Best Basic Brownie Recipe Ever

The Simplest, Most Awesome Basic Brownie Recipe...ever

Ingredients

1½ cups sugar
¾ cup flour
¾ cup cocoa powder (see note below)
3 eggs
¾ cup butter, melted
½ teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter)
¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F!

Combine dry ingredients and quickly whisk together. Add butter and eggs. Combine, but do not beat too much because the flour will release...GLUTEN! Gasp!!!

(Kneading flour produces gluten, the springy protein that makes bread chewy)

Now stir in the chocolate chips. Taste if you like! avoid e-coli while you're at it...

Bake your awesome brownies for 20-30 minutes. When poking the brownies, make sure you are not making contact with a chip by poking several places.

Now...

Falafel and Cucumber Sauce

From AllRecipes.com: Sean's Falafel and Cucumber Sauce Recipe. I don't know who Sean is, but his falafel is quite good. The recipe calls for deep-frying, but we pan-fried them instead: Use a small amount of vegetable oil in a frying pan and make small, flat patties instead of large balls. If the patties fall apart, no worries - you have now made fork-lafel.

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained 1 onion, chopped 1/2 cup fresh parsley 2 cloves garlic, chopped 1 egg 2 teaspoons ground cumin 1 teaspoon ground coriander 1 teaspoon salt 1 dash pepper 1 pinch cayenne pepper 1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon baking powder 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 cup dry bread crumbs oil for frying 1 (6 ounce) container plain yogurt 1/2 cucumber - peeled, seeded, and finely chopped 1 teaspoon dried dill weed salt and pepper to taste 1 tablespoon mayonnaise

Directions:

1.	In a large bowl mash chickpeas until thick and pasty; don't use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin. In a blender, process onion, parsley and garlic until smooth. Stir into mashed chickpeas.
2.	In a small bowl combine egg, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice and baking powder. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form 8 balls and then flatten into patties.
3.	Heat 1 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry patties in hot oil until brown on both sides.
4.	In a small bowl combine yogurt, cucumber, dill, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. Chill for at least 30 minutes.