Last Night...

...it was a dark and stormy night. Freezing rain. Yuck. But we knew this was coming, so I planned for something warm and filling and comforting. In this instance...my beef stew. Inspired, originally, by the classic Flemish beef stew. I cook browned, cubed beef and almost an equal weight of sliced onions all day in a crockpot with a couple bottles of porter (instead of a Belgian-style beer), beef consomme, a little bit of cider vinegar and sugar, and seasonings (bay leaves, black pepper, thyme, parsley and juniper). After hours of simmering in the crockpot, the beef is falling apart tender, and the onions have nearly melted into the delightful stewing liquid, which turns a dark brown color and starts thickening. It is wonderful, rich and savor. We served it atop egg noodles, as I didn't feel like making mashed potatoes, the other carb of choice for this dish. I think spaetzle would work well, too.

I wanted to make Gina a dessert, too, but I wanted it to be easy. I did some looking around online, and decided to modify the Nestles(TM) golden brownies recipe. The first thing I did was drop the chocolate chips from the recipe. Chocolate is my craving, not hers. Then, I tripled the vanilla extract, because she loves vanilla. It is her preferred ice cream flavor to this day. I decided a little bit of ground mace would be a good thing, too. I went to the kitchen and started gathering ingredients. !!*#@&%@!! We didn't have nearly enough brown sugar for the brownies. Ahhh! Gina had gotten a Taste of Home magazine in the mail yesterday. In it, a reader had written in with a white sugar-molasses mix as a brown sugar substitute! Serendipity. I surged ahead and whipped up a batch. They finished baking a few minutes before dinner was ready...just in time for us to have a warm brownie before dinner, actually. Lol. Very tasty. The molasses-vanilla-mace trio end up creating a flavor somewhat reminiscent of butterscotch and toffee and molasses cookies all at the same time. They are even better today, a bit chewy and rich, but not super sweet. They cooked up a bit darker than golden brownies. I think the gal in the magazine went a little heavier handed with molasses than the sugar companies actually do, but it all worked out: Gina has a new all-time favorite brownie.

Tonight. Well, tonight is going to be my creamy macaroni and cheese, and a pile of fresh steamed broccoli...