Chili, Cornbread and No Bakes

In the past 2 hours I have spent my time making chili and no bakes, but also cleaning up the house and doing a little bit of laundry. No, not everything is cleaned up and finished, but it is a start.

My chili is really basic. A large bottle/can of tomato juice, 1-2 pounds of hamburger, a can of kidney beans and also a packet of Chili-O. What I also like to add to the chili is a can of finely diced tomatos, and a can of whole sweet corn. Right now I have my corn bread mixed and on a greased pan (recipe provided by Quaker on the back of the cornmeal container). I'm just waiting until dinner time to bake it for the 20 to 25 minutes.

My biggest success today was my no baked cookies. I found a recipe on my favorite cooking site (http://www.grouprecipes.com/) and I followed the directions. Even after 2 days of being set out, the cookies never hardened and had to be eaten with a spoon. The mix was good, but the mix was gooey and not as satisfying as a cookie would have been. After asking my mom about it, she recommended cooking the sugar, milk and butter for 1 minute, take off heat and mix in the vanilla, oats, peanut butter and cocoa, then place a spoonful onto the wax paper. I didn't have wax paper last time so I used tin foil. The more I think about it, I do believe that the tin foil held the heat into the cookies too long, but I do not think that is the extent of my issues...

I boiled the mixture on medium heat and stirred is very often. It took me about 10 minutes to bring it to a boil. My mother told me instead of letting it boil for a moment, boil it longer. I counted to 100 once I noticed it boil and stirred it every so often. I pulled it off the heat and added the vanilla, then the oats, the cocoa and then the peanut butter, in the order that it was least likely to stick to the measuring spoon (I only had one 1/2 cup spoon on hand. Even as I was mixing it all together well I noticed that the mixture was hardening as I was mixing it well. I went and bought wax paper and used a spoon to make my cookies. Within 10 minutes after they were on the wax paper I could almost pull the cookies right off the wax paper. I gave them an hour before I pulled them off, and placed them onto a plate to set up the table for dinner and dessert.

I have become quite a cooking addict. Jay is at work currently, and I am watching "The Secret to My Success" until he comes home. My next experiment is tuna steaks tomorrow evening. I will update with the recipe we decide on one (there are so many out there on the internet to choose from).