FOOD - frosted brownie bites

Imagine a brownie bite - delicious and chewy with that slightly undercooked soft middle surrounded by the crusty baked outside. Now imagine that with a little dollop of buttercream frosting on top like a cupcake - then topped with a red hot. This is the work of the devil. It is so good and so easy - too easy - done in 20 minutes easy.

Instructions -

• Gather together - 1 box of brownie mix (I used to make brownies from scratch but find the Hershey's Triple Chocolate Chunk mix from Costco is better than anything I ever came up with), vanilla cream frosting (store bought is fine - homemade is 10x better) and a box of red hots.
• Line mini muffin tins with small cupcake liners. Spray these with a teeny bit of canned cooking oil. Unlike cupcakes - brownies will stick like a mofo to the liners unless they are properly greased. Nothing is more delicious with your brownie cupcake than paper shreds.
• Fill liners 2/3 full. I use an ice cream scoop for this - keeps your hands clean and gives the perfect amount every time.
• bake 15-20 mins until the tops are baked and the middle is still a little undercooked (gooey but not runny).
• Let cool. Frost. Decorate. Shovel into your mouth until you feel ashamed of yourself.
  

Ohh and I take it back - this is not the work of the devil. It can't be when every 2 bite little morsel is like a bit of heaven. Angels - these are created by sweet sweet angels.

Enjoy.

B.L.E.

A puppy made of socks.

Meet Sock Jack. Sock Jack is a present I made for my dear husband for Valentine's Day. He is now the perfect puppy companion to the infamous Lucy and Lad. Since Lucy and Lad are not yet ready for baby sock monkeys - they have been desperately pining away for a dog as a trainer baby.

To see Lucy and Lad in action - check out their YouTube from last Valentine's Day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBx6j9fwrjE

Making the sock dog was pretty easy - especially now that I have a sewing machine. It was a bloody pain the ass when I made Lucy and Lad because every damn stitch was by hand.

I used a pattern from a fantastic book I have that gives instructions on how to make all sorts of animals and creatures from socks and gloves. The book is called Sock and Glove - Creating Charming Softy Friends from Cast-off Socks and Gloves. Here is the Amazon link for it. http://www.amazon.com/Sock-Glove-Creating-Charming-Cast-Off/dp/1557885168/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234921818&sr=8-1.

The main struggle I had with our new sock friend is the head/face. Unlike a usual sock monkey where the body of the creature is all one sock (head is the toe portion and the legs are the ankle part of the sock) - the sock puppy has a separate head created from the second sock. The book - although adorable - is translated from Japanese so the instructions where not all that clear on how to attach the head to the body. Pretty much - the poor thing doesn't have much of a defined neck but that is what the pretty bow helps disguise.

Furthermore - there is a lot of tucking and stitching and folding require to get the snoot portion configured. No matter how many times I tried to correct it - Sock Jack still ended up with that perplexed slightly sour look on his face. Let's call it endearing.

Enjoy.

B.L.E.

P.S. - The Lucy and Lad video won the work contest award for second best use of monkey. We lost out to some random art house dancing gorilla with a talking cartoon lion. Bullsh*t.

The sweetest of days.

Call me cheesy but I love love love Valentine's Day. It is an entire day devoted to being sweet to the one you one love. Some say Valentine's Day is forced but so what? It is good to be reminded to be romantic. Romance is fantastic.

This year was especially fantastic when Adam walked into our apartment with the most gorgeous flower arrangement. More than four feet tall - huge roses and beautiful delicate cherry blossom and pink flower branches mixed in. I have been staring at it in awe for 3 days now. The photo here does not do them justice.

The bouquet combined with a divine dinner and just a great romantic night with the sweetest of husbands - made for a truly wonderful Valentine's Day.
Since I made Adam's presents for the big VDay - I will add them in a separate postings with links.

Wishing you lots of love.

B.L.E.