Fat Free Brownies

It has been an interesting couple of weeks.  I started my new job working part-time for my brother’s financial planning practice.  I will be conducting college planning workshops for him a couple of times per week.  Right now, the learning curve feels like it is going straight up and down!  He assures me that after I have a couple of the workshops under my belt, I’ll be fine.

But starting my job with him has put me behind schedule with getting my Teach Your Children to Sew curriculum program in place.  The more I work on this, more excited I get about it.  It also makes me antsy for the sewing classes I want to take at the local community college.  Because I’m a new admit to the college, I don’t get to register for the fall classes until late July!  *argh*

Anyway, I’m trying to balance these responsibilities with my homemaking responsibilities.  My poor husband didn’t get dinner until 8:30 the other night because I didn’t plan things out very well.

I’ve tried out two recipes in the past week that turned out well enough to share them with you.  I’ll share the brownies recipe find today and the lasagna recipe with you tomorrow.  The first one–No Pudge Brownie Clone–came about because my favorite fat free 2-point brownies mix–No Pudge Fudge Brownies–are now almost $6 a box in my local grocery stores.  I discovered the recipe when I decided to see if I could order the mix online for cheaper than buying them locally.  Well….the cloned version is pretty darn close, so I’ll be using that in the future (or until the price comes down again).  Click here for recipe.

Now, I admit, that I was lazy and didn’t bring the recipe I had printed out with me into my home office.  I thought I’d easily find it again by doing a search.  Wrong.  But I found something that intrigued me.  On several popular weight loss forums, many people put up “recipes” for fat free fudge brownies.  Do you know what the recipes consisted of?  Instructions to buy the box of No Pudge Fudge brownie mix and add fat-free vanilla yogurt.  What has this world come to that we think that a recipe is simply telling people to buy a mix. *sigh*

In trying to balance all of responsibilities, I can see how it would seem to be easier to just grab packaged food from the grocery shelf.  However, because I am a modern retro woman, I have returned to the habit of  cooking with an eye toward the freezer instead of sticking the leftovers in the refrigerator.  My freezer is rapidly filling up with “planned over” entrees that I know I’ll be able to reheat and enjoy.  I started this practice when I was a professor and it served me well then and will serve me well again.

My Honey has drawing studio tonight so I better get started on our early dinner: Garden Pita Pizza (I forgot to make the dough this morning…thank goodness he also likes the pita version!).  I’ll share the recipe that is the inspiration for our pizzas later this week.