Cookin' my way to spring cleaning

It's safe to say that my cabin fever has subsided to spring fever.

Cabin fever meant (for me, anyway) sorting through and minimizing all material possessions in our home. And now that I have full blown, no-turning-back spring fever I don't have anything to minimize or sort through.

Or do I?

I'm going to say adios to winter by cleaning out my pantry. But none of the items in my pantry are expired or need to be tossed, so that means all the cookin' happening in this kitchen will revolve around using up every morsel of food before buying new. In efforts to be practical and self-sufficient, I will make conscious intentions every day to cook with what we have in our pantries.





Side note:
I think I inherited this wild notion from my father who, I can recall, once said, "What do you mean there's nothing to eat around here? I open up the cupboards and see food everywhere! That's it! We're going to eat the cupboards bare!"

Then I think he grabbed a spoon, dipped out a large scoop of peanut butter, popped it in his mouth and went out to do hog chores.

I digress.





So tonight I put on my cooking outfit and made some s'mores brownies.

Items from my pantry that waited several months before their big debut in this dish:

• Graham cracker crumbs (from the freezer - they've probably been there at least a year. Don't judge me.)
• Dutch cocoa (from Amish bulk store - I didn't really think through the feasibility of bulk Dutch cocoa.)
• Miniature marshmallows (they were so old they were crunchy.)

I have this ancient "cooking for two" cookbook which had a brownie recipe that I modified for this recipe. 

I melted all the goodies together (see recipe in photo above), and licked the spoon several times for quality control. 

Bake these brownies at 350 in a loaf pan that you've sprayed well.

Oh yeah, I'm also using up all of my cooking spray. I don't want to use that processed crap anymore. I have a Pampered Chef sprayer that turns extra virgin olive oil into cooking spray, so that's what I'll use after I use up all of my 'store-bought' cooking spray.

Bake the brownies for about 15 minutes, then layer on miniature marshmallows and graham cracker crumbs. Put under your broiler to melt the mallows and toast the graham crackers. 

And here ya are, folks! You can take your cooking outfit off now - - the hard part is over.