Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Why did the chicken cross the road? So it wouldn't end up in these Pinterest inspired meals:

Original Pin #1:

http://thehealthierfoods.blogspot.com/2013/06/baked-garlic-brown-sugar-chicken.html

Baked Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken. That sounds amazing! Bam thought so too. 

"I have a husband who's particular, and unfortunately for him I have an experimental streak. When I couldn't stand the idea of yet another plain shake and bake chicken dinner, I turned to my pins. This seemed so easy, so foolproof that it was destined to go into our dinner rotation. How wrong." 

Pinstrosity #1:

"There are some things that are heavenly when candied. Nuts, fruit, heck even bacon candy is a thing. This was not. Despite following things to a "T", the result was inedible...even to my 2 year old with a stomach like a garbage disposal. Overly sweet, but with burnt garlic bits and barely done chicken."

"And worse was when it was time for cleanup. The black in the corners of my pan is easily the worst thing I've ever had to scrub battle in the cooking aftermath...and I've had some real divinity flops. I'll just say I felt every inch the cave woman trying to chisel it off the bottom of my glass pan and after a while the nerdling had to be taken to a different room to spare his young ears, because even good soaks couldn't loosen that nightmare."

"I still cringe when I scroll past repins, but I learned always to cover my pans with foil. I have not forgotten since."

"Abandon hope all ye who repinned here."

Bahahaha, Bam...you have a way with words and I love it. 

Original Pin #2:

From all over the web. I didn't find the original post. Some say it originated on Facebook. Some say it was uploaded straight to Pinterest. I have no idea where this originated from. 

Meg submitted this to us. Here's what's she said, "We've all seen this pin. '4-6 raw chicken breasts, new potatoes, green beans (fresh or canned-really any green veggie would work. Broccoli is good, too). Arrange in 9x13 dish. Sprinkle with a packet of Italian dressing mix and then top with a melted stick of butter. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Enjoy!' It has no link to a website, but everyone has pinned it."

Everyone's pinned it. Must be good right? I know I've fallen into that trap before. 

Pinstrosity #2:

"It was the most awful thing I have ever made.  I made it before I knew about Pinstrosity, so I have no pictures, but here's the story. I went and got four normal-sized chicken breasts and a can of green beans, but I used regular potatoes cut to the size of new potatoes since I hate scrubbing the little ones. The one I originally pinned said cook 45 minutes, but I knew that would not be long enough to cook chicken breast, so I already cooked it an hour like these instructions say.  I followed them to the letter."  

 

"Usually I shallow poach chicken breasts, and they turn out nice and juicy, but I know a world of people who just roast, so I figured this out be fine.  Well, the green beans were over cooked, but still tasted canned even though I rinsed them, the chicken was dry with a light film of butter on it, and the potatoes were as raw as can be!  NOT EDIBLE!  It was by far the worst thing I've ever made from pinterest.  Whenever I see a friend post this, I warn them never to make it.  I'm not sure how to fix a dish with three ingredients that obviously need to be cooked for three different times in the oven. AWFUL!"

Original Pin #3:

http://www.wicked-delicious.com/2010/12/simple-easy-winter-weeknight-dinner.html

Crockpot Honey Mustard Chicken. MMMmmmmm. 

Jamie (aka The Pinning Pirate) sent us in this Pinstrosity. 

"You might ask how it’s possible to ruin a crock pot meal because the crock pot does the cooking for you. It must be known that crock-potting is an art!"

"You have to make sound judgments about which of the 4 temperature buttons will be right for the size meat you have, the temperature of the meat when entering the pan of doom, and texture of meat you want when all is said and done. I think you at least need to have taken statistics, calculus and physics to get the perfect crock pot meal. For this meal, I'm assuming some higher level education science course was needed that I didn't take."

"I guess I was thrown by the "if you are looking for something simple, easy and scrumptious to make for dinner, this is it". It sounded like all I needed was a kindergarten graduation diploma."

"I followed the directions verbatim but ended up with charcoal."

