While I was making these salted caramel brownies

yesterday for my lovely neighbours that keep my driveway shoveled this was delivered…

This isn't for Valentines Day (which we don't celebrate).

Or even for our "when first we met" anniversary which is on the 16th of this month (which we do celebrate).

This is because Mr. has been in Australia for 2 weeks on business and is now in Malaysia while I'm stuck here buried up to my neck in snow. 

So now in my office I have a little hint of Spring sitting by my monitor. 

Funny how the printable graphic I made and framed last week works so well with it. 

I really love the flowers but it was what he wrote that touched my heart. So nice that after 23 years together he can still surprise me. 

He will be home in time to celebrate our "when we first met" anniversary and we have planned to take a dance workshop on Blues. I'm getting excited. 

Look at these two dancing the Blues…they are sexier than Dirty Dancing and they are "doing it" in their kitchen/living room!

 

A side note about those brownies should you decide to make them. 

I tried to make the caramel and it totally did not turn out. Get another recipe for the caramel. One that adds a bit of water to the sugar and tells you what temperature it needs to reach. This recipe was lame suggesting that it take 5 minutes.  

Granted when I tried to make the caramel I substituted brown sugar, which was all I had, but of course you can't tell when the sugar is caramelizing, duh! Instead it'll just create a massive smoke bomb in your kitchen and you will be flailing around desperately fanning a tea-towel in the air by your smoke alarm for what seems like hours while your pug looks on in dismay wondering why Mommy has gone mad again and in the meantime that sugar will be turning into crystallized impossible-to-remove-gunk in your pot which once removed from the stove will never ever completely harden up even when frozen. 

I had to put the brownie batter in the fridge, call it a night, and go and buy Kraft caramels at the store the next day.

Guess what? When you put brownie mix in the fridge overnight it turns into one solid hard mass. 

So I stuck it in the oven for a couple of minutes which did help loosen it up but I also promptly burnt myself on the hot bowl while trying to stir it.

Yes it was a bit of a farce in the kitchen yesterday.

Hard to believe I'm a trained chef.

My neighbours will never know the lengths I went to in order to make those dang brownies. 

I am going to try to remake this recipe and I will make my own damn caramel! I will not be beaten by some tiny grains of sugar. 

I hope the neighbours like salted caramel.

Another note on the recipe: do not bake them for 30 minutes. Check them at 20 minutes and don't leave in longer than 25. They should be sticky and gooey on the inside. Not like cake. Mine were overdone.

That recipe was lame.

Don't you just hate it when a recipe looks so great but then is poorly written or just outright incorrect?

This started out as a post about the lovely flowers I received and has now turned into a rant about poorly written recipes. 

Ah well…

Have a great weekend!