Has it been three years already?

I can't believe it... this is the third anniversary of us journaling our culinary adventures - crazy I tell you! I never would have thought we would still be doing this when we started three July's ago!

We did have a couple breaks caused from moving or vacations, but we've pretty much posted daily over these past years. Remember we started this way back west out in the desert heat of Phoenix, made a tremendous move to a farm-like area in Maryland and have now settled back in the suburbs of Minneapolis. How long will we be here? Time will tell, but so far it looks like we are planting our roots for the time being.

Besides starting the blog back in Phoenix, that location was also the jumping off point of the Weekly Wednesday Treat Day! Being able to share our creations with Jeff's co-workers brings such joy and satisfaction, along with giving me a reason to try out new recipes! Speaking of, I went through and made a rough tally of our insane list of recipes - we have prepared, eaten and posted over 1,340! It is hard to believe that just a few years ago we survived on pizza, chicken fingers, fries and cereal since we didn't know any better! The question now becomes, do we continue our journey here? Are you still interested in our daily eats and what works for us?

In honor of this anniversary, Jeff and I have decided to hold our first ever giveaway! Here is your chance at a free copy of Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill cookbook. Just leave us a comment (with someway to contact you if you don't have it in your profile) to have your name thrown into the Dutch oven we'll draw the names from. Please, only enter once and we'll take names until Wednesday, 07/09/08.

I went back and fourth, trying to figure out what we could make to celebrate this occasion and settled on these stunning Espresso Cheesecake Brownies from one of our go-to cookbook authors, Dorie Greenspan.

I decided on this recipe mainly because Jeff has an insatiable craving for coffee-flavored treats and I kind of have an affinity for them too. With three distinct layers, the bottom of these bars is a thin fudgy brownie, followed by a luscious espresso-laced cream cheese layer and topped off with a rich blanket of sweetened sour cream. Those spots in the middle layer? Those are dollops of the same brownie batter that makes up the bottom layer - we just swirled it into the cheesecake layer before baking.

When you go to swirl those two concoctions together, don't try to make a pretty design, just quickly go through it a couple times with a butter knife. Also, take care not to go too far down so you don't interrupt the brownie slab on the bottom. Doneness can always be a little hard to tell with cheesecakes - the top of these bars should be puffy, lightly golden around the edges with the center being a touch beige. Before you add that final, delectable sour cream topping, the brownies will have needed to cool down completely and gone for a stint in the refrigerator to chill out. They will also need to chill again once that topping is on to set. All that time is worth it as you'll be rewarded with one tidy bang up treat that Jeff and I indulged in way too much of this afternoon! I'll even share my piece, can I tempt you with a bite?

Recipes
Espresso Cheesecake Brownies