Snowflake Brownies

In Chicago, the public schools have been closed since Friday. First, professional development day. Then, school improvement day. Then Veteran's Day and now, parent/teacher conference day.

Fortunately, we have a great network of people to help watch our kids, and Jay is off on Veteran's Day anyway.

Today, I am home with the 5 yo and it is kind of icky outside - on top of which, I have a 1:00 meeting downtown (babysitter coming at noon), so there wasn't a whole lot of time to hit museums/etc. like I would usually do. I have found that baking and cooking with my kids is a lot of fun for me - and they simply love being in the kitchen. The other night while I was making dinner, the two kids completely emptied out one of my cabinets and made a second kitchen under the dining room table!

So, after dropping the 2 yo at daycare and running a couple of errands, we made Snowflake Brownies!

Now, I have never been much of a baker. And, truth be told, I believe that people come in 2 categories - baker or cook/chef. Similar to the "Beatles/Rolling Stones" and "Abbott and Costello/Three Stooges" debates, I believe that while you can come to "appreciate" the one you don't really care for as much - deep down, you can either be one or the other.

I am a cook (Beatles and Abbott and Costello too...I wonder if anyone has ever done a regression analysis of all these... hmmmm).

That being said, I do foray into baking every once and a while. And, I am not opposed to using mixes, as long as they are TERRIFIC!

So, today we made Snowflake Brownies.

Here's the recipe. (really not a recipe - but whatever!!)

Brownie Mix (We use Ghiradelli - but whichever you like is fine)
1 cup Vanilla Chips (The best you can get - of course - Caillebout makes great ones)
1 tbsp flour

1. Toss the vanilla chips with the flour and shake off (this will prevent the chips from "sinking to the bottom" of the brownies.)
2. Prepare brownie mix batter as instructed and mix in vanilla chips.
3. Bake as instructed and enjoy!!