Congo Bars --> Brookies

I don't think the congo bar name is gonna stick. Anthony calls them brookies. So i guess from now on they shall be called brookies!

I like making bar cookies. They are actually super easy to make. I have a recipe for snicker doodle blondies... er snickerdoodle brookies, and I think that will be the next item I will be baking. I hope these will be easier to bake because 1) I don't need my silpat 2) I dont have to sit there and roll dough in cinnamon and sugar 3) this will be much faster. I can't wait.

=)

Oh Mochie...

"I'm sorry, I know how frustrating it is to watch things like this happen but IME, there isn't anything more you can do. Treat the dog as you would your own when you're around it but back off otherwise, it's not doing any good trying to get anything into this womans head and is only making you more upset. If and when she's ready to listen you'll know when to step in and give her a hand getting the dog back on track."

This is advice that someone wrote, and I will try my best to stick to it. I guess there really isn't any thing else I can do. I don't want to give up, but doing the same thing over and over is not working. And I am getting pretty upset with how Mochie is being cared for. I need to remember and tell myself constantly that Mochie is NOT my dog. Not mine (but oh how i want a dog). Anyways, I'll try to give advice by dropping hints here and there all for the best interest of Mochie.

When the time comes for Anthony and I to get a dog, heck we'll have an even better, well behaved dog.

Anyways I'll still be looking out for Mochie. I want what is best for her. I want her to be a happy dog. It's just hard to see her mistreated at times. I dunno how many times I've seen her water bowl empty in the middle of the day. I mean how hard is it to check her water. Just peek inside of the damn bowl people! And how hard is it to walk her. We went and got another harness. Something easier to put on, but nooooo you won't even take her outside because it's cold. Well fuck that. Dogs have needs.Mochie needs to go outside. She can't be trapped inside all fucking day long. Rain or shine, bring her out. Shit. And please don't yell at her when she misses the mat. She doesn't know that poo is hanging off of her ass. And she doesn't speak english! She speaks dog. ugh.

I dunno Im just mad and angry and I can't do anything to remedy Mochie's situation because of ignorance and stubborness. UGH. But must remember the advice. Must remember...

Congo Bars

Last week, Bakerella posted about Congo bars, and ever since I have wanted to make these. They look like a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie married and had a baby together. hehe. I didn't have a pound of brown sugar, so I had to improvise. Thanks to Pioneer Woman and Tasty Kitchen, I found a good substitute. For every cup of brown sugar, I used 1 cup of white sugar and 1 tablespoon of molasses. I baked it for about 25 minutes at 325 degrees because the oven gets hot pretty quickly. Overall it turned out fine, a little underbaked, but the edges were starting to turn brown. They are a little sweet and I think it's because I used a little too much molasses or because I used semi sweet chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate chips. When I first poured it out onto the pan, I thought I didn't have enough batter. The batter was less than inch thick, but after baking it rose to a little over an inch thick. Texture wise, these are really good. The outside has a crunch, like a brownie, and the inside is nice and chewy. I think this needed pecans or walnuts, and I think I'll add this the next time I bake it.

Before

After

Warm, gooey and straight from the oven. Yummy! This was delicious with a glass of milk!

Congo Bars

adapted from Bakerella.com

Ingredients

2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup butter, softened
2 1/4cups white sugar
2 Tablespoons molasses
3 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

- Preheat oven 350 degrees. Grease 9 x 13 in. pan
- In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt, and set aside.
- Stir brown sugar into softened butter until butter disappears.
- Add one egg into butter mixture and stir well. Repeat with remaining eggs.
- Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts. Mix well together.
- Add flour mixture to butter mixture and stir until well combined.
- Bake for 30 min or until top is golden brown.

Broke 100 for the Second Time

I broke 100 again! Yay! I scored a 97 at Monarch Bay from the forward tees. =)
I learned that I don't have to play particularly well. I just have to keep advancing the ball (ie hit it over 100 yards from the fairway) and get a green in regulation or one over a green in regulation. From there I just have to 2 putt or less and it will be a fine and dandy day.

How did I do?

First, I wasn't hitting my driver well. It would slice and find a fairway bunker and other times, it would go straight. On one hole I had a 160 yard drive that was verified by Sky Caddie. I did find a lot of fairway bunkers and I did fine getting out of them. I had to remember that I had to pick the ball clean and keep my lower body still. When I would sway, I wasn't able to get out cleanly, but I got out. I also didn't have any really bad shots. I was able to advance the ball and I even had 2 pars! yay! I am getting the hang of pitching. I even got a pitch to land and stop 6 inches from the hole to save par.

Putting - My putting was erratic. The day before I spent over an hour working on putting with Anthony. First we worked on my set up. My hands were too far away from my body and were hanging in an odd position. My stance was a little too wide and the ball was too far away from me. To fix all of this, I had to have my hands hang straight down under my chin. I also narrowed my stance, so that my feet were under my hips. To fix the ball position, we moved the ball closer to me. Next, we worked on my 25' to 30' putts. I have the most trouble with this distance because I either leave putts really short or I hit it way past the hole. I had to work on getting it within tap in distance. We worked on putting uphill and downhill to help work on my distance control. Even though we worked on this my putting on the front 9 was horrendous. I would leave putts short and long. I got things under control on the back nine. I need to learn to calm down before I putt.

That's how I played. =)

Beguiling Tiger Project

Cross stitch... I dunno why I wanted to get into it. It's time consuming and it makes my eyes hurt. But I purchased this little kit a few months ago just to challenge myself. I thought it would be small enough to complete in a short amount of time (less than a month), but it really isn't.

This is what it should look like:

Last week, I decided to attempt to finish the project. I took a picture of it after I added the pale grey and black on the left side of the the project.

Adding the pale grey, dark grey and black threads took over 3 hours. =( It's pretty cool how it is slowly coming together, but this is going to take a while. =( I dunno what I want to do with it when I am done. I just know that once I am done, I am free to purchase a new project and work on that. =)