Dr. Filomena

Another Sunday… or holiday at least gives another excuse and opportunity to bake. Here comes my friend Nina’s longtime favorite and a staple in my series of American desserts. Check out Nina’s Fresh Illustrations, they might be inspired with the newly supplied top quality energy…. chocolate… yummm! This is best with pecans, but walnuts do a mighty fine job as well.

I found the recipe on the Internet a few years ago, but can’t find the source to give due credit. All I remember is that the chef made this to get through a Superbowl with the family, stuck in front of their TV sets. Considering the recent events concerning Olimpija hockey team (somebody please post on this so I can link to it here) and tomorrow’s undoubtedly exciting match, this may be a good time to recreate the recipe.

EDIT 03/25/2008 (hockey links):
Pengovsky posted: Dej ga na gobec
Binula posted: Optimistični Brendan Yarema
Go get’em tonight, Green Dragons!

You will need:

• 2 x 100g / 3 1/2 oz. dark and I do mean dark chocolate bars (70% and higher for an intense experience)
• 3 large eggs
• 125g / 4 oz (1 stick) of unsalted butter
• 65g / 1/4 cup plain flour
• 20g/ 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 150g / about 4 oz walnut or pecan halves (about 1 cup)
• 1 tsp salt
• 100g / 1/2 cup white sugar
• 100g / 1/2 cup light brown sugar

Bake in: a 9 x 9 inch / 25 x 25cm cake/brownie pan

Preheat the oven to 160 ° C / about 350 ° F. Line your brownie pan with a silicon baking sheet or butter and flour it.
Bash the chocolate bars, still in their wrappers, hard against a counter top or table until they are in small pieces. If the wrapper breaks, put the chocolate in a plastic bag and bang away. Bash the walnuts/pecans in the same way. You want the nuts to be fairly chunky still, not pulverized. Alternatively, cut up the chocolate bars and walnuts/pecans with a sharp knife (recommend banging and smashing on Superbowl or “Olimpija in the Austrian ice hockey league” night… better walnuts than humans press…).

Melt the butter and one of the chocolate bars over a low heat, stirring, until completely melted. In the meantime, combine the flour, cocoa and salt. Add this to the melted butter and chocolate.

Add the sugars and blend well. Take off the heat and allow to cool a bit.

Add the eggs and mix well until combined.

Stir in the walnuts/pecans and the rest of the chocolate.

Pour the batter into the brownie pan, and bake for about 40 minutes.

Let cool and cut into 16 squares. Actually, I prefer to cut them up into smaller pieces given the taste intensity and how calorie-packed they are. My favorite (sorry about the spelling, Adriaan, but this is an American dessert) way of serving this is with a scoop of ice cream and a couple of strawberries.

the more they stay the same.

This is the caricature published in Delo newspaper on 9 December 1985. The first page included a report on developments in the Vatican and a new wave of workers’ strikes in western Germany with a note on the OPEC trying to handle problems related to oil prices.

Ahh, such a lovely word. Let’s play a game of word association.

If I tell you that “tinctumutation” means “change of colour“, what is the first thing that cames to mind?

(It would be interesting to run same test just before the next general elections.)

Part of the monument of Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna (Photo by dr. Fil)

It’s Monday. Full throttle ahead!

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. It makes us feel like we’re in the know and that there’s more to the life around us than meets the naked eye. So here’s one just for fun:

A Croatian municipality sells Slovenian land. Janša protests. Sanader says it was done by the municipality, not the state. Turns out it was pre-agreed to set up the dispute that can be resolved without Sanader losing face by blaming it on the municipality, Joras starts working the land again and Janša gets precious pre-election popoularity points.

Disclaimer: the above is fiction.