Friday, July 9, 2021

Meet, Bray, Love: Secret Subject Swap


Cookie Dough Brownies, chocolate chip cookie dough is rolled into balls and baked into brownies for the best of both chocolate worlds. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dessert




Welcome a Secret Subject Swap. This month 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. Read through mine and at the bottom you’ll find links to all of today’s other Secret Subject participants.



 

 

 

 

 

 

My subject is: Tell me about the strangest pet you've owned.
It was submitted by Sarah of What TF Sarah.

 

Secret Subject Swap, a multi-blogger writing challenge | developed and run by www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics

 

I guess you could say a mule. I also guess that maybe I should give you some background.
 
I've mentioned before that I, for a short time, lived the Brady Bunch. My mother had 2 girls, my stepfather had 3 boys. Neither of us were willing to give up our "Alice," so his lived in (with her daughter, to round out the crew) and ours came during the day.

The house was beautiful, contemporary, which is my style, the whole back of the house was glass. The back yard was large, with a pool, a barn, and a rolling hill leading all the way back to woods. There were also woods to our left, and across the street. To our right was Four Corner Farm, a home complete with a barn, horses, and all kinds of animals. The youngest daughter, Lee, was my age, and I knew her from school so I'd been over there, although not often. Her mother was an animal lover, former horse rescuer, and you never knew what you'd come across there. A de-scented skunk, ferrets in the bathroom, anything and everything animal.
 
And us next door? We had nothin'. OK, so my brother had a dog that chased his tail till I got dizzy. Big whop.

But the neighbors' main love was, without a doubt,  horses. I'd walk up to the fence between our yards with an apple or a carrot and look into those big beautiful brown equine eyes and know exactly why their family had fallen in love with horses. Damn, I mean I got great birthday presents when I was little but Lee? She got a horse. A horse! And she named him (her?) Happy Birthday.
 
At the time that I lived there, though, I had just barely graduated college, was starting out in my first job and living at home to save some money. And also at that time, I fell in love with big brown equine eyes too, those of a donkey. Donkeys are, if you didn't know, gentle, domesticated, smaller members of the horse family. And one day, while snacking on a cookie dough/brownie hybrid by the pool, I broached the subject of bringing him home, see if he could fit into our family.


Cookie Dough Brownies, chocolate chip cookie dough is rolled into balls and baked into brownies for the best of both chocolate worlds. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dessert 
Cookie Dough Brownies
 
A little about donkeys in general, and mine specifically. He was not a foal (a young donkey), nor a Jenny (a female), he was a Jack, a male. He was gentle, though undoubtedly as stubborn as a mule. Not a mule, though, mules are actually the result of mating a Jack and mare (female horse). I know all of this because these are the things you learn when you live out in the country, your neighbors have horses and you have a donkey. Actually, that's a lie. These are the things you learn when you're writing a blog post and end up spending a lot of time researching jennys, jackasses, mules, and horses on Google.

Anyway, I had named him Pardner. As in Howdy, Pardner. Hey, if Lee can name her pony Happy Birthday, I can name my donkey Howdy Pardner. 
 
 
Meet, Bray, Love: The Family that Brays Together. | graphic designed by and property of www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics #humor
 
Just one last bit of pertinent information: donkeys live for quite a long time. So it shouldn't surprise you to hear that I still have that Pardner I'd brought home to meet the family all those years ago. 
 
In fact, I've been married to that stubborn ass for years now.


Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Wandering Web Designer 

Climaxed 

Part-time Working Hockey Mom

What TF Sarah 




Baking In A Tornado signature | www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics




 

Cookie Dough Brownies

                                                              ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe


Ingredients:
6 TBSP butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 TBSP baking cocoa

Directions:
*Cream 6 TBSP butter with 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar. Beat in 1 egg and 1/2 tsp vanilla. Mix in 1 1/4 cups flour and the salt. Once incorporated, mix in the mini chocolate chips. Roll the dough into 30 balls. Place on a tray in the freezer for 30 minutes (can freeze overnight).
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 X 13 baking pan.
*In the microwave, melt the butter and the unsweetened chocolate at 20 second intervals until smooth.
*Stir in the remaining sugar and remaining brown sugar, then the remaining vanilla and eggs. Mix in the remaining flour, salt, baking soda and baking cocoa.
*Pour batter evenly into the prepared pan. Press the frozen cookie dough balls into the brownie batter. Bake for 30 minutes.

*Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

23 comments:

  1. Hahahahaha! Did not see that ending coming! ;)

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  2. I love it. You, the story and the brownies. Might no be in that order. Oh love Howdy Pardner. ROFLMBO

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  3. Great surprise ending to the story :-)

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    Replies
    1. Not everyone loved the ending of the story but at least I get points for the surprise, right?

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  4. Oh my, you had me going until the punchline. Does your hubby read your blog? Seriously, I was all set to let you know my strangest pet. Now all I will do is dream of brownies, because it's too sticky to bake! Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. No he doesn't read my blog, so as far as I'm concerned, this is his just desserts (so to speak).

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  5. Heeheehee! Yep, i married one, too.

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  6. I love that--"There are things you learn when writing a blog." Hope you keep learning but all things and some things donkey.

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  7. First yum, that brownie looks delicious. Secondly, I fell for that hook, line and sinker! And thirdly, I bought myself a KitchenAid last week (not sure if I told you), but this weekend for the very first time in my life I made any type of bread and I made homemade from scratch Parker House Rolls. I need to work on my technique as they were pretty ugly, but they tasted great!

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  8. Look at you, with the twist ending. I've taught you well, grasshopper. lol

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    Replies
    1. Ha, ha, very funny. Not my first and I dare say won't be my last, I was doing twist endings when you were but a gleam in your mama's eye, whippersnapper!!!!

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    2. Girl, you know you aren't that old! lol

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  9. Hahahaha, you got me! Happy Birthday and Howdy Pardner. Yummy baked goods as well - a fun post all around :-)

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    Replies
    1. So glad you enjoyed it, I've been getting fairly mixed reviews.

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  10. i think they are all jackasses to be honest. i'd rather have an actual donkey. they're so cute.

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