Double Chocolate Brownies & A Pirate War

I'm always on the lookout for a good recipe involving chocolate. dcrmom, at http://musingsofahousewife.typepad.com posted this recipe last week. I made some for the kids' after-school snack on Monday, and they were voted hands down the best brownies by my expert taste testers. Well, not counting the divine Dr. Heim's Cream Cheese Brownies; nothing, NOTHING, can compare to those! They take a long time to make though, and involve a lot of dirty dishes. This recipe can be stirred up quickly in one pan.

I am still working on all the ins and outs of this blogging thing, but I think if you click on the title of this post above it will take you to the original post from dcrmom. She has cool pictures of the whole process. Anyway, with no further ado, here you go:

Double Chocolate Brownies

2 sticks butter
2 c sugar
4 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla
1 c flour
1/2 c cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Melt butter in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour, salt, and cocoa. Mix thoroughly and then stir in the chocolate chips. You may add some nuts if you like. Pour into a greased 9x13 pan.

Bake for 30 - 35 minutes at 350 degrees. Brownies should be set in the middle, but slightly cracked around the edges. DO NOT OVERBAKE!

In my oven, I think they baked for more like an hour. However, I am excited to tell you that this very morning some nice delivery men brought a new oven to my front door!!!! It's a belated birthday present from Jerry. Belated because I couldn't make up my mind, not because he's a slacker. I debated forever over whether to get the oven or the cooktop (the cooktop actually throws sparks now and then), but what's a small kitchen fire when I can be baking sucessfully again? I chose a GE Profile double wall oven / microwave in black. It will require some modification to the kitchen to get it installed, but in the spirit of my birthday Jerry said it would be no problem. I'll let you know if he still thinks that next weekend! The bathroom is almost finished, so he'll need something to do with his free time.

As for the rest of the family, the kids have been on vacation Thursday and Friday. They are taking full advantage of the time off; Aubrey's been catching up on lost sleep and the boys have been playing in their jammies for most of the time. There's a full scale war between the lego pirates and the playskool pirates going on in the dining room as we speak. I'll let you know how it turns out. It's pretty funny to listen to from another room; apparently my children are under the impression that all pirates speak in hoky British accents. We can blame Johnny Depp for that one!

I am buried in tax work at the moment. I thought for a brief moment of taking a picture of my desk to show you, but then thought better of it. You really don't want to see the mess I can create!