What's for Dinner?

Bear with me as I try and feel my way through this post. It's a little new for me to put my own photos on here, it seems a little more personal. Like I can talk about my house and what I do, but if I show you a picture it's like you're all really here.

Yesterday was not one of my finest. The little lady and I were in a funk. Usually we have a nice little jive goin' on, and yesterday it just wasn't happening. So those cookies? Yeah, didn't happen. Dinner? LN ate a banana and a cereal bar. It was the only thing that stopped the whining. That delicious sounding Cheese Bread? I didn't have bread, mayo or enough cheese. So I decided to bake a loaf a bread and make mayo. The mayo deserves a whole post in and of itself. So the Mr. put the lady down for bed and I got into the kitchen. First up, bread dough.

There's something that you all should know first. I'm a major stress baker. In college it would be 3am and I'm baking a cake because I have writers block and forty more pages to write by 9am. So last night I was at my breaking point, the Mr. came home at 7pm, LN was on my last nerve and I was just plain tired. So I just started baking. I was baking so hard that I forgot to take pictures. Well, until I started to make the chili.

I got to snap a few when I was prepping the chili for the crock pot. I put it on to cook this morning and I can smell the spicy goodness wafting through the house as I type. I love my crock pot so hard. We don't see enough of each other, sometimes I can't deal with all of the it's prep work. But when I do? It's pure bliss.

I'd give you the recipe for the chili, but it's my mom's and she guards it with her life. I can assure you it's easy and delicious. Even though she still makes it better.

These ginger cookies, though. Let me tell you. If you're not checking to make sure that you have the ingredients right now, by the time you're done looking at the pictures you will. The are divine and I'm still amazed that I haven't eaten them all up. I didn't get any pictures of the dough in progress, but don't they look cute on the pan?

Look at them all puffy and mountain like in the oven. These cookies are BIG. Can you tell? Only six fit on the sheet at a time. They're big like each one is a quarter cup of dough big. Next time I'll make them smaller, but only so I'll have more to eat.

So you didn't get to see the bread. I threw the ingredients into the food processor, mixed it up, let is rest, shaped it and baked it off. Not my best loaf, but as it is being turned into cheesy bread more than adequate. I'm totally planning on making the mayo again, super easy and quick. I'll write a whole post on it I think later.

So that's it. In four hours I can make a loaf of bread, homemade mayo, chili and ginger cookies. Not a bad haul I think! I'm thinking that I want to try this again, this whole make a meal with pictures thing. Maybe on a day when I'm not so frazzled and have less to do. Maybe I'll make it a feature, maybe it will become a thing.