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Peanut butter brownies I have been really down in the dumps recently. Not clinically, but I'm just SO BORE-DUH of everything. Especially my face - man alive! If I have to look at that stupid beaky ruddy beady gingerish freckled fat mish-mash of shapes once more I will scream.

It has been made worse by a girl I know having had a baby a few months ago and having a MARVELLOUS time with it. And she's not lying either. She really is just finding the whole thing okay. And she and her husband are terribly relaxed and on days off just wander into town and have lunch and the baby sleeps when it sleeps and not when it doesn't. My friend has not decided to confine herself to the house during naptimes and never finds herself sitting on the stairs outside the nursery picking her fingers, rocking to and fro hissing "go to fucking sleep go to fucking sleep", which is what I spent basically the first 10 months doing with Kitty.

And when her husband says "Shall we go out for brunch on Sunday", my friend doesn't scream, like I do, "Are you MAD?!! She will fall asleep in the CAR on the way BACK and then WAKE UP  when we get home and it will be a disaster!!!!!"

I had thought that my experience of new motherhood was quite normal, quite widespread, but now I feel like I have sort of deliberately backed myself into a hellish little corner of parenting philosophies and to-the-minute timings because, basically, I don't think I deserve to have a nice time.

So I went to the hairdresser and got all my hair cut off. And do you know what, it has made me feel much better.

I also thought I should make some karmic amends by being nice about a recipe for a change. The last time I was really mean about a recipe it was one out of Waitrose Food Illustrated and the editor, William Sitwell, told me at a party the other day that I'd upset everyone, (not him, he doesn't seem to give a fuck, because editors never do), and my name is now dirt in their office.

I was slightly outraged at this and called him all sorts of foul names.

(This might have been because I was sitting next to Sara Parker-Bowles and had gone a bit berserk with the effort of not grabbing her by the throat and screaming "What is the Duchess of Cambridge like?!?!?!!? What does she smell like?!?!?!?! PLEASE TELL HER THAT IF WE MET SHE'D REALLY LIKE ME!!!!!!"

Instead I had been pretending that I've got no idea about anything ("Queen who? Prince what?") because it's so, so rude otherwise, but the effort of appearing nonchalent drives you a bit demented after a while.)

Anyway where was I? Oh yes, karma, so I thought I would correct this imbalance by being terribly nice about a thing out of My Daddy Cooks. I was mean about Nick's microwave chocolate pudding the other day and he didn't say a word. Didn't complain, didn't object, nothing. I think that is immensely cool, so I must big up to you now his peanut butter brownies, which I made last night and are terrific.

Peanut Butter brownies from My Daddy Cooks

This is not the exact recipe because I don't like vanilla essence and I didn't have enough chocolate chips. Don't worry too much about the amount peanut butter. I didn't have quite enough of that either and it still worked.


200g brown sugar of any sort
6 tbs peanut butter
a few drops vanilla essence
100g-ish chocolate chips (Waitrose sell them)

1 Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the peanut butter and mix until smooth

2 Mix in the eggs, followed by the vanilla, flour and baking powder

3 Stir in the chocolate chips

4 Flop into a greased/lined tin (20x20cm if you can be arsed to measure) and bake for 40 mins. Maybe 30-35 if using a fan oven
Posted by EstherC at 14:18