If you're looking for some good recipes...look further

If you know me you know I love to cook. I enjoy chopping, dicing, sauteing, dredging...it's soothing to me, it's me showing my love to the fam. Before my house was a preschool, I loved to try 'fancy' recipes. I'd have 'theme' nights- those were my favorite. Mexican, Italian...so much fun. I don't really have that kind of time anymore, so I stick to pretty tried and true recipes, but this gets old after a while. I felt like I was in a rut...and along came Pinterest. Every recipe boasts "best ever" "never fail". I pinned tons of recipes and began to try them all... I haven't taken any pictures with my new birthday camera, but I'd like to share some my mistakes with you.. Fail 1. "Never Fail" Pizza Dough: Take One: Fail, not really sure what went wrong here (except that while the dough was kneading away in the mixer Avery needed help changing into her Tinkerbell costume and Will decided to nurse) , but my dough looked like a million little marbles. My sweet, glass-half-full sister said "Just make a bunch of really little pizzas" Take Two: No fail, super, best ever homemade Pizza Dough Highly recommend. You knead to follow instructions. Fail 2: Something called "Crack" Toffee: Take One: I under cooked the toffee and it turned our grainy Take Two: I over baked the "crack" (again, Will and his nursing...) gross. Again sweet glass-half-full sister "It's like brown butter toffee" You're a peach, Rachie, but I saw you spit it out. It's better in the long run anyway, I just got back into my pre-pre-pregnancy jeans. Fail 3: "Buffalo Chicken Casserole" This one was an epic fail, just eat Wing Stop. Anything that boasts a healthy alternative to buffalo wings doesn't deserve your time. It smelled and tasted like a trashcan. My mom happened to be so lucky as to be at my house for this one and she kept making suggestions on how it might be better. We agreed that the only way it might be better was if had gone directly to the trash can- the outside trash can. Fail 4: As Blake calls it "The S'more Incident of '11" Please refer back to previous blog entry "Never trust a broiler..." The picture says it all. It really had potential, I might give that one a second chance... I asked Blake if he could think of any and he immediately says "Every time you make brownies and Chinese food" He's right. When we moved to this house I swore off Chinese food altogether- we live walking distance from three oriental food establishments. Weight Watchers has no business telling me how to make a crab rangoon anyway... Funny Avery of the week: We were at my parents house, my mom had been telling me how she thinks there is a raccoon under her deck. Avery wasn't paying attention and walks off the edge of the deck and lands head first in the ferns around my mom's fountain. I retrieve her from ferngully, she brushes herself off, says "I was looking for your coon, Nana" and walks off.