This Is Actually About Caramel Brownies

When I was about eight I developed a fascination with polished rocks. Perhaps this was because my neighbor Mark Pruitt had a polished rock collection and I loved to hold the cool, smooth, garishly colored rocks in my hands and imagine the joy that would be mine if only I had such a collection of my very own. (Mark was just a dear of a neighbor. In addition to sharing his rocks with me, he was always up for an hour or two rehearsal from our favorite "play" Amelia Bedelia, an emotionally gripping production we practiced on and off for 2 years at least but never actually presented to the neighborhood. Which let me tell you was a crying shame. We also played hours and hours of the rousing Mille Bornes, a French board game that we HADN'T A FLIPPIN CLUE how to play--much less translate--the whole thing being written in Canadian.)

Oh yeah. Rocks.

So in my little 8 year old brain I hatched a cunning scheme for how I could make my own polished rocks. I had the whole thing planned out and absolutely KNEW that my idea would yield stunning results (of the polished rock variety).
How to make polished rocks:

Find some rocks outside. Smallish rocks work best. Put the rocks in the bathroom sink, turn on the faucet and walk away. Let the rocks wash for about an hour. Take clean rocks and put them in a plastic mug. Fill mug with a little bit of water. Add baby oil. Put mug in freezer, perched precariously atop bags of frozen vegetables. Go out and play. Come back in and check rocks in freezer. Suffer disappointment. Add more baby oil. Go back outside. Repeat this process every 7 minutes until you spill the oily contents of the mug onto the frozen foods and/or Mom confronts you and demands an explanation.

Can you imagine my ingenious recipe for polished rocks didn't work out? Because it didn't....

.....and now for something else that didn't work out, even though the idea in my head sounded fantastic!:

Caramel Brownies.

Recipe for (yesterday's) caramel brownies:

Go to Walmart on Saturday afternoon. Develop a (sudden) mad hankering for caramel brownies. Reject the boxed mix of caramel/brownie/pecans (aka Brownie Turtles) because you really don't fancy nuts in your brownies--even though they could easily be left out--and instead buy a jar of Smuckers caramel sauce (with a name like Smuckers....)


and a box of Betty Crocker Fudge Brownies (9 x 13 family size!)

and then after church and right in the midst of lunch preparations, decide to make the caramel brownies. In an effort to make a caramel reduction and dirty a pan that you will have to clean later--at great effort--heat up the jar of caramel until it is nice and bubbly. (Note: the sauce will not thicken, no matter how long you let it simmer.) Prepare a 9x13 pan of brownie mix, then carefully pour on the entire sauce pan of caramel sauce, swirling it around on top of the uncooked brownie and watch as it sinks to the bottom of the pan. Bake brownie according to box. Check brownie. Reset timer for additional 5 minutes. Repeat. Repeat again. Check brownie. Suffer disappointment. Give up. The brownie edges will be hard like cement, while the brownie middle will be utter goo. Expect husband and children to arrive on scene for commentary.

Maybe coming up with ingenious plans just isn't my thing.