I am a cooking machine. A few weeks back I got on this kick about trying out new recipes and it has been working quite well. I have enjoyed some new foods and while a couple things didn't work out there have been more +'s than -'s. I surf a couple of foodie sites on a regular basis and am happy to say Pioneer Woman has been bang on with all her recipes I've tried thus far. Yesterday I saw a recipe for a salted caramel brownie. OMG, how can you go wrong with that? I don't think it is possible.

If you have never had salted caramel before you must try it. I am slow on this wagon and only tried it a few weeks ago at St*rb*cks. It was a salted caramel hot chocolate. Mmmm. So...the brownies. I love brownies. I have been a brownie addict since university. Wednesday night wing night was the night the girls made brownies and the boys went out to drink. Good times. I had a favorite brownie mix--yellow no name and they finally stopped making it a couple of years ago. Sigh. I know I should just learn to make them from scratch but you know somethings just seem like they should be made from a package--its the memories.

Anyway, this recipe calls for me to make the brownie and well that just didn't seem like something I wanted to do. So I made a flourless chocolate cake instead. It is a very moist cakey/brownie/thingy that tastes really good and is really rich. Really rich. I have made three including the one I made tonight. Which goes against my trying new recipes--but in actual fact I used two different recipes between the three of them and no two people except myself have been at each event.

Anyway. The cake. It is lovely.

I have never made caramel before. I thought it would be really tough but it was super easy. Maybe I did something wrong. The caramel is sitting in a jar on my counter cooling. The cake is sitting on top of the stove also cooling. According to the recipe that inspiried my attempt you should put the caramel on a cooled brownie. And honestly that is the only part of that recipe I followed. It was the inspiration but not what I was able to follow in the end. There was something about her recipe for the caramel I didn't like--the gelatin. I was sure that I didn't need gelatin to make caramel and since the internet has yet to let me down I did find a recipe that did not involve gelatin. Sugar, butter and cream. I only had 10% cream and it called for a heavy cream but I am hoping it turned out. I'll let you know.

I also made Shepards pies...again. I made them the other week and it was terrible. Turnip, mashed cauliflower and ground beef. UCK. I loved everything except the turnip--and there was no veggies in it other than that. Turnip is good now and then if cooked properly. My freezer is now partially stocked with lunches again. I realized on Friday that I was out of frozen dinners (not the kind you buy--the kind I make and freeze--and the kind you buy which I try not to buy) and would need to go on a cooking spree over the weekend, which I kinda did. I have the fixing for chicken pot pie but will wait until later in the week because I think I'm going to roast a chicken instead of using up the frozen breasts I have.

The kittens are napping on the couch. They have been very active tonight. The renaming has happened and I am trying desperately to teach them their names. Licorice Feet became Tundra. She gallops when she runs across the floor kind of a tarunt tarunt sound and I just thought Tundra would be a great name--and it reminds me of Nunavut. Witchy Woman became Hudson. After my friend Lindsay who sadly took her own life last year. She was a true animal lover and I want to remember her spirit always. The girls continue to bring me joy just by being themselves. Yep, I'm in love.

I had my orientation today for my new ptime job. I am by far the oldest employee--I don't care. I want a fun, relatively simple job and this is it....plus in a few weeks I get all the free movies I can handle--and I get to bring a friend. :-) I just hope I can keep up with the younger employees. No doubt their energy at end of shift will be much greater than mine. It's all good.

Have a great week.

NOTE: I forgot to mention that parchment paper burns. Quite easily. I have been lining my cake pans with parchment paper everytime I make one of these flourless cakes. Last night when I put it into the oven it burst into flames. The excess paper must have touched the top element of the oven because it isn't supposed to burst into flame and it hasn't happened before. The smoke detector didn't go off though...but when the oven temp hits 400 it does. How annoying is that.