Domestic Diva that I've become...

So part of living more green is learning to prepare my OWN dishes and being more like Martha Stewart then I want to be.

So lately I've been making a lot of my own things so I don't have to buy pre-packaged items. Well, I haven't been buying individually wrapped items for a long time now, but that doesn't mean we don't miss some of those things like in our lunches.

Pizza is big around our house and although I've always known that its cheaper and healthier to make your own pizza vs. store bought or delivery--I've just been lazy. Finally I broke down and decided I was going to do it. I knew it wasn't hard to make pizza dough and with my handy dandy bread machine I got from Freecycle ( i know one day someone is going to call me out on how I use electricity to run that bread machine!) I can prepare the dough a lot faster. After browsing thru the Internet and finding an easy dough recipe ( it was called Basic pizza dough--doesn't' get easier then that!) I made it one night.

Noah said it was sooo good and coming from my picky 10 yr old that spoke volumes. It wasn't exactly the prettiest pizza, but it tasted like yummy yeasty dough and was thick and soft! The best comment I got about my pizza was hubby had gone to The Rock Pizza for lunch and he said, "I don't know, but your pizza was way better then their pizza." WELL as you can imagine my head swelled up about 3x its size. Here's a really lame picture of my pizza. One is just pepperoni and the other is feta and basil.

So we'll be making our own pizza from now on since its super easy and cheap. I estimate that I only spent maybe $5 to make both pizza's. Of course the feta was a little $$ so that isn't figuring in that cost. Either way its cheaper and better for you.

Click here for the recipe for Basic Pizza Dough. You can make this either in a bread machine or not. Recipe has both.

Aside from Pizza dough I also make my own homemade granola bars. Hubby and Noah miss these the most from their lunches so I started making them with basically whatever I had in the house. In other words, I cannot duplicate the recipe because I've made it different so many times! But I found a recipe similar to what I usually use as a base in my bars here on Recipe Zaar.

When I'm pressing the bars into my pan I use the plastic that is typically used to line cereal boxes or crackers. Its like wax paper so not only do I re-use something that would have gone in the trash I'm saving money on not having to buy wax paper all the time!!

I'm such a nerd that I've become incredibly excited about being able to duplicate a recipe to our own liking. Its empowering!! ( Jeneflower I'll be probably preparing your Alfredo recipe soon btw!!) I'm not a good cook and never have been, but just knowing that if I keep trying and keep making things I'll get better at it. The best part is the Internet has enough recipes to rival the Food Network! And the Food Network has their own recipes too!! But I prefer recipes that a normal home cook prepares. It seems more real that way!

I hope you try your own recipes at home too! What are some of your favorite homemade recipes that your family enjoys?? Feel free to share them with me!