Tuesday, March 11, 2008

I Have a Question...

...for my multitude of readers! (haha) Do you have problems uploading photos with Blogger? Because I do. And it is really, I mean REALLY frustrating. I would probably have had a post up here every single day since I started blogging, except that I don't have time to deal with uploading photos! When I do upload them, it's from my computer. I notice a lot of you have a Flickr account. Does it work better to upload the photos from Flickr? I don't have an account, but I could create one. I do, however, have a Photobucket account. Does it work to upload photos from there? Do any of you do that? Any ideas, suggestions, or just plain old commiseration would be appreciated!

The other day when I was uploading photos, I crocheted while I was at the computer. I thought 'well, it may take forever to get these photos up, but at least I'm being productive!' I got all the way around the four sides of the blanket back to where I had started before I realized I had somehow managed to crochet backwards. (Does that make any sense?) Without realizing it, I had twisted my yarn and crocheted in the opposite direction that I'd been working in all along. So, not only did it take forever to upload the photos, but I had to pull out all the work I'd just done. Here's the pile I had left for all my hard work:

Bleh. Ok, you sat through my rant. You deserve a treat. Brownies, anyone? I made some Saturday to take to our friends' house, where we went for dinner.


I realize it may seem obsessive to give you another recipe from Nigella Lawson two posts in a row. Especially from exactly the same cookbook.

But what can I say? I am obsessed with this cookbook! I love it.

Yet again, a ridiculously simple recipe, you're practically guaranteed to have all the ingredients in your house without making a special trip to the store, and you end up with gooey, chocolatey goodness. Can't really complain about that.



The pan, all ready to go in the oven.

And I'd show you a picture of the final product, but unfortunately, this is all that's left:

Flourless Chocolate Brownies

8 oz semisweet chocolate
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups ground almonds
1 cup chopped walnuts [I left these out, cause I'm not a huge fan of nuts in my brownies. DON'T leave out the almonds, though! They sorta take the place of the flour.]

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Melt the chocolate and butter gently over low heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.

2. Add the sugar and vanilla to the pan off the heat, and let it cool a little.

3. Beat the eggs into the pan with the ground almonds and walnut pieces. Turn into a 9-inch square pan or, most sensibly, use a foil one. [Or, most sensibly in my case, an 8-inch pan, since that was all I had. If you do that, you'll just need to cook them slightly longer.]

4. Bake for 25-30 minutes, by which time the top will have set but the mixture will still be gooey. Once cooler, cut carefully, four down, four across, into 16 squidgy-bellied squares. [Ooh, I think 'squidgy-bellied squares' is only the best brownie description I have ever heard!]

12 comments:

  1. I don't have trouble uploading photos with blogger - it takes a minute but nothing like what you're describing! I do have a flickr account & I have tried to load them there first & then use that URL to insert into my post but I can't get it to work. I think I would prefer that method but I haven't had time to figure out what I'm doing wrong! Sorry I'm not very helpful!

    Your food photos made me hungry & the egg one was so springy with the green & yellow!

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  2. No, that's very helpful! It lets me know it's not just something inherent to blogger. Maybe it's something with my computer... I'll have to look into it...

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  3. I go up load my pictures to flickr then go to all sizes decide on the size I want and then copy the HTML code not the url into my post when the post is on edit HTML then I go back to compose to type all my unwitty comments. I hope that helps. It goes really fast.

    Those brownies look great. What cookbook is it from?

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  4. Hi - I upload photos every day to Blogger straight from my computer. I notice that you use the large size - it may be that the pixel count on the originals is so high that it uses a lot of memory. However, I have noticed that it has been slower for the past three or four days so you may just have hit a bad patch. A picture with a lot of detail may need to be loaded by itself rather than in a batch of five which is the maximum that you can do at one time.

    Good luck with the blog - I look forward to reading it!

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  5. I have to say, I read Nigella's books just for the luscious descriptions and mouthwatering photography. I occasionally attempt to make something and I do love the way she 'allows' you to substitute if you don't have an ingredient to hand, because let's face it, have you seen her pantry? It's almost as big as my house! We mere mortals couldn't hope to compete. She is fab tho, and I'm really enjoying your blog. xx

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  6. Hello, I think the problem you might be experiencing with pics is because blogger had a problem. I looked up some help pages and it said to clear you're "cookies", which I did, then uploading service returned to normal! Happy blogging!

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  7. fantastic looking brownies, and flourless is perfect for me!
    I couldn't upload photos at all one day this week, it just wouldn't do it no matter how many times I tried, next day it was fine.....
    usually I wander off and make a cup of tea while I'm waiting so no idea how long it takes.....

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  8. Hi - I do find that Blogger seems to be quite temperamental about uploading photos. I usually just have to find which way it likes to do them on any one day!
    I also found that making them smaller in size on my camera to start with helps.

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  9. Hi, love the name of your Blog. I haven't got Flickr but still sometimes have a few problems but nothing like you experienced. Lovely wool, yummy looking ice cream too
    Lisa x

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  10. I too have photo uploading problems from time to time. I think I try to do too many in one - to attempt to lessen the pain but it never works! Singles seem to work best.I find I have to go back and fix all the spacings on my writing after uplaoding pictures which is soo annoying! Great blog and love the wool you are using. Am still trying to teach myself crochet tho!

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  11. Thank you for the helpful tips! It sounds as though Blogger hasn't been so great recently, so let's hope I was just trying at a bad time and it gets better! However, I'm still planning on trying some of your suggestions.
    I've been doing them one at a time, but I do think the pictures are big, so I may have to do something about that. I'll try the 'cookies' thing, too. And if Blogger doesn't like photos straight from my computer, I'll look into Flickr, which might be fun to have, anyway.

    Rebekah - the book is 'Nigella Express' by Nigella Lawson. Fabulous book, I definitely recommend it. I can't stop raving about it to anyone who will listen. :)

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  12. Hi there, The slownest of the photos uploading hasn't got something to do with your internet plan has it? I just know that my kids used up most of my GB allowance, playing games, for a particular month and it took a long time to upload my photos as my speed had slowed right down. On a normal day it is fine - so I've upped my plan. I'm also making the assumption that you are on broadband as dial up would be real slow I would think. Hope that might help!

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Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by my blog and to let me know what you think. I love hearing from you!