Pinterest Challenge

So far my Pinterest Challenges haven’t been to much of a challenge.  Well, except for the pancake art.  That was a challenge.

This time I wanted to do something completely different and was a big challenge.

Some of you may have read a previous post on the state of my favorite cookbook.  As stated in the post I am not a very neat cook.  My cookbooks get the blunt of my messes.  Can’t help it.  It’s just the way I am.

Since the first time the internet arrived in my home, I have been printing off recipes from different website I visit.

As you can see, they have the same fate as my cookbook.

I don’t know how the marker got on there.  I am not even sure it is a marker.

What to do?  What to do?  Why go to Pinterest and find out!   This.  This, people, is the awesome challenge I came up with!  I know you’re jealous.

It was a hard challenge, but I was up for the task.  You need a plastic hanger with clips, made to hang pants or skirts.  Here is the really hard part; hang it over your cabinet door.  That’s right! Just reach up high and hang it on the door knob.

 What really made this a harder challenge than any of my other Pinterest Challange people, was that I had to actually take out a plastic sleeved recipe sheet from my gorgeous recipe binder.  I mean really!  I had to open it up AND open the rings to take out the paper.

But all this hard work will be forever worth it.  Not only do I have clean recipe pages, my cookbook is not taking up lots of space.  Just take out the recipe, hang the recipe on the knob, rest a minute to get your breath, then close the cookbook.

I claim myself as totally NAILED IT Queen!!

I know this project has just blown your mind.  If you have any mind left, go check out my friends and their Pinterest Challenge.  Of course, they fall way short of my awesome project.

 

Come back and gawk at my awesomeness any time!

Whole Wheat Rolls 100%

Decided to do a little baking for my challenge this month.  For years every single dinner roll I have ever made out of whole wheat bread, tasted just like a mini loaf of bread.  I wanted a dinner roll that tasted like a dinner roll and it was fluffy and soft.  So I gave up and stopped making the dinner rolls.

Then one day on Pinterest  I saw Soft 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls.  Because of the awesome looking rolls, I decided to look at  the recipe.  Because of the 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup honey, and 3 eggs I decided to give it a try.

I used my bread machine to mix the dough just right.  I did have to add about 1/2 cup more flour than called for.  Then I proceeded to shape the rolls according to the instructions.

Next I placed them in my USA pan and let them rise for a long time.  Notice the sides are touching.  This helps with the softness.

After baking, I brushed melted butter on top of each roll.  This picture is before I put the butter on it.  So, you have 1/2 cup butter inside, melted butter on the top, and smear butter on when sliced open.  What’s not to love there?  Aren’t they purdy!

Look at that light fluffiness!  De-lish!

 Verdict:  Family loved them and all were gone by the time dinner was over.  YUMMY!   So TOTALLY NAILED IT!!  I nailed it so well, I may make these again for our Thanksgiving Dinner.

Click  for the recipe –> Soft 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

Hopefully the other ladies did their challenge.  Go check them out.

Yummy Cookies

The picture doesn’t make the cookies look yummy, but they are.  I made these to take to a friend’s house to have after her yummy lunch.

The night before the lunch, my family refused to eat what I made for dinner.  This was not a happy mom.  NOT HAPPY.  So after the dinner they flipped their noses at, I baked the cookies.  Every time one of the kids came into the kitchen and smelled the yumminess from the oven they asked, “Do we get one?”  My reply, “Did you eat your dinner?”  They replied, “That’s not fair!”  Me, “Did you eat your dinner?”

Before I met with my friend, I offered cookies to another friend’s kid.  They eat their dinner.  The son ate his and said, “What if it rained these cookies?  That would make me so happy.”   LOL  That is kid speak for “Mom get the recipe and make these for me everyday. THESE ARE GOOD!”

They are flourless.  They are NOT sugarless.

