Keeping It Simple: Girls' Night In

Last night, five friends came over and we baked brownies together. My "menfolk" decided to make  themselves scarce: Greg took himself out to dinner, Gabe ordered Chinese and ate it in his room and Lucas fell asleep in his room (though he did come downstairs to lick the big mixing bowl first). While I had hoped to save my family's batch for an upcoming Jazz Coffeehouse at Lucas' school, this is the sight that greeted me when I finally woke up today.

We used a recipe called "Knock You Naked Brownies" from Pioneer Woman. Her website is my go-to place for recipes of pure indulgence. This one includes pecans, melted caramel and chocolate chips.

 

 

 

(Melting the caramels took patience and was a group effort. Many of us are accustomed to microwaving store-prepared caramel)

I almost canceled the evening because my allergies have been so bad and I had had a long work week. I was so tired before the gathering. Then again, all my friends also have busy weeks working outside their homes and raising children. I am so glad I went ahead. While prepping for the party, I was standing at the sink and looked down. I realized I was rinsing a slice of pizza. True story.

This post was inspired by a link-up called Simple Saturday, where we are supposed to offer pictures of how simple our lives are. Yeah, rinsing a slice of 'za is probably the simplest thing I did all week, but I didn't photograph that.