Big Brownies

I swear, I don't bake every day, and that we don't eat tons of fresh baked chocolate things. Just some times, I get on spurts, especially when I know I have a lot of catching up to do on my blog after I've neglected you all.

So, we all  know that the best cook books in the world, are written by churches. Nobody cooks better than a church lady. End of story...church lady food is the best!!!! This recipe comes from our church cookbook, and was submitted by a lady who is no longer with us. I've been wanting to try this recipe for quite sometime now, and finally decided why not!!! Well, why not indeed!!!! These are perfect with a cup of coffee or a glass of cold milk. They practically melt in your mouth, and will be hard to not just sit down and eat!!!

Recipe:
3/4 cup margarine or butter melted
1 and 1/2 cup sugar
1 and 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
3 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:

Blend the first 3 ingredients. Add eggs and mix with spoon. Then combine dry ingredients. Gradually add to the egg mixture. Beat well with a spoon. Spread in an 8 or 9 inch square pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from pan.
Cool.
cut into 16 squares.

This is best mixed with a wooden spoon rather than with an electric mixer.

Updated Laundry Soap Recipe

So, we all remember that awesome $2.00 laundry soap recipe. When I was in Walmart I found ZOTE which is a laundry bar soap, and it cost the exact same thing as the Fels-Naptha. So I was curious, and asked a few other people who make laundry soap, and they said that they use it all the time, that you just use a half a bar, and save the other half for later. Well I hate having an open package just sitting around, so I decided to just go ahead and make a double batch, because then, I wouldn't have to make more later on down the road. Because of the size of the soap, it didn't make just 4 quart jars, it made 5!!!!  I'm going to go ahead and post the amounts to make a double batch and just call it a batch.

Grate 1 bar of zote soap
then add 2 cups of Arm and Hammer washing Soda,
and 2 cups of 20 mule team borax
mix with 6 cups of water, and heat together until everything is melted together.
Divide  into 5 quart jars, and then add enough water to bring it just to the shoulder of the jar.
Let sit over night, then cut the hard soap and dump into a blender. Blend until it has a may like consistency and pour back into the jar.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Its that time of the year again!!! The gardens are in bloom, and production is on!!! So yesterday I decided to try a recipe that I've been meaning to try for quite some time. The recipe says that this is a cake, but it has more of a brownie consistency in all honesty. It's moist, and smells amazing when it's baking. In fact as you can see, it smells so good, that Sam had to curl up against the stove!!!
Since I was sharing, I divided up the batter into 2 loaf pans, it didn't change the baking time or anything.

This is a simple recipe!!!
2 and 1/2 c. flour
4 TBSP. Cocoa
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/2 C. buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 and 3/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. oil
1 stick butter
2 c. grated zucchini

Combine flour, cocoa, and salt. Add remaining ingredients, except zucchini. Beat together 3-4 minutes.  fold in by hand the grated zucchini. Pour into 9 x 12 inch greased and floured pan. Bake at 350 for 40 to 45 minutes.

That's it!!!
Enjoy!!!

Baby Bunnies!

I'm very late with a lot of posting, and have quite a bit to catch up on with you guys!!! So, 3 weeks ago, Ginger and Betty both kindled. Ginger had 7 big fat black babies. Betty had 4, 2 chocolate and 2 black. One of them didn't make it, and she was not interested in the survivors, so I slipped the one chocolate and 2 blacks that survived in with Ginger. Everybody is thriving, and growing quickly!!! Of course at 3 weeks old, they are in and out of the nest box on their own, hopping around and having a grand time. They are all eating solid foods, and drinking, and nursing. Fingers crossed that our Chocolate is a girl, because I'm keeping it regardless. But a Chocolate would be better!!!

Pictures as promised

So there has been lots of great stuff going on around here. I've had stuff bloom out, stuff start producing, rabbits have been born, and the list goes on. The other day I found potatoes on sale at Food Lion, so I bought 40 pounds and have been working on canning them. In fact that's what I'm doing right this moment. The waiting is the hard part.
We planted some of those tomatoes that come in the plugs that they've started selling. We put them in the compost pile, along with the pumpkins, and everything there is growing beautifully. Of course anything planted in a compost pile will do well I'm sure. This coming week we are going to be cleaning the chicken house and run, so that means we are going to have to start a new compost pile since we have stuff growing in it, and the chicken poo isn't aged so it will burn the plants.
Well, enough of my chatter, enjoy the pics!!!!

just a blah kind of day

Well, it's been raining for about a week solid now. I did manage to get the rest of my tomato plants in the other day between the rain. Now I just need to get the rest of my pepper plants in the ground before they get root bound.  I have some green tomatoes on some of my plants, some I'm thinking if I'm lucky I'll get to have red tomatoes by the 4th of July, which would just be awesome.

Ginger had her babies, she had either 7 or 8 which is 2 or 3 more than her first litter. I was very excited to see that, and then I herd a noise come from Betty's cage, and discovered that she had surprised me with a litter of 4, which she wanted nothing to do with. 3 of them were still alive thankfully. I managed to get them warmed up, and I slipped them into Gingers nest box, where they got to be nice and warm. I checked on them yesterday to make sure she was able to feed them all, and well she's doing quite well. Hopefully it will warm back up soon so that I can take them out of the nest box and get a for sure count, and get some pictures of those cute little wiggly things. I'm not certain what we are going to do about Betty just yet. I really wanted to have a good Chocolate Silver Fox program going, but she is making it a bit on the impossible side. We are thinking if we move her around, and put her next to a buck, that maybe perhaps she will want to mate, and if she wants to mate, maybe she will want to take care of her babies. For now, we were just super lucky that it wasn't freezing temps out, and that Ginger had delivered already.

Well, I suppose I had better get off of here, I need to work on my kitchen, get some eggs put away, and head to the grocery store!!!

Hope you are all having wonderful weather wherever you are!!!