In defense of the Army, and based on my own experience making up my college syllabus every year, I would say a lot of that verbiage is due to the atmosphere in our society today, a resistence towards accountability, i.e., "I didn't know that the flour wasn't supposed to have cockroaches in it, that wasn't in the manual." I imagine that the original recipe was about 5 pages long and each end every extra comment got added as time went on and somebody screwed up. Every year my syllabus gets longer and longer, as I have to cover every possible scenario so a student can't say, "That wasn't covered by the syllabus." For example, I have to specifically state that there is to be no cheating in class, (as if that wasn't a given) and then I have to go into great detail to describe specifically what constitutes cheating and what the consequences will be in each case. I not only put due dates for all my assignments but I break them up into "milestones" and tell my students, "At this point you should have your paper half done" etc. Also, since people only read about 25% of the instructions anyway, I'll bet that accounts for a lot of the repitition. Also, I'll bet the reason this absurdly detailed recipe was allowed to flourish is that the military has other better things to do with its time than go through the process of editing the brownie recipe! I'll bet the instructions for assembling a rifle are a lot more suscinct!

Manly Meatballs I love the name of this recipe! I found it at The Food Maven website and it reminded me of something my mom used to make years ago (she spread ground round on firm white bread and put it in the broiler--I was crazy about these flat burgers). This was written by Arthur Schwartz: Alan Richman's Manly Meatballs Makes about 36 Alan Richman is the esteemed and always witty food writer for Gentleman's Quarterly magazine, but I take the blame for calling these his "manly" meatballs. He made them for a birthday party of our mutual friend Alexis Bespaloff, the well-known wine writer. As he was passing them on a platter, taking full responsibility for their simplicity and strong flavor, he explained that he made them because when he heard the menu planned by Alex's wife he felt there might be too much "sissy food" -- you know, pasta and salads. They are not, of course, anything like any recipe you've ever seen for Swedish meatballs, but to my mind they make an even better stand-in. Baking them on bread slices -- which, by the way, do not burn or get too hard, even though it seems as if they would -- makes them perfect finger food. 1 pound ground chuck (not leaner beef) 3 scallions, finely minced (use most of the green) 4 tablespoons dark soy sauce (or regular soy sauce, if that's all you have) 1 firmly packed teaspoon brown sugar (a rounded teaspoon, if using regular soy sauce) 1 baguette or ficelle (a small diameter French bread), about 20 inches long, sliced about 1/2-inch thick (if the bread has a large diameter, cut the slices in half, just a bit bigger than the meatballs) In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients, except bread. With your hands, mix and knead thoroughly until the meat is a fine paste. Make balls the size of smallish walnuts. Place baguette slices on a baking sheet and place one meatball on each. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes in a preheated 450-degree oven until done to taste (Richman says "until just cooked through." I like them still rare.). Serve hot. source: www.thefoodmaven.com

I am like OldFixer - I have recipes on index cards, printed off from my printer, in folders, binders, etc.! I am so thankful for Pinterest now and have recipes saved on that board in categories. But many years ago before Pinterest I decided that it was too time consuming to type out all my recipes to do an on-line cookbook, so I just sorted the newspaper clipping, written recipes, etc. by category and put them in a large 10 x 13-inch and just wrote the category on the envelope - they are stored in a file cabinet. So if I want a particular "zucchini" recipe, I only have to search that envelope. Appetizers, salads, crock pot, meat dishes, rhubarb recipes, vegetables, etc. But if I am having a holiday dinner such as Thanksgiving, I started a 3-ring binder and put all the recipes I have ever used for that holiday dinner whether it be appetizers, the turkey, side dishes and desserts, and then add a page with the year and menu we had. I use page protectors in that binder and refer to it every year.

Thanks Woodie2 :) Im all the way almost to high bridge road just off of A1A so we really are close . Drop me a line next time you are here if you want to talk food and gardens :) Mitchdesi its interesting that you discovered that possibilty so quickly .You see the voting has been ongoing since the first and it was not untill someone on another forum alerted me that I was aware of the voting flaw .I immediatly sent an email to the folks at mambolicious letting them know that there is a flaw in the voting . I hope that they can log IPs and ensure a fair vote . You are attempting to be accusatory to the wrong party .