Almond Butter Blondies with Dark Chocolate Frosting

I think I have a pun compulsion. This does not really make for a digestible blog. For your sakes, I will attempt to be less heavy handed with the puns. I will, however, be heavy handed with butter, almond butter, and dark chocolate. These bars are deeply nutty and complex. You remember the standard peanut butter blondie you threw onto your lunch tray in 5th grade? A beige, sugary square that sat squat on your plate, absorbing applesauce and pizza grease like a kitchen sponge? These almond butter blondies are not like the bar cookies you traded away for your best friend's oreos. These almond butter blondies are as sophisticated as your best gel pens. The frosting is as indulgent as watching that R rated movie your parents told you not to with your cousin, fistfuls of buttery popcorn and staying up past your bedtime.

Make these and share them with old friends. Maybe you could even trade them away for a bottle of good red wine.

After you have traded some for a bottle of red wine, stay up past your bedtime and watch that movie your parents never let you rent.

Almond Butter Blondies with Dark Chocolate Frosting

Adapted from a Joy the Baker recipe

Makes one dozen hefty brownies

10 Tablespoons butter, cut into large chunks

1.5 cups dark brown sugar

1 cup almond butter (I used chunky)

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 9x13 inch pan.

Over medium heat, melt butter and sugar in a medium saucepan until all wisps of butter have disappeared into the deep brown sugar. Remove from heat and cool for about five minutes. Add almond butter and stir until well incorporated. Allow to cool for another five minutes. Don't skimp on the cooling time--you don't want to scramble your eggs! Whisk in eggs and vanilla.

Whisk the salt, flour, and baking powder. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients all in one shot. Stir until just incorporated. Pour the batter (do not fret if it is rather thick) into your buttered pan and spread evenly from corner to corner. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the blondies comes out clean. Resist the urge to frost right away and allow them to cool to room temperature.

Dark chocolate frosting

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2-2 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons milk

3/4 cup good quality dark chocolate chips or chopped bar, melted

Using an electric mixer, beat together butter, cocoa powder, and salt. Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon milk. Beat until incorporated. Add 1 cup powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons milk. Beat until incorporated once more. Melt chocolate chips in the microwave or in a double boiler. Add melted chocolate and mix until the chocolate goo is one with the thick frosting. If you feel like your frosting isn't quite sturdy enough, add another 1/4 to 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Spread generously over your cooled blondies.

Soup Soup Resolution

Okay, so the title may be a bit of a stretch. I usually pride myself on conjuring up suitably witty, slyly creative titles. God I'm smug. Really, I think the horrible title is evidence of my discomfort with resolutions. I never declare hope for personal change in the new year, mostly because the dieting industry gives me hives and I am quite certain the dieting industry patented New Year's Resolutions. Though, this may be the year I hop the resolution wagon. 2011 is going to be a pulsing year--full of more love and more change and more responsibility and more soup. Honestly, I feel like every morning I brush my teeth with anxiety and rinse with excitement. I feel like I need to follow up with some resolution floss, just to make certain that no unwanted cavities of worry and disappointment rot between my teeth.

Maybe it isn't a resolution or two I am itching for. . maybe it's soup. Soup can be creamy, acidic, spicy, chunky, salty, bland, hearty, silky, sweet. My senior thesis will be creamy, with writing as smooth and flavorful as clam chowder. My sweetie will continue to fill me with more joy than I can possibly find the words to express--certainly, I have a hearty love stewing with complexity and layered gratitude. My graduation will be sweet, like chilled cucumber soup, with a good glugof celebratory champagne for good measure. My future plans, though, are confusing to my mind's palate. Too salty with frustrated tears? Too acidic with biting, puckered expectations? Spicy with curried anticipation and new opportunities?

Yeah. Curried future. It's colorful, spicy, different and lovely. You have to strike a tender balance between the thick, cloying coconut milk and the aromatic, motley crew of colored spices. I, too, have to find a balance between fear and the unknown and excitement and expectation. I think I find balance in this soup, let's hope I can find balance in my future.

Curried Coconut Vegetable Soup

1 cup rice, grain mix, quinoa etc..

1 medium onion, chopped

1 buncha greens (I used chard, I believe), rinsed and ripped into an edible size

A couple of carrots, peeled and chopped into thin medallions

2 ears of corn (if in season), or 1 cup of frozen corn*

A spoonful of minced garlic

1 tablespoon curry paste

3/4 cup vegetable broth

1 can coconut milk

Salt, pepper, cayenne, cumin, any other seasoning you fancy to taste

*I have only made this using fresh corn, never frozen. I liked the sweetness and the slight crunch paired with the spicy broth. I can't guarantee frozen corn won't be too chewy, or reminiscent of the microwaveable yellow side dish next to the brownie in Kid Cuisines.

Cook your grain of choice and set aside to fluff and cool.

Saute the onion in olive oil (or ghee if you are feeling wild) until translucent in your favorite saucepan, burner set to medium. Add the greens, carrots, corn and garlic and saute for just about 30 seconds. Add the curry paste and saute until the veggies are coated and your knees are buckling with the intoxicating smell.

Pour the broth and coconut milk over the veggie mixture and stir to combine. Add seasonings according to your master chef palate. Turn your heat to low, and let simmer until the carrots are tender. When you are plucking carrots out of the pot and chewing away at their velvety texture, stir in your grain of choice and take the pot off the heat.

Serve with cardamom iced coffee to sip and balance the heat of the soup. For dessert? Some Etsy window shopping for your imagined future apartment, finished with a flourish of graduate school essay writing.