Don’t you hate it when you post a recipe and tell everyone how great it is and then find another recipe that is similar but way much better and then you have to decide what to do with that recipe you thought was so wonderful but is really rather awful now that you’ve seen the light? Yes? I hate that.

Remember that two-minute peanut butter chocolate cake I wrote about? The one I thought was so fun and kind of quirky and rather yummy? Delete it from your memory, m’dearies, and make this instead.

I had reservations with the previous cake (there was that spongy texture from the egg), but with this one I have none (no eggs!). Making and eating it was the highlight of my day yesterday. Just ask my mother. Just ask my husband. Just ask my kids.

The other reason I hesitate to write about this recipe is because it makes me look like all I do is cook and post Julie recipes (and I have another one of hers waiting in the wings!), but facts are facts, and nine times out of ten Julie hits the nail on the head. She knows her food and does a lovely job making it accessible to the average cook. She’s one of my main sources of inspiration.

So anyway, she wrote about these brownies and I thought, oh posh, whatever. I am so not into microwave cooking. That is, like, way below me.

I waited a whole six days before giving it a go.

And then I swooned my fool head off and made two batches and got a major case of Sugar Highitis. My side kick efficiently executed the taste-testing portion of the job and cleaned up every bowl I placed in front of him.

True, he didn’t give much quotable feedback, but there was lots of sticky lip-smacking. I understood what he was saying just fine.

Julie calls these cakes “brownies,” and with that name, I take issue. They are definitely more of a pudding cake, or maybe a molten chocolate cake. Or maybe that’s just because I underbaked them? There certainly is an element of brownie, no doubt about it. In any case, the top was fudgy and cakey and the bottom was chocolate-y syrupy and combined with the ice cream, it was perfection.

The best thing about these babes is their immediacy. I like something sweet and cakey with my afternoon coffee but often there is nothing to be had (yes, it’s true!) and I get all woeful and forlorn. However! These cakes, these glorious cakes, have smacked that problem into oblivion and beyond.

Here’s how I do it: while the kids finish up their lunch, I stir together the dry ingredients. I make my coffee, reserving two tablespoons for the batter. As the children scamper oh-so-cheerfully (not) off to their rooms, I mix the wet with the dry, divide the batter between two small ramekins (putting one in the fridge for later), and microwave the remaining dish for thirty seconds. A bit of vanilla ice cream scooped on top and I’m all set for my happy computer, caffeine, sugar, chocolate time.

One of my friends left a comment on the previous two-minute cake post that read: “It’s too quick and easy. I need hurdles.” So, in her honor, I’m naming these miracles…

Hurdle-Free Molten Brownie Cakes
Adapted from Dinner with Julie

I’ve been experimenting like a crazy chocoholic. See below for adaptations and notes.

The coffee flavor comes through loud and strong. It’s a key player.

1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons flavorless oil (I use canola)
2 tablespoons strong coffee (or milk or water)

Mix dry ingredients, add wet, and stir to combine. Divide batter between two, ungreased ramekins. Cover one ramekin with plastic and refrigerator for later. Microwave the other for 30 seconds. Top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and eat with a spoon (not a fork, like you see in the pictures—I was being a dorkus).

Variations:
*Reduced Sugar: reducing brown sugar to 2 packed tablespoons yields less molten and more brownie.

*Chocolate Chips: unnecessary additional sweet.

*Espresso: 1/4 teaspoon grounds and milk instead of coffee—not much flavor.

*Whipped Cream: not dense enough to stand up to the warm cake.

*Heath Bar Chips sprinkled on top: meh (too much chemically flavor).

This same time, years previous: soiree 2010, we love Fred, soiree 2009

Yesterday at lunch, my two sweet girls had a big go-round and then there was A Consequence that resulted in hysterical crying (I warned them!) and, I declare, my eardrums got shot.

When the relatives were here, they introduced us to this website: the kid should see this. Lots of fun science-y and general interest video clips. We’re hooked.

The other night I couldn’t find a good read aloud book for the older two kids (we finally finished Watership Down), so, disregarding my husband’s cries of They’re not ready! I picked up Hamlet and plunged in head first. Two scenes in and the kids are entranced and I am giddy from having entirely too much fun.

