Home made always tastes better!

I was so very tempted to run to the store and buy convenience food today. Thankfully I overcame that temptation and cooked since I'm really watching our budget! Breakfast was chocolate chip pancakes for the girls and blueberry pancakes for Ron and I (the girls don't care for blueberries). Lunch was a hodge podge of leftovers and sandwiches with chips. Dinner was rather good, imo :) We had home made pizza with apples on the side. I make my pizza crust in my breadmaker:

1 cup water
2 Tbs. Olive oil
1 tsp. salt
3 cups flour (or bread flour)
2 Tbs. sugar
2 tsp. bread machine yeast (or active dry yeast)

I also throw in some garlic powder and oregano and sometimes parmesan cheese and put it on the dough cycle. So very yummy!

I also use a home made pizza sauce inspired by Kelly's recipe at Shoestring Budgeting:
1 sm. can tomato sauce
Worcesteshire sauce
Parmesan Cheese
Sugar (I use brown sugar)
Garlic powder
oregano
I do this to taste so I don't have exact measurements anymore.

Put it all together and bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until the top just begins to brown. We all love pizza!

Finally, since my oven was hot I made Apple Butter bars for lunches and snacks this week.
1 1/2 C All-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 C uncooked quick-cooking oats
1 1/2 C sugar1 C melted butter
1 1/2 C Apple Butter
1. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in butter.
2. Press 1/2 of mixture into a greased 9x13 inch pan; top with apple butter.
3. Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture and press gently with the back of a spoon.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes or until lightly browned.
5. Cool and cut into bars. Makes 3 dozen.

And we even put away all the Christmas decorations today! The best part is that we were so busy today that we were not tempted to go anywhere and spend money :)