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!

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 .

I don't know what kind of cocoa you used but unless it's Dutch process, it will have a bit of a bitter taste.....due to the alkalai used in the processing. You can't successfully substitite cocoa powder for semi sweet chocolate.....you are also forgetting that semi sweet chocolate contains some sugar....as well as the cocoa butter removed to make the powder. Here's a recipe using just cocoa powder......it's simple enough, but not outrageously chocolate as Martha Stewart's. But if you try to sub milk for the yogurt or oil for the butter, they won't turn out.....they need the acid of the yogurt, brown sugar and the cocoa to make them light. COCOA FUDGE COOKIES 1 cup flour ¼ tsp baking soda 1/8 tsp salt 5 Tbsp butter 7 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa 2/3 cup sugar 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt 1 tsp vanilla extract Cooking spray 1. Preheat oven to 350° 2. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour, soda and salt; set aside. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat; stir in cocoa powder and sugars (mixture will resemble coarse sand). Add yogurt and vanilla, stirring to combine Add flour mixture, stirring until moist. Drop by level tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. 3. Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes or until almost set. Cool on pans 2-3 minutes or until firm. Remove cookies from pans; cool on wire racks. Yield: 2 dozen cookies.