hungry for chocolate, quick, easy brownies

This recipe comes from my favorite chocolate cookbook, "Hershey's Chocolate Treasury", which was given to me years ago for Christmas.  It's stained, with spattered chocolate, has post-it notes marking the "Cocoa Bundt Cake", "Chocolate Satin Glaze", "Peanut Butter Paisley Brownies", and a pink plastic paperclip on the corner of the "Best Brownies" page.  I've tried to make it healthy, less fat and sugar, but lets face it - those aren't real brownies.  So here is the unadulterated, perfect, original version I return to again and again - especially when I just have to have chocolate now - which is often, when the M&M Mars factory 3 blocks away has the whole town smelling of fresh chocolate!  

Beat together by hand in a medium sized bowl:

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup white sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

Add and beat by hand until dry ingredients are all wet:

1/2 cup white flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Pour into a greased 8 x 8" baking pan, and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.  Ooey and gooey when they first come out, they firm up as they cool.  Some people like to add nuts, but no one around here likes their brownies crunchy, so I never do.

Speaking of chocolate, Frank Mars himself was in the gallery today with his wife, making a quick trip thru the gallery looking for just the right, local, landscape painting.  He likes the detail of some, but they tend to have too much snow and "feel lonely."  "When will he do spring and flowers?" he asked me today.  I wouldn't hold my breath on that one, but I enjoy his visits!