You can find the recipe at Creative Kitchen.   The title of the blog says Creating in the Kitchen using wholesome, REAL foods.   Um, powdered sugar and chocolate chips are not REAL foods.  Just saying.

Go make some.

Pancake Organs

 

Deb at Notinadequate got the bright idea to do a Nailed It/Failed It thing with Pinterest projects.  Like a bunch of twits, several of us agreed to participate.  The rules were simple.

1.  We would do a project from one of our boards, that was picked by the others.
2. No one was allowed to pick a dissecting project for me. That wasn’t my rule.  They just can’t handle the guts.  HA! Jokes on them!
3. We would do the project and then post on the 27th.

My project was, drum roll please…. Pancake Art.  Funny thing, this wasn’t even on any of my boards!  Deb, again Deb, it’s always Deb. Why?  Ok, ok…Deb found the project for me.  I couldn’t figure out how it was done, so Donna had to enlighten me.  All it takes is a hot griddle and something with a thin hole to squeeze the batter out with.

To prepare, I made all my kids swear they would leave me alone while I did this Pancake thing.  It didn’t work.  How many times can four children say why?

I set up the laptop in front of the stove so I can copy the pancakes.  I have my hot griddle going and the batter is off to the side.  I am using our own batter recipe.

The most requested pancake to start with was this:

No it isn’t a sick puppy, it is a Uterus.  What?  You can’t see that it is a Uterus?  See the Fallopian Tubes and Ovaries?  No.  I think it is plain as day.

Cross your eyes and squint real hard, maybe you’ll see the Uterus.  Then again, maybe you really don’t want to see the Uterus. Who does?

Next up I created THE BRAIN, bwahahahah.   cough-cough

Oh come on!  You can’t tell me you don’t see the Occipital Lobe, Frontal Lobe, and the Spinal Cord?   Maybe this is your brain on drugs?

How about another body part?  The guts.  Ha-Ha peeps! The joke is on you.  See the guts?  You can’t hide from guts on this blog.  They say look at me; love me.

I think I did a smashing job on the guts.  We can think of them as guts during flu season.  Yeah, that works.

Sick of body parts?  How about a bug!

This is a beetle.  Looks real, doesn’t it?  Wanna eat it?

This was a lot of fun, but a lot of work too.  I don’t know if I would do this on a regular basis, but I would give it a go again.  I used a zip-lock baggie because I didn’t have anything else to use to squeeze out the batter.  A ketchup bottle with a thin dispenser would work great.  In the meantime I will continue to make pancakes like I always have.

The next day I found a blob of pancake batter on my camera.

Did I Nail It or Failed It?

To see the other victims participates in Deb’s mad scheme, please click on the buttons below. These were made by the awesome Deb (these are Deb’s words).

Easy Granola

Started making this simple recipe for granola a while ago.  It is perfect for our camping trips.  Easy to store.  Easy solution for a quick breakfast.  Easy to carry while hiking.   Just plain easy.  🙂

You can add anything extra to this recipe before baking.  I added about 1/2 to 3/4 cup raisins.  Nuts, craisins (all natural kind), shredded coconut is good too.

Simple Granola
Source:  Breadbeckers

• 1/2 cup cocount oil (all natural, unrefined)
• 1/2 cup honey (local if you can get it)
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 cups rolled oats

Melt together the coconut and honey.  Add salt and stir.  Pour over oats and stir well to coat.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes until slightly golden.  Stir twice during baking.

You may have to adjust the time for baking.  We found it takes us up to 25 minutes to bake, but the original recipe says to bake 10 minutes.

Yummy with milk, yogurt, or right out of the hand.

3 out of 6 family members will eat this, which means 3 out of 6 family members will go hungry if this is all we have, which means 2 out of 2 parents don’t care.

I will take a small jar with me when I am out doing errands to munch on between meals.  It fills me up and I won’t make that quick trip through a fast food joint.

This is good stuff people!

