A fabled land of farmers, farm shares, fancy (and not so fancy) restaurants, family meals, food projects and more.
We began Gourmandistan as merely a way to amuse ourselves (and some may claim we still amuse merely ourselves). But we have grown quite attached to you, our readers. Our urge to post to this blog has grown beyond the simple need to stick recipes where we can easily access them to encompass the idea that someone out there in cyberspace might actually miss us if we’re gone. That is why, even though our home has been in complete disarray for more than two weeks due to an invasion of house painters, Michelle felt it necessary to sneak into the cleared-out-but-not-yet-painted kitchen and even grind her own peanut butter to make up for a deficit of store-bought needed for a batch of Lauren Groveman’s Midnight Brownies with Peanut Butter Pockets. And it is why Steve, despite currently suffering from a rather unpleasant virus, summoned the energy to write something about it.
Lauren Groveman’s Kitchen is one of our favorite cookbooks from the Clinton Era. So much so that when Michelle found a stack on a remainder table around the turn of the century, she bought them all up and gifted them to brides for years. (Sorry brides. Your wedding gifts may have cost only about $5 each. Hope you liked them anyway!) It’s a charming book full of helpful information for beginning cooks and enough reliable recipes for old-fashioned favorites to keep the more experienced interested. Which reminds us: it’s been a long time since we’ve made Groveman’s yummy Sloppy Joes.
There may not be much to this post, but we wanted you to know we’re still here. Hopefully the next post will find us back in our freshly painted kitchen with plenty of supplies on hand, ready to entertain and inform you in the manner you deserve.
This was once the dining room.
For the past 2-1/2 weeks, it’s been the repository of kitchen things.
50 comments
I just saw a layer of peanut buttery goodness and melted into this post – your brownies look absolutely fantastic 😀
Cheers
Choc Chip UruReply
MichelleAaaw, thanks! Actually, these remind me more of something you would make! (Chocolate is really not my thing, but the peanut butter keeps me coming back.)
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Feel better mate. Man, I’d like to sit down with a bowl full of Michelle’s freshly ground peanut butter and a bar of dark chocolate.
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- Michelle
Sweet! Of course, I was so impressed with myself for thinking of grinding up peanuts when the Whole Foods jar came up short. But Steve is like, “You used those peanuts? Why didn’t you use the good ones?”
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Those Brownies look insanely good:)
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- Michelle
Thanks, Roger! Chocolate really isn’t my thing, but I’ve come back to this recipe many times. It is really good.
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Bon courage – it must be hell without a kitchen 😉
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- Michelle
We’ve actually been sort of HALF without a kitchen. Our own fault. We figured with the 100° F weather at the time that the painters would surely start inside in the kitchen, so we shoveled it out 2+ weeks ago. Instead they started outside. Someday…
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I hope you and your kitchen both recover quickly! These brownies should definitely help.
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- Michelle
Thanks, Emmy. Definitely, at times like this, one wishes to live in town again. It’s an awfully long way from here to a decent restaurant!
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Grinding your own peanut butter in the midst of a mess takes a heckuva lotta determination — I get overwhelmed by just a single sink full of dirty dishes!
Hope your freshly painted kitchen turns out as great as those fudgy-looking brownies. 🙂
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- Michelle
Determination? Or crazy?!
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Hey I know what it feels like when you are painting/renovating/remodeling. It can be very tiresome! The brownies, I must say, look as rich and smooth as fudge. YUMMY!!
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- Michelle
Thank you! It’s exhausting, isn’t it? But someday all will be freshly painted and clean (for a minute or two).
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I’m definitely glad you ground this out… they look yum! It’s essential to grind out posts from time to time. I do it 😀
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- Michelle
🙂 Hope you had a great birthday, Frugal!
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(it’s on Wednesday :D)
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Those look utterly decadent 🙂
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- Michelle
They are, thanks! Hope you’re back on your feet soon.
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My dining room always looks like that. OK, kidding… but I feel your pain. I’ve never done a remodel, but miss my kitchen even away on vacation.
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- Michelle
Truth be told, Greg, ours looks nearly that bad much of the time, too! We never use our dining room. Do you?
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Probably about 6-10 times a year, tops!
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- Michelle
Good for you! That’s about 5-10 times more than we use ours. We always say: My, what a different house we’d build now than we built in our 30s. Wish we had a do-over.
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Most peanut butter “swirl” brownies barely taste of peanut butter, but I can tell from the photos that the peanut butter is the star here, especially since you made your own! Thanks for the post, and best of luck with the painting.
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- Michelle
Thanks much. This really is a wonderful recipe for exactly that reason. Jeez, it’s hard to believe I’ve been making it for decades!
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Thanks for the peanut buttery chocolate goodness! Hope you post pics of your freshly painted kitchen :).
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- Michelle
So welcome, Jama. It’s funny, though, that after all the headaches, it will look just like it did before! I was too lazy to change the color.
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- Somer
Holy crap those look good!
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- Michelle
Give ’em a try! And thanks for stopping by.
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- Somer
I will, just need to figure out how to veganize them first! 😉 Insane!
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- Michelle
Yeah, that’s a bridge too far for me. But good luck!
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- Somer
Don’t worry, I got skills 😉
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- Michelle
🙂
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- Jane Beck
Gorgeous! Amid the horror (of painting…)
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- Michelle
Ha! What I needed was you, the Queen of Color, to come and help me pick out a new one. All this hassle and, in the end, it’s gonna look just like before. (I do love the new outside color though.)
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Those look incredible!
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- Michelle
Thanks much!
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Your readers are addicted to you too. 🙂
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- Michelle
Sweet!
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Wow are those all cookbooks in that table?
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- Michelle
Yeah. That’s some of them! (It’s an illness.)
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Sorry…I´m late! But it looks amazing and i have great admiration for you cooking and psoting while sorting out your kitchen 🙂
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- Michelle
Thanks, Tanya! Finally, finally the painting is done and the kitchen is mostly put back together. I look forward to seeing your new project progress!
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Wow! Homemade peanut butter…you are my hero!
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- Michelle
Crazy, I know. 🙂
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Oo. So pretty! I love the layered effect. Hang in there! Having work done on the house is such a pain but think how pretty it will be! Colors?
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- Michelle
Thanks so much! I actually ended up just doing the same color in the kitchen as before: green. I really wanted a change, but I loved my green glass cabinet knobs too much to change it.
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“…one of our favorite cookbooks from the Clinton era.” Ha! Oh God that’s funny. One can only image the places you could take that (e.g. “One of the more popular co*cktail compendiums from the Nixon years,” ‘the hands-down favorite grill book of the Reagan presidency.”) The brownies look great. For both our sakes I’m glad you’re there and I’m here. Great post. Ken
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- Michelle
Thanks! And you make a good point. I’ll get Steve working on the “baby foods from the Eisenhower and Kennedy years” post! Oops, I guess I just showed our ages.
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Somer
Jane Beck
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