coffee. It’s incredibly relaxing sitting next to the heat of the fire and feeling the buzz of the city whirling by. Though, I’m quickly developing and addiction to afternoon lattes. Good thing or bad thing, I’m not sure.

This week, I also squeezed in a lunch at Pure Pizza at the 7th Street Public Market, which I capped off with a delicious latte o’ love from Not Just Coffee. (See? Addicted!!)

Friday, I met my new friend Keia (check out her blog: the Sunnyside Up) at Harvest Moon Grille. Keia and I first met via phone when she interviewed me for her Creative Loafing article on what is means to be a foodie. This was our first official lunch date, and in true Mary fashion I started our convo off by awkwardly exclaiming “So… I want to be you!” I quickly followed our laughter with an explanation that I’d love to work as a freelance food writer and attend an abundance of fun food events as she does. And now you want to be her too, am I right?

Recipes

Salted Caramel Brownies

October 20, 2011 16 Comments

Let me get you a napkin for that bit of drool you’ve got trailing down from your lower lip…

These lovely salted caramel brownies are courtesy of a recipe I tagged a few months back in Cooking Light. I’ve been dying to make them but I had no good reason to… and honestly I was trying to avoid having an entire batch of delicious brownies sitting on my kitchen counter BEGGING me to eat them. Seriously. I have control when it comes to a lot of things in life. Chocolate is not one of those things.

Then Jess posted a call-to-action on her blog Stylish, Stealthy & Healthy to join this little thing called the Blogger Sweet Swap.

Eureka! This was the perfect excuse to make the brownies!! Just think of the Sweet Swap as an arranged penpal relationship… with benefits. Sweet benefits.

Without further ado, let’s get to it!

Combine the following in a big ole bowl:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder

Then combine these guys in a little bowl:

6 tbsp melted butter
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Pour the wets into the dries and stir to combine the thickest brownie batter you’ve ever laid eyes on.

The recipe calls for baking these guys in a 9 inch square metal pan coated with cooking spray for 19 minutes at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. I baked mine in an 8 inch glass dish for 20 minutes, then 5 more minutes, then 5 MORE minutes.. then got impatient and took them out. Seriously, every time I bake brownies the darn toothpick NEVER comes out clean. Anyone else have this issue??

After the brownies cool completely, it’s time to make the caramel deliciousness. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a small pot, then whisk in:

1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1.5 tbsp evaporated fat-free milk

Cook for two minutes, then remove from heat and whisk in:

1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Spread the yum sauce over the brownies:

Once everything cooled off completely I decided to extract the brownies from the pan….

Oh dear…

It looks like a Brownie Massacre.

Then I cut the hunks o’ brownie into tiny little brownie babies. Why did I think brownies would be a good idea again??

Next up is the chocolately drizzle. The following go into a microwave safe bowl:

2 tbsp evaporated fat-free milk
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Microwave on HIGH for 45 seconds or until melted, stirring after 20 seconds. I scraped the chocolate into a ziplock baggie, snipped the corner off with scissors, and drizzled it over the brownie squares.

Disaster.

Then I sprinkled the tops with a bit o’ sea salt, picked the prettiest 12 of the bunch, and tucked them neatly into metal tray:

They kind of look like the photo… kind of.

So Molly @ Hungry Hungry Runner, I PROMISE these were edible and pretty and neatly packed when I shipped them. Whatever happens after this point is on the hands of the USPS.

I bet you’re wondering what I did with all those leftover brownies, huh? All I can say is these brownies are seriously delicious. More like fudge than brownies (probably due to my aforementioned brownie baking incompetencies). ABSOLUTELY delicious and seriously sweet. I stuck a few in the freezer for this weekend too 🙂

Ingredients List (makes ~20 brownies)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 1/2 tbsp evaporated fat-free milk, divided
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/8 tsp coarse sea salt

Curious to see how they arrived??? Check out Molly’s post for her recap!

Curious to see what sweets I got?

Then click here for the pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe!!

Restaurants, Travel

10-Mile-Saturday

July 18, 2010 5 Comments

Saturday morning I woke up around 7am to get my run in. It was already 80+ degrees and 85%+ humidity. Perfect running weather, right? Even though the air was so thick feeling, I was excited to get out and explore some of Charleston on my run. I’m still on week #5 of the interval training, which means I’m doing 3 intervals of 3 minutes walking and 7 minutes running.

Here’s the route I ran:

My time per mile was a lot slower than my Charlotte run earlier in the week — but I’ll crack that up to the crazy humidity!

We were planning to have a late breakfast, and were in search of bottomless mimosas, so we headed to Toast.

Bottomless mimosas:

I took this picture several times, and somehow a bulging bicep kept appearing in the background… 😉

We split the Deluxe French Toast stuffed with apples and apple syrup:

And the all garden omelet (which I added sausage, zucchini, and pepper jack cheese to):

Both of these were delicious, and the mimosa made for a very relaxing brunch 🙂

(Unintentional foreshadowing: we are headed to the Folly Beach Pier today!)

After brunch, we set out to walk along the river banks. We walked, and walked, and wallllkkkeeeedddd…..

On our way back towards the studio, we stopped at the Buccaneer restaurant for some margaritas and snacks. The Buccaneer has a ton of authentic pirate artifacts, which was pretty neat.

I ordered the crab cake:

This was pretty good, but I don’t think my belly is sold on crab meat yet. I could only eat half of this (may have been do to the exhaustion from walking though).

Here’s the route we walked during our Saturday afternoon excursions: