The world's BEST brownies...I promise

Ingredients

1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons instant coffee or expresso
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water
9 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 stick salted butter, melted
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease your baking pan with non-stick spray. 
3. Bring water to a boil, then place in a large bowl (if you use a metal bowl, the mixture will stay hot longer, thus melting the chocolate chips quicker).
4. Add the cocoa powder and coffee or expresso. 
5. Stir until dissolved. 
6. Add the chocolate chips and stir vigorously until all are melted. 
7. Add the vegetable oil and melted butter. 
8. Stir and add the eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla. 
9. Continue to stir until batter is smooth and everything is well combined. 
10. Add the sugar 1 cup at a time and mix well. 
11. Finally, add the flour and salt, mixing until thoroughly combined. 
12. Transfer your mixture to your baking pan. 
13. Bake for 30-40 minutes. 


These are SO yummy. Go make them...NOW! :)
4.

Why?

I don't know how many of you reading this have blogs, but just a forewarning for if you ever want to start one...you better come up with a super-duper creative name for it. I kid you not, I tried at least 20 names for my blog before deciding on this one. All of those 20 were "taken". 

My first choice would have been "HSquared". Get it? But that was taken by some real estate group that hadn't posted anything on their blog since 2003. Frustrating. 

Here's a link to the song that inspired my blog's name. You may have heard it before.


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If you don't already know, in less than one week Adam and I will be moving to Guntown, Mississippi (where he's from). Even though I am SO ready to get out of this place, the more I think about it, the more I realize I'm really going to miss the friends I made while I was here. If I didn't have them to interact with in class, I would have been ten times more miserable than I was.

I had some amazing instructors here at Asbury, who have been so understanding and supportive of my situation. It's sad to think I may never see them again. 

I'll blog another day on the journey Adam and I took to get here and the one we faced while we were here, but today I can't help but ask God why? 

Why did You have us move here if you were just going to change our path less than 6 months later?

As much as I want to just pout about it and complain about how frustrated I am (which, I admit, overcomes me most days), I can't help but think that there's a greater purpose here that I have yet to see or I may never see. I'm a firm believer in "everything happens for a reason", so I KNOW there's a reason behind this. 

Right now, the reason I think I see for myself is tolerance and maybe even a new-found patience. I even feel like I've grown up a lot since we've been here.  I hope and pray that God shows Adam a reason for this, too. 

Even if I'm wrong, and those aren't the things I was supposed to learn when I was here, I know that God doesn't make mistakes of any kind...something my mama recently reminded me of, and its something I think we ALL need to be reminded of every once in a while.