Pinstrosity #3:

http://thepinningpirate.blogspot.com/2013/02/crockpot-honey-mustard-chicken-and.html

"After staring at it for a few minutes, Husband and I looked at each other and I said 'Well, there's always Taco Bell'."

"But being the trooper that he is, he poked it a bit and said that he would eat it. What's a little burnt chicken gonna do? So he chewed on it. As did I. No need to waste food."

"We did not eat the leftovers."

Original Pin #4:

http://www.daydreamkitchen.com/2012/08/baked-garlic-brown-sugar-chicken/

Same recipe as earlier...just from a different site. Two submission from the same recipe? Eek...that's not a good sign for this pin. 

Emma, Miranda, and Ashley decided to have a Pinterest party one evening where they made all the food items from their pins. They said everything turned out except for the chicken. Here's their story:

"First we had to figure out what sauteed garlic looks like. We had to retry that because it burned the first time. Once we got that down, we covered the chicken with the brown sugar/garlic mix and stuck it in the oven."

Pinstrosity #4:

"Living in the dorms, I hate it when the fire alarm is set off. And this was about to happen because all the brown sugar on the pan started to burn completely, so I am standing at the door holding it open waving my arms like a maniac, trying to get the smoke away from the alarm, while the other two girls were trying to figure out how to open the window and take the chicken out of the oven without setting off the fire alarm. Eventually we figured it out, but our next encounter was a different challenge. The chicken was still pink on the inside! We concluded that we should cut the chicken up into small pieces, and fry it. But because the brown sugar mix made the outside of the chicken brown, we couldn't tell if they were done. After a few phone calls to our mothers we poured some water on it for moisture and a piece of tinfoil to keep the heat in (we didn't have anything else to cover it)." 

"In the end it worked out, and it tasted fantastic  a little dry, but it was good. Needless to say it was worth the experience and I had some good quality bonding time with my friends."

Show-And-Tell Saturday: Ten Pin Plan Report

If you remember back to the 16th of this month (or look back if you have to), I came up with my 10 Pin Plan. This was a list of 10 pins I was going to test over two weeks and then I'd report to you today on the successes, failures, and in-betweens. I've been working hard to get all the pins done and I'm excited to share the results with you! 

So, in the order that these pins got done, I give you my Ten Pin Report: 

Pin Report #1:

http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2009/07/crockpot-italian-chicken.html

My friend made this recipe way before I did and said that it was so salty that they had to throw it away. It sounded so good from the recipe though that I still wanted to give it a try. So I did. The recipe calls for 1-2 cans of cream of chicken soup. I figured that was where a good amount of the sodium was coming from, so I did half Cream of Chicken and half Cream of Mushroom soup (I don't find Cream of Mushroom to be as salty as Cream of Chicken). I knew that would change up the flavor some, but if it made it so we could eat it, that was fine. I do know that some brands of Cream of Chicken soup have a higher sodium content than others as well, so when you're making this, take that into consideration. Another thing we did, following a tip in the recipe, to cut back on the salt and to thin the sauce/gravy down to a more preferable consistency was to add some milk.

In the end, the flavor was good and it wasn't unedibly salty. You definitely didn't need to add salt, but it wasn't inedible. It reminded us of a mix between the gravy for Hawaiian Haystacks and cheap alfredo sauce. It really wasn't a bad meal at all, just not one of our uber favorites.
I thought about taking a picture, and I probably should have...but really it looked about like the picture (only we had ours on rice, not pasta). It's just a cream sauce with chicken. Another picture would kinda be overkill. That's how it looks. 

Pin Report #2:

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/04/how-to-clean-your-top-loader-washing.html

Again...I didn't take a photo. Partly...I didn't think to take a before shot, so it doesn't do much good to show you the after shot as you won't know the drastic improvement. But...this works fantastically. It's not uncommon for me to forget a load in the washer and have to rewash it because it went sour. After enough times of doing this, along with the general grime build up, my washer looked and smelled less than pleasant. Not something you want to put clothes in to try and get them clean. Now, my washer smells so nice and fresh, the clothes came out smelling fresher than they have for a while, and it looks so clean and wonderful! This was really easy to do and it's made a difference in my washer and laundry. I'd recommend it!

