Bon Appetit.

I love to cook. I love to try new things out. I think it is fun.

Tonight I decided to make a pizza from scratch - not any pizza, but a stuffed crust pizza. I have used this recipe once before and the result was... okay - but tonight it tasted AMAZING! I think Andrew & my mom both liked it! Andrew even said it probably was the best homemade pizza he had ever had - were they just being nice to me? Who knows. I thought it tasted pretty good though...

a) crust all rolled out and stuffed with cheese. This is after I had cooked it some & if you look closely you can see the cheese from the crust melting out.

b) pizza ready to go in the oven - I buttered the crust & sprinkled it with garlic salt and mozzarella cheese.

c) pizza cooked & cut. You can see where the cheese is in the crust... mmm so good.

d) gone. My mom, Andrew & myself were able to finish the pizza ourselves. It was pretty good if I must say so myself.

Cameras and things...

It has been rough lately. I've been having some tough times. I'm actually going to write tonight - I'm thinking maybe that is one of my problems. I've always thought of myself as an "open" person but... I think I am open to an extent. I have been going through a lot it feels like these past few weeks and have had to try and really figure myself out - which sounds like it should be easy... but not for me. I've had to make some tough (I'm using this word a lot) decisions and have dealt with doubting whether or not I have made the correct one. I'm very grateful for the people in my life though - ALL the people - and the support that they give me.

Last night I was able to stay at my sister's house so that I could be there bright and early this morning to babysit. I LOVE my nephews. My 3-year old nephew telling you that he loves you is one thing that always makes me feel better, no matter the circumstances. I was excited to see them because they were excited that I was staying the night. We had fun watching movies... playing.. building a fort.. and yes making sugar cookies. I know it probably seems like I am obsessed with sugar cookies lately (which is odd because they really are not my favorite cookie AT ALL) but I thought the color dough could be really fun for little kids. Have plain shaped

cookies all ready to put in the oven and have colored shapes for the kids to put on top - genius right? What we did today - we made dinosaur cookies with polka dots! They had a lot of fun decorating the dinosaurs with blue and green polka dots, they looked cute too... but I was not

impressed with the recipe I chose though. Even though they looked cute - I warned my sister and brother in law NOT to eat them. They were not too tasty, even though the dough prior to baking tasted fine.

They cheered me up... even if K soaked me with spit up ALL day today.

Cookies prior to decorating and baking..

Polka dotted dinosaur sugar cookies. (Amazing placement of the polka dots huh?)

I am also getting excited for my future.... well soon to be new camera. KaMaili, I guess you are right... I deal with stress by spending money. I have been long waiting a camera like this though. The Nikon D5000 has my eye and I am planning to order it - either tonight or tomorrow. Isn't it pretty? I can't wait to get it and spend much time playing with it. The first place I want to go and try it out once I have it... is the Mesa Arizona Temple. I can't get enough of the Temple lately and it is one of my favorite places to photograph so it is perfect. I'll have to figure out what I am doing with the camera first but.. thats the plan.

Cookie cookie cookie

After trying out dying sugar cookie dough, I had to try it again with this cookie cutter set I found at Hobby Lobby. I think the cookies turned out cute and they are delicious. The end product looks better in person than in the picture but you get the idea!!

Tie Dye Sugar Cookies-

The primary class I teach always asks if I brought treats for them.. after many lessons treat free - I asked them what they would like. They decided on cookies and gave a list of different kinds they liked. I finally broke down and made them cookies. I was going to make them sugar cookies AND chocolate chip cookies but ended up only making the sugar cookies that week. As I was looking over the recipe - I noticed that there were different variations of ways you could make fun cookies, like stained glass cookies or colorful pinwheel cookies. I had the brilliant idea of making tie dye sugar cookies! I think they turned out successful - and they were delicious. Just as a side note, if you do choose to dye the dough and try mixing the colors - try to roll it out as few times as possible because after mixing the colors multiple times the colors start to mix together a little to well and aren't as pretty. The food coloring worked GREAT with the sugar cookie dough though... I'm interested in trying solid colored cookies in fun shapes!

& because I am such a dork.. I had to make the following cookies with my left over dough. As you can see these cookies were well cooked but you can tell how much the colors of the different doughs mixed together after being rolled out multiple different times.

Delicious.

I definitely think everyone needs to try this mix... it is so good and very easy! It is Krusteaz Almond Poppyseed mix. This is one of my favorite breads &/or muffins and all you have to do is add a cup of water and an egg. Its that easy. Anyways - I have nothing else to blog because my life is not TOO exciting so I thought I would share that.

best brownies ever..

if you ever want to make brownies even better (i know.. is that even possible?)... here is a way i think you can do it... add your favorite chocolate candy!!!

so we have tried this with a few different things...

symphony bars..

reese's (didn't turn out so great :/)

other different chocolates & finally tried it with hershey's cookies & creme

& with york peppermint patties...

both of tonights experiments (the hershey's cookies & creme and the york peppermint patties) seemed to be a success!!!!

so what you do... mix your brownie batter as usual... spread a THIN layer on the bottom of your glass pan... grab your chocolate of choice (don't be afraid to try something new... you'll only learn what not to try next time) and make a layer with the add in..

spread the rest of the brownie batter over this...

bake.. and TA DAAAA delicious brownies...

just thought I would share this.. if you try anything out and find something good-let me know! I would love to hear what other people are trying :)