Sheer boredom has temporarily been supplanted by...baking and liaisons with TV shows!

Surely everyone extended kindly gestures to their mothers today. It is for this reason (Mother's Day) that baking has come to be one of the methods through which utter boredom can be suppressed. Pecuniarily incapacitated (until the end of this week!), I was left with the internet and limited baking goods, which included brownie mix. Determined to make brownies, product from a boxed brownie mix would have been too easy. In a crusade for culinary creativity (relatively speaking) in this kitchen, recruitment of the internet was only the most naturally strategic first step.

Google landed me a recipe of Rachel Ray's brownie ice cream sandwiches. Palatable it could have been, but I am quite sure that she prefers a separation of hards and softs. A Google search for "brownie recipes" later and I had before me an array of submitted brownie recipes on AllRecipes.com. What separated me from actually materializing many of these brownies in the kitchen was my limited budget of materials.

Chartreuse=Had
Red=Had Not

Applesauce Brownies

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)

* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 1/2 cup margarine
* 2 eggs
* 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 2 cups applesauce
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 tablespoons white sugar
* 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
* 1 cup chopped walnuts

Cheesecake-Topped Brownie

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)

* 1 (21.5 ounce) package brownie mix
* 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese (LESS THAN ONE YEAR PAST THE DATE ON THE BOX), softened
* 2 tablespoons butter, softened
* 1 tablespoon cornstarch
* 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
* 1 egg
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 (16 ounce) container prepared chocolate frosting

Extra-EXTRA Rich Brownies (Of course the alliciency was in the words "extra" and "rich".)

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)

* 1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 3/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
* 2/3 cup vegetable oil
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 3/4 cup evaporated milk (I didn't feel like making any)
*
* 1/2 cup evaporated milk
* 1/3 cup sweetened cocoa mix
* 1 teaspoon butter

After much browsing and contemplation, the recipe of choice, which also matched my budget set of ingredients was Iced Brownie!

INGREDIENTS

* 1 cup sugar
* 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
* 4 eggs
* 1 (16 ounce) can chocolate flavored syrup (like Hershey's or Nestle's chocolate syrup!)
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/2 cup chopped nuts (forgone, for I didn't think that my mother would have had an appreciation for the nuts)
ICING:
* 1 1/4 cups sugar
* 6 tablespoons butter or margarine
* 6 tablespoons milk or light cream
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Recruitment successful.

The Iced Brownie is somewhat normal in the sense that it is a brownie, but an equally rich icing is separately prepared to spread about the cake's surface at the end. The pleasures derived from using this recipe are as follows:

• Double the Orgulosity: When bragging to one's friends about one's awesome baking skills, he or she is able to boast not only of an awesome brownie but also of an equally amazing icing.



• Double the Gustatory Indulgence: Not only will one's papillae be walking like Egyptians from a sample (or two, or seventeen) of the batter but also the savory icing (maraschino cherries were added and squashed inside the icing) will crowd surf across said papillae, allowing one to savor the sample just long enough before tumbling down the throat.

Adding more vanilla extract than that which had been instructed.

Behold the finished brownie-cake:



The cherry chocolate icing hadn't completely cooled, so the decorative icing partially melted into the cherry chocolate icing. Much thanks to Impatience, the word "Mother's" had to be reiced twice. The cake was appreciated, and it was delectable.

It was even more delectable than what one would imagine this morsel of pulchritude to be:



I mentioned how TV shows have also alleviated this systemic boredom of mine. Behold, undress, salivate (manstuprate, too). Jonathan Rhys Meyers, purveyor of fine 16th century douchebaggery à la Henry VIII on the TV show The Tudors. Perhaps to some, "douchebaggery" is a vast oversimplification or a contemptible display of underappreciation of history. The show isn't completely verisimilitudinous of its time anyway, but it's no Troy.

Both the show and the actor had heretofore been ignored. The character portrayed in the TV show accentuates Meyers' good looks. Dark hair-light eye combinations are very attractive, misunderstand me not...but he was of too 'gay' a semblance. However, this is no longer an issue.

In contrast, this Flight of the Conchords star Bret McKenzie took only two or three episodes to be considered attractive in these eyes:



Far from photogenic, his personality/character on the show accentuates the rugged good looks of this New Zealander. One may see for him- or herself on the show, which is about two New Zealanders that are trying to subsist and rise in New York (much like all the others who sojourn or settle in New York). They, however, comedically do so through folkish (comedic) rap and hip-hop music (they're actually a performing duo irl), working with a disutility of a New Zealander "agent" (Murray), and being consistently creeped out by the sole (yet soso cute) member of their fan base (Mel). For those who have no access to HBO, there is always SurftheChannel.