Blondies--when you're in the mood for ooey, gooey but not necessarily lots of chocolate

I have to tell you, Blondies have always intrigued me. The first time I heard of them was when we were at Josh and Emily's house one evening. I don't remember what we were doing, but Emily was making some Blondies. Jeremy loved them and so I decided I would try my hand at them. My first couple of tries proved semi-successful. Jeremy liked them, but I wasn't 100% sold. Well, I decided I would re-vamp the recipe a bit today and guess what...they turned out AWESOME! The main thing I changed was the amount of cooking time--I cooked them less and they taste SO much better--but there are still a few "crunchyish" ones for Jeremy--hehe. I also used a combination of peanut butter chips and chocolate chips and it was insanely yummy. Good thing I'm taking them to Grandma's tonight for everyone else to eat or it wouldn't just be the baby adding extra pounds to my expanding body!!!

These are really so yummy that they could easily jump into one of my new-found favorite treats :) The recipe I use comes the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and it makes a pan of Blondies. And FYI: Blondies were "invented" in the South due to a preference for brown sugar over granulated sugar. They are SO YUMMY!

Ingredients:
2 c. packed brown sugar
2/3 c. butter
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda (I was out of this today and just added a bit extra baking powder and they still turned out great)
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. peanut butter chips (this is optional and you can add as many or as few of these as you want)

Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 13X9 baking pan. Set it aside and heat in a saucepan (medium heat) the butter and brown sugar until it's all incorporated and smooth (you have to stir constantly for it to reach this point but it doesn't take long). Remove from heat and let cool for a minute. Stir in the eggs one at a time--right there in the saucepan! Then stir in the vanilla, flour, baking powder and soda. Once it's all incorporated pour into the greased pan and sprinkle the chocolate chips and peanut butter chips all over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. This part is KEY--you want to take them out much closer to 25 minutes than 30. I would check them at 24 minutes and maybe even take them out. It really makes a huge difference. The edges will be crispy, but in a good way and the middles will be perfect. Who knows, it could just be my oven, but you definitely don't want to overcook them.

Cut them into bars after they've cooled a bit and serve. They are delicious and oh so easy to make! Yum, yum!