The library book I placed on hold, The Reading Promise, finally came available after a long (two month?) wait. But now I hesitate to crack the spine because then it will be all over and I’ll have to find something else to read and I hate having to find something else to read. People, tell me what to read! Please? (Also, I’m taking suggestions for good read alouds. Hamlet will be dead before the first snow falls.) (A word of bookworm happiness: my desperate and unsuccessful search for books that my son will enjoy has finally ended with the discovery of this blog post. Currently, his nose is glued to the pages of Erec Rex.)

I can’t get this cabbage slaw out of my mind.

I read about it several weeks ago and then had to roast a couple chickens and buy some slaw mix (which made me feel cosmopolitan) and then wait for a chicken to lay an egg so I could make a homemade mayonnaise for the dressing.

We ate it up super fast (thus the photos of leftovers). Even the kids liked the salad and slaw is decidedly not their thing. I did not get my fill, so now there’s a cabbage head rolling around in the refrigerator drawer waiting to go under my knife. Kitchen life is so exciting.

Thousand Island Slaw with Roast Chicken
Adapted from Dinner with Julie

If going for the cosmo emos, sub one bag of coleslaw mix for the cabbage and carrot. Also, a bit of thinly sliced green pepper would be pretty.

5 cups shredded cabbage
1 cup shredded carrot
1/4 cup minced onion
1 small red pepper, thinly sliced
2 cups shredded roast chicken
1 cup mayonnaise (homemade!)
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon vinegar, either rice or cider
2 tablespoons minced sweet pickle or relish

In a large bowl, toss together the cabbage, carrot, onion, pepper, and chicken. In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, ketchup, vinegar, and sweet pickle. Drizzle the dressing over the slaw (you might not need all of it) and season with salt and black pepper to taste.

It was in the end of the summer of the year when the relatives came down from Pennsylvania. They left behind the flood waters (that didn’t affect them much) and their studies (because they homeschool all summer long) and piled into their red suburban packed full with sleeping bags and dirty shoes (they were coming to a country house, after all) and the dog named Henry who is actually a girl. They left their house after the father got home from work and after the biggest brother and sister finished their choir practice, and they didn’t arrive until late that night. But there were only two people up to greet them—the uncle and oldest boy cousin who refused to sleep until they arrived. So they unrolled their sleeping bags and went to sleep because there was nothing else to do.

The next morning when they awoke, the Virginia cousins, electric with excitement and anticipation, were already up and waiting. There was so much to do!

There were chickens to be chased and fed and held!

There were horses to be petted!

There were games to be played!

Fences to be vaulted!

Races to be had!

Grape arbors to be climbed!

The Virginia aunt spent the morning in the kitchen making pies because that’s the sort of thing she likes to do. The Pennsylvania aunt marveled at the steady and abundant use of cream and butter and declared they’d have to roll back home. (Later, after the cousins left, the Virginia aunt added up the butter usage: it came to 13 sticks. BUT! There were leftovers.)

In the afternoon they took a walk to the Virginia aunt’s parents’ property. The children made individual cups of decaf coffee over the fire, and pieces of toast and cheese-y tortillas and marshmallows while the grownups took pictures and talked about house plans.

The relatives stayed for hours and hours. They swung on the porch swing and read the chemistry books and laughed at the magazines.

They helped dig potatoes, and the uncle fixed up an old computer and helped replace the rototiller tines.

They drank up all the coffee and ate up all the breadsticks and sour cherry pie and tomato soup and waffles and then helped to wash the mountains of dirty dishes.

When it was time to leave, they scavenged in the garden for tomatoes and basil which they packed into brown bags for the trip home. There were hugs all around, and some of the Virginia cousins climbed into the Suburban in hopes of being forgotten, but their parents pulled them back out. And then the big red car was driving down the road and the Pennsylvania cousins were hanging out the windows screaming goodbye at the Virginia cousins who were running long the fence screaming goodbye—and then they were gone.

After they left, the house seemed empty and quiet, the children deflated. The parents did some straightening up, but the house was still mostly clean, which was nice. And the refrigerator was stuffed to the gills, which was also nice. So the mother made popcorn and she and the children watched a bunch of episodes of Tom and Jerry while the father fell asleep on the floor.

The End

Blog post form inspired by the wonderful children’s book The Relatives Came, by Cynthia Rylant.