Internet Cookbook

Every once in awhile I get a hankerin' to bake something.  Cookies are my love.  I like to make the traditional chocolate chip, but I like to branch out and make off the wall kinds of cookies too.
In the "olden days" I'd grab my cookbooks.  My two Country Inn & Bed and Breakfast Cookbooks being my favorite, and I'd go hunting for something new.
But, over the past few years I haven't reached for my cookbooks as much.  Unless I'm reaching for an old favorite, of course!! 
My new "cookbook" is the internet!  I could spend HOURS looking up recipes.  Some of my favorite spots are Recipe Zaar, Epicurious, and All Recipes.  I also love to look at foodie blogs.  It's too late and I have too many to link them all, but I do have a few in my sidebar!  What fun!
I can't say that I am a gourmet.  I will try new things, but I don't want to go buy a bunch of spices or whatnot that I will hardly or never use again.  But I love that so many recipe sites allow for reviews and suggestions.

Anyway, I got one of those hankerin's to bake some cookies and decided to look for some type of oatmeal chocolate chip.  I could not have been happier with my find from Cooking Light (which must be added to my list of favorite spots).  It was an Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookie.  I'll warn you now that if you do not like a crunchy cookie at all, you may not like this.  I, however, LOVE crunchy cookies!  They are soft in the middle though and for me, what makes this recipe is that you toast the pecans.  I have recently found a new love for toasted pecans.  It totally makes the cookie!  Why have I never had a recipe call for toasted pecans?!  I tell ya, I will not make a cookie again without toasting pecans first!  It's a must!!

 I'm pretty sure this is my new "go to" chocolate chip cookie!!  And only 85 calories a cookie.  Yes, only 85!  Yeah, only!  Ha!
Another new recipe I tried was for a broccoli cheese casserole.  I can't say that it was my favorite, but it was good.  You top the casserole with crushed up crackers and I didn't have my staple of the Czech version of a Ritz cracker, called Krit (they are oh so yummy!), so I improvised with Rainbow Goldfish.  I tell ya, you would have thought I'd given my kids a treat by topping it with Rainbow Goldfish!!

 In the end, they didn't really like it.  Oh well.  And if you are wondering.....no, I can't get Goldfish crackers here.  They came in the crate last year and are starting to taste old.  I'm trying to use them up!!  Ha!

In other news.  I recently got the kids some play dice and Brennan kept calling it his diarrhea.  I was laughing so hard while trying to correct him that I think he will now forever call dice his diarrhea!  Well, until he is old enough to not think it's funny!  Ha!