Yum

Usually when people hear the words, ‘unexpected vacation’ they think that someone was whisked off to a tropical destination; sun kissed sandy beaches, short loose dresses, sunscreen and plane rides to distant and beautiful places. I wish that were the case but alas my unexpected vacation is simply an unplanned day at home… awaiting the local septic guy and then later… when the news was shitty (excuse the pun)… awaiting another, more expensive guy to come and give us a cost of drilling a new line from the house to our septic tank. Not that we had a choice if we don’t like the number he comes up with… there is no relic of an outhouse we can resort to out back now that the weather is almost getting nicer.

(Just riding the wave folks!)

Seems we dodged a bullet late last week when on a windy day a couple of shingles flew off the roof and we were fortunate to find that it was just a matter of too much wind and too few nails, the rogue shingles were tacked back on as were the few flapping on the roof and we could forge ahead over this little bump in the road. Apparently this was not the case with the septic issue. Ah the joys of living in the country.

It was snowing this morning, I’m not wearing a summer dress or dowsing myself with sunscreen or better yet, baby oil, and I’m not cracking open a good book to read.   Instead I was pacing from one room to another, frustrated that I wasn’t at all prepared for a day off even in quasi-crappy weather.   Thank goodness for my work-wife’s vices… after texting my misery back and forth she suggested I make brownies. Actually… she suggested that she would be an assassin for some. Brownies aren’t something I make very often so… aware that I didn’t have much milk in the fridge and being subjected to a ‘waiting’ kind of house arrest I scanned Foodgawker for a brownie recipe that didn’t require much milk. Much to my surprise brownies don’t actually need much milk, if any at all.

Thus my mission! I suppose at times like these my short attention span is very helpful. In between the arrival of repairmen I managed to make a couple of different brownies. Sour cherry cheesecake brownies since I had some sour cherries squirreled away in the freezer and peanut butter cheesecake chocolate brownies. I also decided to make some scratch pasta rolls…. These will be up on the blog soon… seriously a good comfort food for the kind of day we’re having at our house. 🙂

For now I give you Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies… so good and easy they are absolutely sinful! Though they look a little like a dense cake… trust me… they come with all the brownie goodness. Thanks so much to Skanoismintys for the inspiration and the base of this recipe! And thanks to my sister wife for unexpectedly holding down the fort at work and for reminding me to BAKE SOMETHING! Cooking and baking really does take my mind off the crappy (again sorry for the pun) kind of week we’re having and it almost doesn’t feel like I’ve wasted a vacation day!

Brownie layer

• 250 grams butter
• 5 eggs
• 300 grams white sugar
• 70 grams high quality cocoa powder
• 120 grams all-purpose flour
• A pinch of salt (unless you’re using salted butter)

Melt the butter and leave to cool for a bit, I put mine in the microwave for about 1 minute on high. Mix sugar and eggs for about 5 mins, until it becomes pale and fluffy. Slowly pour in the melted butter while still mixing. Then gently mix in the flour, cocoa powder and salt until incorporated, but don‘t over mix.  Pour into a 9×13 pan with parchment paper coated in spray.

Cheesecake layer

• 300 grams cream cheese
• 150 grams white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 3 – 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 100 ml milk
• 4 tablespoons of PB2

Mix all ingredients in a bowl or stand mixer with the paddle attachment and mix until smooth.  It should be a nice pudding like consistency.  Pour the Peanut Butter layer over the chocolate brownie base and using a knife swirl it around so that you can see the chocolate layer peeking though. Just don’t over mix because then you won’t get the cheesecakey chunks… which by the way… are luscious!

Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 – 45 minutes and let cool before attempting to lift out of the pan.  Slice and enjoy!