Something New.

There are people out there who believe in "learning one new thing everyday"...

I wouldn't say that is how I live my life, but occasionally it does happen; and when the "new thing" I learned can be applied to my job - well, I'm a happy chef.

This weekend I was in the mood for brownies. But I was lazy and didn't really have all the ingredients that I needed to make them from scratch.  What I did have though, was a box of generic Target brownie mix.  Not sure why I had it, or where it came from; but it was there and it was calling my name.  So, I throw all the stuff in the bowl that the directions call for, in addition to a load of Valhrona cocoa powder and Callebaut Bittersweet chocolate chips just to up the fudgey factor.  I bake them and they are delicious.

No surprises here.

However, on the back of the brownie box there were some "suggestions" for what to add to the brownies, how long to wait for them to cool before you cut them, etc.  The most interesting fact there was that it was recommended to cut the cooled brownies with a plastic knife. Yeh, a plastic knife back and forth in a sawing motion. Say what?  This seemed slightly ridiculous to me, although I'm not sure why.  Unfortunately - I had no such plastic utensil in my kitchen, so I was left to cut the brownies with a butter knife and called it a day.

This morning at work however I needed to make a batch of brownies - and I thought...why not try the plastic knife approach?  I tend to have issues sometimes when try and cut brownies with either a chefs knife or a serrated knife, and I couldn't imagine that one test cut was going to do any actual harm to the chocolately goodness in front of me.  Much to my amazement - the damn plastic knife cut those brownies better than anything I have ever tried before.  I was laughing to myself as I'm sawing away on the half sheet pan feeling like a five year old who isn't allowed to use real cutlery yet.

98 brownies later and I am a reborn brownie maker.

Sweets!
Melissa