Alternate title: Chocolate Toffee Squares To Die For
Base:
2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into pieces
1 cup whole pecans, toasted
Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup butter
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Grease and flour a 9 x 13 baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare base. Mix flour, sugar and butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. It will be scarily dry. Press crumbs into prepared pan. Sprinkle pecans evenly over top.
Prepare topping: cook butter and sugar in a small saucepan, stirring constantly until mixture begins to boil. Boil for one minute. Pour over pecans.
Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes. Topping will be bubbly. Remove from oven and sprinkle immediately with chocolate chips. Let stant 3 – 5 minutes. Spray small spatula with cooking spray and carefully spread melted chocolate chips to cover. Let cool. Pop into the fridge to set chocolate.
One of Emma’s classmates passed away this morning. Emma was particulary close to her, and often helped her on the days when she was well enough to visit the classroom.
The girl was very ill. The entire school made paper cranes in her honour just about a month or two ago. She had her own set for her hospital room. The remainder were collected to make a mobile. They were arranged in huge circles and hung up in the school. They move almost imperceptively when children pass beneath them. Looking up, the effect is rather wonderous. Those paper cranes, all different shapes, sizes, colours, each folded with care and love, look like they’re about to rain down on you. But they just hover.
I’m thinking about our little friend today. And I hope that her spirit is in a better place.
As I was just telling BeachMama in the comments of the previous post, Ottawa is a wonderful kid-friendly place to be. Lucky for us huh? There is stuff to do all year round. Outdoor adventures are my favourite kind. On Sunday we hiked along one of the lesser-used Stony Swamp trails and fed the birds.
I know, I know. I write about this all the time. I can’t help myself. It’s just.so.fun.
A few highlights from Sunday:
– mystery poop! What kid (and, um, adult?) isn’t intrigued by mystery poop? This is all part of our larger goal to educate our kids about wildlife… identifying footprints, looking out for nibbled branches etc. Finding poop, well, that’s just plain excrement excitement. You may dare to look at the photo. If you know what animal left it there, do do let us know. *snicker*
– an unexpected resident. Sarah thought he might have walked there all by himself.
– the birds are brave little dudes.
You can view the rest of the pics in slideshow format here.
