Pinned and Tried

Ok, so I have been seriously slacking about posting what we have been doing with Pinterest. I have been cooking something that I have found on there almost daily, we have really been slacking with the crafting though. We haven't been home enough to do any crafting. But here are some things that we have tried...and our reviews.

Balsamic Glazed Pork (no photo of my own, sorry) : This was amazing! Kyley didn't eat it because she is not eating much meat and when she does she is only eating chicken or turkey. Those of us that ate it really liked it. I didn't tweak anything at all with this recipe. It was great as it stands.

Baked Gnocchi (again no photo...such the slacker) : This was an ok meal. It was very filling, as gnocchi typically is. I bought store bought gnocchis and cheated by used DelGrosso Three Cheese Sauce. Everybody (including Kyley's friends) enjoyed the meal, but I am sure my children would have enjoyed it more had I made my own sauce. This will be revisited I am sure.

Orange Push-Up Smoothie : The first time we made this it as WAY too sweet. I cut out ALL of the sugar and it was so much better, still sweet because I used the concentrate but better. I think the next time that we revisit this it will be with fresh OJ and/or oranges. The kids really like the concept, as do I, but next time we will stick with fresh.

Quinoa Burgers (Today's dinner..but again no photo) : I tweaked this a bit, I used Ricotta rather than Cottage cheese, skipped the Splenda and sugar, used all purpose GF flour. I also added minced garlic rather than green onions and garlic powder. These were LOVED by all and I am sure they will be revisited as we attempt to lessen our meat intake even more.

Healthy Mozzarella Sticks (Today's dinner as well...again no photo) : I used won ton wrappers and cut mozzarella cheese from a ball rather than using string cheese. They were good, but would have been better had the cheese stayed put. The kids still liked them, but I didn't have any.

No Bake Energy Bites : We made these today but we have yet to try them. The "batter" tasted pretty good though. :)





 
The next few things that I made were found on foodgawker. I actually use this site quite often for new recipes. I made these S'mores Granola Bars this morning for snacks for the week, however I am not sure how long they will last. The kids are gobbling these right up. I guess that means they are well liked. I tweaked this a bit, using GF oats and rice krispies and subbing honey and a bit of molasses for the corn syrup.

Pumpkin Spice Granola Bars : We made these as well today, however they have not been tasted either. I added more cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice but kept everything else the same. I also made them thinner so that they would be crunchy.

I know there are things that I am forgetting that we have tried out but....oh well. I will try to post more regularly.

I am struggling with  getting back into the swing of things, so thankfully I have Pinterest (and Kyley) to keep me on track. Today I made Honey Chicken and it was a hit, though this is one that I have pinned and tried before. The kids LOVE this meal. I put it over quinoa rather than white rice and that is the only thing that I tweak for this recipe. Today I tripled the recipe with chicken and quadrupled the sauce because we like to have extra sauce for over our quinoa.

The craft we tried was kind of a bust and the kids weren't big fans. I figured that because the kids love oobleck so much that Cloud Dough would be a hit. We couldn't seem to blend it well enough for it to be able to be formed and just mixing it wasn't nearly as cool as I thought it would be. No photos of this one today either. Sorry.

Keeping it PINTERESTing

Ok, it's day 2 for our month long challenge. Today because we were having leftovers I opted to make a snack, that we found on Pinterest. Our snack for the day was Apple Nachos. They were a HUGE hit with everybody. I tweaked the recipe a bit (I will with most I am sure) by skipping the chocolate chips and coconut (we have one who doesn't like choc. or coconut)  and substituted homemade caramel for the peanut butter. I also sprinkled cinnamon on the apples prior to adding the nuts and caramel. The kids were BEGGING for more. The caramel took a bit of time to make, but now we have some on hand and the kids like this better than any store bought brand, but the apple nachos the kids could have made on their own. Here is a picture of ours:

Dawson is already asking for more tomorrow with lunch. :) And from a mommy point of view I have to say that it is a simple snack that I don't mind them munching on. 

Our To-Do activity today was actually a repurposing project similar to the one seen HERE, but we haven't completed it so no photo. We are going to use the lot of tea tins that we found at the local Goodwill for Dawson to store some of his smaller Lego pieces. We are getting ready to do a room revamp for him so this worked perfectly. 

It's going to be a PINTERESTing Month

After seeing a friend doing a challenge for the 12 Days of Christmas, I thought that I would jump on the bandwagon and utilize Pinterest to spark some motivation and creativity. I am going to attempt to make one meal from something that I found on Pinterest, as well as do one activity, daily for this entire month. I am also hoping to take on one organizational task per week.

We actually waited until yesterday to start because we have a typical New Year's Day meal that we eat every year, so I didn't want to start by trying something new. Yesterday we made Lasagna Soup (meatless though) and it was loved by all. This is a soup that we will be revisiting often, as it was simple to make, yet tasted great.

We tried our hand at some Melted Crayon Art and this is something that we are going to have to redo as well. There are so many different opportunities to be creative with this.

My camera didn't make an appearance yesterday so I have no photos of our meal or activity, but I promise to remember for today.