Getting Creative

I've been feeling "domesticated" lately! :) A couple days ago, in a single day!, I got clothes in the washer and dryer, put clothes away, played some games with my girls, cleaned up some areas of the house that have been driving me crazy, got my nephews to their afternoon class...But what I'm most excited about is that I tried out some new recipes!

I'm really starting to enjoy cooking and trying out new recipes and am even getting comfortable with taking a recipe and changing it up a bit. (I know, I know. This isn't a big deal for some people, but for me...) So, the afternoon started with plain old tomato soup. Ally wanted some so I fixed it, no frills, and was settling down to my bowl when I decided maybe I'd add a little mozzarella to it. "Hmmm", I thought, "what about some basil, too?" I sprinkled a bit on and it took boring tomato soup to YUM! Good flavor, which would have been great with a crispy piece of bread, but I had to settle for crackers instead. In any case, it was really good, taste-wise and budget-wise!

Then came the cookies. I had found a recipe for "Brownie Cookies" on allrecipes.com. I love both brownies and cookies and was super excited about these. It called for the dough

to be refrigerated overnight so I mixed it Sunday and planned on the girls helping me roll the dough balls in the morning, which

I ended up just doing myself because the dough ended up sooo sticky it just wasn't going to be worth the mess of them helping. (Yes, I'll admit that I'm not terribly patient all the time and just like to "get things done.")

So how are the cookies? I'm a little torn. They look great and they crackled nicely on top, which I was hoping they would do, and they taste great...My only issues with them are 1) how sticky the dough was, like I mentioned, but nothing I couldn't handle and 2) how light they are. Maybe "light" isn't the proper word...They just aren't dense like brownies would be. I guess I like the texture of a good, thick brownie. *shrugs* BUT we all like them and I give them 2 days before they're gone. :)

And now dinner. (Goodness, did I really make all this food today?!) I had planned on Green Pepper Casserole for that night when we had gone to the store over the weekend so I had the basic ingredients for a recipe, which I had found online as well. I had the green peppers, beef, rice, cheese and tomato sauce. The fun part about this was what I was able to mix in and make it taste quite good, if I say so myself. :) I added onions, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and worcestershire sauce to the beef after it was drained and instead of the cheddar cheese the recipe called for I sprinkled Parmesan on the top. Oh, and I used pasta sauce instead of tomato.

Not the most extravagant, I'm sure, but I'm so proud of myself. Everything turned out good and my girls liked it *all,* which is a bonus. They are not picky eaters in the least, but I typically have at least one that turns their nose up at something I've made. :)