Camper Food

We visited Rainbow Springs State Park last week for several nights. To prepare for our trip, I needed to make several meals ahead of time.  This is what I did:

Breakfast:  Sausage Muffins.

I have been wanting to make these for several years.  This was a good time to give them a try.  You can find the recipe here.  We made only six.  Here are our thoughts on these:

• Eggs are a little rubbery when heated in Microwave.
• Needs a hot saugsage.  What we used was bland.
• The instructions say to reheat, bake in oven for 25 minutes.  WE feel if it takes that long, then we will just cook and freeze the sausage, then make the muffins the morning we want to eat them.
• We will not be making these ahead of time again.

Above in one bag is Chicken Teriyaki.  I diced up chicken thighs and marinaded them in soy sauce, red white, fresh ginger, fresh garlic, and I can’t remember what else. This can be easily frozen.  You can search for a recipe on-line for the liquid, then place everything in a bag to cook later.   Sir Husband cooked this on the grill.

The other bag is BBQ Beef.  Use your favorite recipe for the BBQ sauce, chop the beef, mix together and freeze until ready to cook.  We placed this, thawed, in the crockpot on one of our busy days out of the camper.  Cooked on slow for 6 hours.  It was ready when we returned.

For movie night we made individual pizzas.  Pizza dough was made and baked before we left.   The pizza sauce was also made before we left.  You can see it in the jar.   The recipes is Easy Pizza Sauce III, which is our favorite.  Sometimes I add red pepper flakes, but I don’t tell the kids I do that. 🙂  We had fun making these, but our iddy-biddy oven only fits one cookie sheet and we could only bake these two at a time. Some of us, that would be me, had to wait a long time for dinner.  Next time, Sir Husband will be making these on the grill.

Other things we took with us:  Granola, Chocolate Chip Cookies, fresh veggies, fresh fruit, milk, coffee, ice cream, and popcorn.

The  Simple Granola Recipe and Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipes will be given in another post.

We are really enjoying our camper and it is so much nicer to have things ready before we go.  No emergency trips to Wal-Mart or Publix.  Ok, we have been out camping three times and we have made an emergency trip on each occasion.  Hopefully we will have figured this out soon and won’t be making the shopping trips during camping.

If anyone has easy make ahead recipes, please send them my way and we’ll give them a try.  The recipes must be from scratch, no canned soups, no packaged seasonings, no store bought sauces.

Happy Camping!

 

 

A Tuesday Meal

For an up coming busy day (our’s is Tuesdays), make the day before:

• Tossed Salad
• Loaf of bread
• BBQ Sauce
• Thaw boneless, skinless, chicken breast

That’s right, make your own BBQ Sauce.  Our son is allergic to lots of things, as most of you already know.  One of the things he cannot eat are store bought sauces, so I have been on the lookout for a good BBQ sauce.  One that sticks to the food and I found a good one. 😀

Barbecue Sauce (Low Fat)

Source:  Better Homes and Garden Cook Book

Makes 1.5 cups

• 1/2 cup finely chopped onions 
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 TB olive oil
• 3/4 cup apple juice
• 1/3 cup tomato paste
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 2 TB brown sugar
• 2 TB molasses
• 1 TB paprika
• 1 TB prepared horseradish
• 1 TB Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper

Cook onion and garlic in hot oil until tender.  Stir in apple juice, tomato paste, vinegar, brown sugar, molasses, paprika, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, about 30 minutes or until desired consistency, stirring occasionally.

Use to brush on chicken, pork or beef, with some of the sauce during the last 10 minutes of cooking.  Serve any extra sauce on the side.

While the husband is heating up the grill, the rest of the family gets the table ready for dinner.  While he is actually cooking the chicken breasts, I get the sides ready; salad and bread.   Quick and easy dinner.

Verdict:

Everyone but one child likes BBQ sauce, so The Husband does not add BBQ sauce to her chicken.

