Disaster Averted... For Today

Last night, just after I put dinner in the oven, and just before letting out the GIANT sigh of relief that says I'm-so-glad-this-is-over-now-I-can-clean-my-kitchen the hub asked me if I wanted something for dessert.

"We could make brownies, cookies, cake..." he suggested.

On this rare, very rare occasion do we actually have all of these things on hand. This day we actually did because we had gone to the grocery store. Shock. (I don't think we've been since April). Something you may not know about my darling little hub; this man has a saaaaweet tooth for chocolate. Brownies are in the running for favorite, but chocolate chip cookies are the end-all-be-all as far as he's concerned.

As I start cleaning up the mess from dinner the conversation goes a little this way,

Hub: "Or we could make The Thing Kyle's Mom Made with the brownies AND the cookies".

I knew right then that we were headed for a Natural Disaster.

At the age of 17 I tried to make brownies. Apparently, boxed brownies are to hard to handle and I ended up switching the amount of water and the amount of oil. THEN I proceeded to bake them in our very old oven that required you to change the setting from "pre-heat" to "bake". These brownies were like trying to chew on charcoal, everyone wondered why you were doing it, and no one wanted to join in. They went right in the trash and I'm nearly positive I haven't made a box of brownies unsupervised since.

As I got all the ingredients out to document this most likely disaster I remembered what Hub said the last time I made a cake, "We are officially out of vegetable oil after this. Add it to the list". I didn't add it, he didn't add it, it didn't fall off the shelf at the grocery store into our cart and then later into our cabinet. It's still at the grocery store, but it has made the list this time.

So I pulled out my lap top and did what only a Natural Disaster would do and googled "vegetable oil substitutes". As it turns out, apple sauce is a good substitute! Or melted butter, melted Crisco, or really any other kind of oil. I immediately wanted to use apple sauce! We had it, so WHY NOT USE IT?! I'll tell you why, I love my Hub. And I knew he had his little chocoholic heart set on The Thing Kyle's Mom Made, so I went with the safer choice, melted Crisco.

Here's how you substitute for vegetable oil in The Thing Kyle's Mom Made

Ingredients:

Box of brownie mix (for lazy people)

2 eggs

1/4 c. water

1/2 cup Crisco (melted)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (store bought for the extra lazy)

Mix your lazy people brownie mix, eggs, melted vegetable oil, and water together

(and if you're like me, use your Kitchen Aid because honestly it doesn't get used that often, show it some lovin'!)

Then put the brownie mix in the cute pan you've never used before, and if you don't splatter it all over the side you are doing it wrong.

Clean up the terribly embarrassing mess before anyone judges you, and let Hub snack on the dough balls

Take a dough ball and push it into your brownie batter, evenly spaced apart.

Make sure that you've let your cookie dough sit out for a really long time so that its really soft and difficult to push into your brownie batter. (don't really do that. Leave them in the fridge until the last possible second. I think it would be easier. But I don't listen to rules like that)

Look past all those perfect disasters going on on the side of your pan and your cookies that wont go in the brownie batter and throw this Low Cal, healthy snack in the oven and bake according to the brownie box directions.

Take a quick sec for a game with these two and then assign dish duty to the man asking for The Thing Kyle's Mom Made.

Now go change your clothes. You are gonna need to take off those jeans and put on your fat day stretchy pants that are so old you they have holes everywhere. This allows for the more room to expand.

I would probably top this with some ice cream and chocolate and caramel sauce, but as we have it our options were mint chocolate chip (toothpaste anyone?) or Strawberry. So we did without.

Then Enjoy!

Forget about manors, just scoop it on to the plate!

GET IN MY BELLY

*Note the fat day stretchy pants*

All in all, I feel like The Thing Kyle's Mom Made was successful. I satisfied the hub's sweet tooth for now, and I don't think I'm ever going to buy vegetable oil again... Ok probably not true. The batter was a little thicker than I thought it should be, but again, it's been a few years since I've made brownies.

Disasters:

-Not having any vegetable oil

-Not using the apple sauce

-Making something edible... Those fat day stretchy pants with the holes are a little bit more snug today

-Not actually knowing if this is how Kyle's Mom made it, or if there is a name rather then The Thing Kyle's Mom Made

-After taking the first picture the water spilled down my cabinets, resulting in a little baby water fall

-No ice cream. none. ugh. I'm still upset

-Half the pan went missing last night. I looked in the trash, and there was nothing there... I guess that means we ate it.

-Never using the orange pan before. Sure it's cute, but does ceramic cook different than glass? I have no idea!

-Soft cookie dough. Boooooooo.

Disaster's Averted:

-Wanting to ever fit into my jeans again. Mmmmmmmmmmm so yummy.