The Recipe My Whole Family Knows

Most every family has that one recipe, the recipe that everyone knows and loves: the go-to recipe. Most families have the casserole dish or the secret cookie recipe. Well, my family's recipe is brownies (which is great because I could seriously live off brownies and pizza). The recipe is from my mom's side. I asked my mama if there was an actual dinner dish that she remembers eating a lot growing up, and she told me that they didn't have a huge variety: most every dinner was meat and potatoes. They never did a taco night or had spaghetti like most families do. However, when her mom would make dessert, it would be these brownies. If they ever went to a potluck dinner, they took these brownies. If they were having people over, these brownies were on the counter. Now these brownies are my family's go-to dish. We don't make it super often because we aren't huge into dessert, but when we do, it's the best day since the last time we had them.

When I asked my mama about this recipe, she admitted to me that she has changed it around and that Grandma changed it around when she got the recipe, too. It started off with a load of shortening and butter and margarine. Well, my grandma just wasn't having it so she chopped the recipe down a bit. My mama sure wasn't having it as such so she cut out shortening and substituted a little butter and less margarine. Over the years, the recipe hasn't gotten healthy because that is impossible with a food as divine as brownies, but it has been modified to be less fattening. The frosting recipe is pretty basic, but if someone doesn't know much about baking, they won't have an enjoyable time whipping this up. You just have to eyeball the powdered sugar and buttermilk so hopefully you know what frosting looks like.

Grandma's Brownies
1 1/3 cube margarine
2 cups sugar
pinch of salt
4 eggs
1/3 cup coco
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla
Mix all the ingredients together. Spread on greased baking pan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle some marshmallows on and place in oven for 3 minutes.Spread on chocolate frosting.
Chocolate Frosting
2 TBSP coco
1/2 cube softened butter
Powdered sugar
Buttermilk
Mix until right consistency.

Cultural Artifact: Just the Beginning!

In this blog, you will discover that I am a dreamer and I do what I want. I was born and raised to be independent and to be who I am. I can attribute these qualities to the places I've been and my family, the one I'm born to and the one I've created.

My cultural artifact is just a small stone turtle. No, he hasn't been passed down from generation to generation, but this little turtle of mine has been everywhere I have. It started off as me being a small child and just having to take my cute little "toy" everywhere we went, and since he's so small, my mom never objected. As I got older and went farther, it was just a habit to throw my turtle in whatever bag I was taking. So this little guy has been to Mexico numerous times, in the oceans, on islands, on airplanes, at ski resorts, on roller coasters, everywhere in the world. Not only has he been with me places physically, he's been chilling when I'm changing who I am and discovering who I want to become.

In a way, he represents my family because my family has never left my side. They have stuck with me through all my worst moments and terrible decisions and life choices I have made. They have been most everywhere I have been and some of the people I consider my family aren't even from the same country or speak the same language, but they are solid and that's family: they don't leave when things get too hard.