Only the parents eat the salad.  Son doesn’t eat any salad at all.  One daughter eats only carrots, two daughters eat carrots and maybe a broccoli.

Gifts for the Camper

Our neighbor’s were so excited we bought a camper, they came bearing gifts!  I like gifts.

OH BOY!!  A trash can!  Now you want one; I just know it.   This was such an exciting gift, the neighbor’s wife had come along to help present this supreme offering.

I am really excited to get this can.  It isn’t just an ordinary can.  It is so much more.  It’s a turkey oven.  Everyone say Woot!!   What?  You’ve never cooked a turkey in  a trash can before? Where have you been?  Oh with me, because I’ve never done it either.

The neighbors swear this is the best way to cook a turkey.  Especially while camping, since our camper oven will only hold a small cookie sheet.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a 2″ turkey that will fit in that oven.  Photo coming later.

So, how do you cook in a trash can?  Good question.  You can find excellent instructions at TheTrashCanTurkey.

I am so looking forward to giving this a try.  If we don’t get to go camping for Thanksgiving this year, we will be making this in our backyard.   Now go get yourself a nice clean aluminum trash can, bake your turkey, and report back to me. 😀

THANK YOU NEIGHBOR PEOPLE!  I love it.

I also bought myself a gift for the camper.  Lights.  Yep, you have to have patio lights.  It’s a hidden law among  RV campers.  The neighbors bought grapes.  I wanted grapes, but apparently the neighbors have the all because I cant’ find any.  However; I found a better set of lights.

You have to admit, these are me. Right?

A Tuesday Meal

My neighbor told me about a new cooking magazine that she really likes and has made several recipes from it.  It is called Clean Eating.  So….I purchased the newest edition and found several recipes I’d like to try.

Last night I tried the Southwestern Meatballs.  Even though, I made this on a Monday, it will go in my Tuesday meal planning.  It was so easy and quick to make.  To make it even quicker for a busy day, just make the meatballs the day before.

Southwestern Meatballs

• 1 lb ground turkey breast
• 2 large egg whites
• 1/4 cup whole-wheat bread crumbs
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 cup frozen yellow corn
• 1 15 oz black beans, drained and rinsed well
• 2 cups diced fresh tomatoes (I didn’t have any, so used mild Rotel)
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 TB lime juice
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/4 cu chopped fresh cilantro

In a large bowl, combine turkey, egg whites, bread crumbs, slat and pepper and mix well.  Shape into 16 meatballs, each about the size of a golf ball.

In a large skillet (cooked in my 13″ cast iron skillet. Yeah, BABY!!), heat oil on medium-high, Add meatballs and cook for 3 to 6 minutes, turning frequently, until browned on all sides.  Add corn, beans, tomatoes, broth, lime juice and cumin and mix well.  Reduce heat to medium, partially cover and cook for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, until meatballs are cooked through.  Stir in cilantro and serve.

Verdict:

The husband and I really liked it.  I don’t think we would have liked it as much if we hadn’t added the mild Rotel.  The fresh Cilantro is a must!

The son:  Didn’t eat and is now mad at us.

The Violinist:  Didn’t eat it and is now mad at us.

Joanna:  Didn’t eat it because she was sick.  She had two spoons of chicken broth and went back to bed.  Poor thing. 😦

Rebekah:  Was a total goofball during dinner, but only ate one meatball and one black bean.  She didn’t like the bean/corn mixture and the meatball was “ok”.

Served it with rolls and grapes.

There is enough left0ver for me to have lunch tomorrow.  I’m not going to worry about the kids, because if there was enough for everyone, they wouldn’t eat it anyway.  So, I’m good with that.

MmmmMMmmmm

• Coconut water/pineapple juice
• Fresh Banana
• Homegrown figs
• Frozen Strawberries
• Baby Spinach Leaves
• Squirt of local honey

Blend it all together in the Vita-mix

A Smoothie.  It’s what’s for dinner.