Gluten-free, corn-free, almost dairy-free brownies

 
Here's the recipe... it's a triple batch 'cause making any less than that is just plain silly.
Organic ingredients are best, of course.

Best-ever Brownies
Preheat oven to 350^o

1 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup butter
1 bag of chocolate chips

Melt these together, in a heavy saucepan, over low heat (stir constantly) or in a double boiler, over - not touching - boiling water (you don't have to stir as much). Let cool slightly while you get the rest of the ingredients ready.

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1-1/2 cups flour
I use 1/2 cup fine ground almond meal (Bob's Red Mill) and 1 cup Chebe All-purpose Bread Mix
3/4 tsp sea salt (fine grind)

Sift (if you care to) these together - or just pour them all in your mixer bowl.

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3 cups sugar
6 eggs - slightly beaten
1-1/2 tsp vanilla

Add these to the melted chocolate & fats.Stir well, add to dry ingredients.

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Stir in a second bag of chocolate chips. Add 1-1/2 cups of chopped nuts if you like them.

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Now for the big decision - which do you want?

1. a few brownies with crunchy edges & chewy centers and lots of chewy-gooey brownies with no crunchy edges, OR
2. every brownie to have crunchy edges and a chewy center

If you are partial to scenario #1 - bake them in a 9" x 13" (or so) baking pan - oiled very lightly - until the edges are done, but the center is still somewhat soft. Let them cool thoroughly and cut into whatever size brownies you like.

NOTE: I recommend small squares. If you make them big you'll end up making yourself sick on them because they're rich and yummy and there's no way you're going to throw out a half-eaten one (or even stop and save it for later...).

If you like scenario #2, or if you want more portable brownies, bake them in muffin/cupcake papers in a muffin pan, until the edges are firm and the centers are still pretty soft. Makes around 36 brownies.

For some crazy reason these keep really well. My last batch made it a whole week (only because I forgot about them) and they were still deliciously soft and gooey in the centers.

The days are speeding by, too fast, too fast...

I should have been calling more often. I keep telling myself "I will call tonight..." then I get home and get started on a project or a book, and the next thing I know, it is too late to call them. They live in a different time zone from us.

Last night I heard from my mother. My father is weakening more rapidly than we expected. He has not eaten - not more than a bite of cereal and a slice of canned peaches - in two or three days. He sleeps all but just a few hours. I do not think he will be with us much longer...

Early last week he went out to breakfast with a friend. The friend, a good friend, came and picked him up. He must have taken the wheelchair, loaded my father into and out of the vehicle and rolled him into McDonalds, and then reversed the process for the trip home.

Breakfast is the only meal that is even slightly worth eating at McDonalds.

When I was a kid, we never went to McDonalds when we went out to eat when my father was going along. He did not think it was real food. But sometime, sometime in the last 10 or 15 years, my father joined the McDonalds' breakfast clique. I find it interesting that no matter where you go, no matter what part of the country you are in, if you stop in a McDonalds early in the morning, it is full of retirees nibbling on egg mcmuffins and hot cakes, sausage biscuit sandwiches and egg burritos, drinking their coffee and juice and talking up a storm.

I think I like that. I wish I would have gone once or twice with my father.