I love long weekends.

Yesterday was Canada Day, and it was nice to just spend a day relaxing. Chris and I cleaned our house, which always makes me feel better. I love having a clean space around me. I'm a bit of a clean freak. I think I balance the chaos in my mind by having an organized physical space around me.

I also gave myself a manicure yesterday after seeing a super cute one on several blogs the other day. (Here's a link to one.)  I think it's one of my new favorite things.

Being Canada Day yesterday, Chris and I went to see the fireworks with a couple of my friends. I flipping adore fireworks, but I'll tell you this - Steinbach does not have the best fireworks in the world, considering how big the town is and compared to the fireworks that smaller towns in the area put on. Nontheless, they were still beautiful and I got some good pictures.

In the evening I had the random urge to make brownies. They. Were. Flipping. Amazing. So I am sharing the recipe with you lovely people. I hope you make them and enjoy :D

Easy Fudge Brownies (courtesy of Pampered Chef)

Note: This recipe came with their small bar pan, so it's a tiny recipe. I am giving it to you tripled from the original, but I have no idea what size pan you'll need. I think you're smart enough to figure it out, though ;)


Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 tbsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 3/8 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate morsels, divided
• 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts, divided

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Spray baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Combing sugar, melted butter, eggs and vanilla in mixing bowl; mix well.

2. Combine flour, cocoa powder and salt in a separate bowl. Add to batter bowl; whisk until smooth. Stir a third each of the chocolate morsels and walnuts into batter. Spread batter evenly in pan. Bake 18-20 minutes or until brownie is set in center. Remove from oven to cooling rack.

3. Immediately sprinkle remaining chocolate morsels over hot brownie. Let chocolate stand until softened; spread evenly. Sprinkle with remaining nuts. Cool before cutting.

More notes: I pretty much hate nuts in baked goods, so I skipped that.

I found peanut butter chips in my cupboard, so when mixing the batter I split it half peanut butter chips and half regular chocolate chips. So. Yummy.

The baking time might be off, because again this recipe was really small and meant for a clay baking pan. So if you try it and find that it needs a different time, please let me know!


Enjoy your long weekend, my dears!