Brownies

Ingredients (in order of appearance):
Butter (1 stick)
Cocoa (4 tbsp)
Salt (1 tsp)
Smooth peanut butter
Sugar (2 cups)
Flour (1.5 cups)
Eggs (4)
Vanilla extract (2 tsp)

Other needed stuff:
Stove/oven (1)
Saucepan (just a big pot you can melt butter in
on the stove. It should be big enough to hold all the
ingredients, because it's a whole lot easier to mix
everything in the pot you melted the butter/cocoa/salt
in than trying to get all that out and into another
container to stir. Trust me.)
Fork (1)
Butter knife (1)
Spatula/pan scraping utensil (1)
Baking pan (9 x 12 or whatever the normal size is)

Step-by-step instructions

Before you forget, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Put your stick of butter in the saucepan. Add in the cocoa and salt. Now put it on the stove on low heat and melt it. Stir it with the fork. When it's all melted and you have a sort of brown goo, turn off the fire. Note: it looks and smells ok, but this stuff tastes like crap. Hold off a few minutes before you start licking your fingers.
Now this is the tricky part. Take your knife and get a lot of peanut butter on it. How much is a lot? Well, that's hard to say. Part of it is personal taste. It's not going to matter if you are off a little bit, so don't worry about getting too much. Just remember how much you put in so you can adjust for the next time.
Add sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla.
Now stir. It takes a while. You want to make sure you are getting the bottom of the pan where all the cocoa is, or you'll have bitter spots in your brownies. Just keep stirring until all the stuff is smooth and has the same consistency. It should be medium to dark brown.
Put all the stuff in the baking pan. You don't need to grease the pan first. They look thin. They're supposed to. Make sure you get it in all the corners.
Put it in the oven on the top rack for about 30 minutes. You can check to see if they're done starting in about 25 minutes. Check by pushing on the top gently with a clean finger. If it dents in, they're not done. If it springs back, turn off the oven and give them about 5 minutes.
While you're waiting for the brownies to bake, use the spatula to scrape and lick the pan. Wasting unprocessed brownie goop is not tolerated.
When the brownies are done, take them out and cut them with a wet knife. Let them cool 3-5 minutes before you eat them. These brownies are incredible hot, but they're still good cold later (if you have trouble eating a whole pan in an hour).
Come back to my page and sign my guestbook or e-mail me and tell me you tried my brownies. Let me know how they came out, give me your own and other people's reactions to them, tell me anything you try that works or doesn't, give me your recipes... anything. Just let me hear from you as payment for using my recipe.

Notes

Substituting stuff: you can substitute margarine for butter. Egg substitute is a little-tested realm. It has caused the unpleasant demise of one batch of brownies to date. If you try egg substitute and get it to work, please, e-mail me and tell me all about it. Crunchy peanut butter or any other attempt to add nuts to these brownies is a heretical endeavor at best, and I will not be responsible for the results.
This is a great recipe to make for other people. Especially if you're a guy. Girls will be impressed that you know how to bake brownies and, overcome with gratitude, will offer to let you cook for them on a regular basis.
If this recipe changes your life for the better, I want to hear about it. E-mail me with your heartwarming story. If, on the other hand, while reaching for the crunchy peanut butter to put in your heretofore unsullied brownies, you accidentally sneeze, causing hot brown goo to splatter all over the kitchen and you turn around to get paper towels to wipe it up, stepping on your cat Sterling who had been peacefully napping behind you, who yowls in pain and scratches your bare left foot, and leaning over to grab your foot you accidentally catch your shirt on fire because you forgot to turn off the fire under the butter after it was all melted like I told you to do, but you don't notice it because you're still worried about getting cat scratch fever, and while you're washing your foot and putting antiseptic on it you inadvertently set the curtains on fire, at which point you notice the fire and run back to get the fire extinguisher, but when you get to the kitchen you slip on the brown goo and fall and hit your head on the base of the refrigerator and knock yourself out momentarily, during which time the fire spreads throughout the rest of your house and the last thought that goes through your mind as Sterling slips safely out the doggy door is, "If only I had used creamy peanut butter," well, what can I say other than that you brought it on yourself. Heretic.