Pin Report #3

http://www.ohnuts.com/blog/cinnamon-bun-pecan-pie-recipe/

This one I do have pictures for. I decided that I wanted to do the apple pie in the cinnamon roll crust because apples were on sale and it just sounded yummy. I had this pinned to test the crust out anyway. So I followed the directions to put the cinnamon roll style crust together. The directions said you can use pre-made crust, or make your own from scratch, so I turned to my trusty pie crust recipe (it really is simple and really yummy). I did a double batch of pie crust dough for the bottom so I would be sure to have enough and it ended up being perfect. It really was easy to put the crust together, the directions are simple. Here's what my crust looked like after getting it in the pan:

Then, this is the recipe I used for the pie. I'm not normally a huge apple pie fan, but I love this recipe and it's so easy. Cut up the apples, put the lattice top on, and then you make a caramel sauce and pour it through the lattice. SOOOOOoooo yummy and easy. For the lattice top I rolled out the plain dough, then spread some melted butter, cinnamon, and sugar on top. I then smooshed the dough back together gently (because you don't want to mix it too well), and rolled it out again to get a sort of cinnamon/sugar marbled effect going on. Then I cut my lattice strips and put the top on. Here's the pie right before going into the oven:

And here's the finished product!

So we know it looks cool, but what about the taste? Let's just say that I will forever do my apple pie crusts like this now. It's adds such a subtle but yummy yumm yummy flavor to the pie. And I apparently didn't get the bottom crust flattened as thin as I thought so I ended up with a thicker crust (which I LOVE) that is extra yummy to eat because of the cinnamon in it and the pie filling soaked in. This one is WELL worth the time it takes to make it. MMMmmmmmmm.


Pin Report #4

http://www.dumpaday.com/random-pictures/funny-pictures/funny-picture-dump-of-the-day-54-pics/

This one was hilarious. I drew the eyebrows on my nephew right before my baby shower started and then let him ham it up during the shower. His facial expressions were hilarious. But anytime I pulled out the camera, I got this face:


My sister and I tried and tried to get a good reaction when I had the camera out and he just wasn't going for it. But it was hilarious just watching him during the baby shower. Here are the 5 best shots I got of him during the day:

So this one is hilarious...but catching the hilarity "on film" may be another issue.


Pin Report #5

http://www.thesmallthingsblog.com/2012/10/casual-half-up-hair-tutorial-polka-dots.html

I have been waiting since last August to have my hair long enough to pin up, pull up, ponytail, leave down, etc., and finally it is reaching a doable length. But now that it's long enough to put up...I just don't know what to do with it. I've had this hairstyle pinned for a while now. Most half-up, half down do's make me look like I'm 11, but this one looked like a more grown up version of the half up/down do so I thought I'd give it a try. It looked simple enough. After getting the layering and texturizing my thick head of hair needed (thanks Em!), I knew it was time to try this out. From bed head to this do it took me about 20 minutes. That's brushing out my hair, giving it a light curling job, and then following her instructions. Here's what I ended up with this morning:

It really did go up pretty simple. I think I have thicker hair than Kate (the lady from the pin), but I was able to make it work and my layers were just long enough for this. Because I have a ton of hair, I ended up using about 8 bobby pins in the back to hold the hair in place. So the actual assembly of this do was pretty simple and doable. Then I decided I wanted to see how it held up during a day of laundry, dishes and sewing (don't you love the days where you get to play catch up because you've been gone all day every preceding day of the week?). Here's how it looked at 4 pm (6 1/2 hours later):

It's held up remarkable well. I don't know how it'd do out on a super windy or rainy day, but not many hair styles withstand that very well. But, for shopping, social events, church, etc., this would work out great! Yea for a new do!

Pin Report #6

http://www.sevenelles.com/tutorials/day-3-the-coolest-spot-in-the-house-just-became-even-cooler-fridge-coasters-tutorial/

So I've had this pinned to do for forever. I thought it looked genius. I was hoping to just use what I already had at home to keep this cheap. I didn't have placemats, but I did have non-adhesive shelf liner. But when I pulled that out this past week, I realized it wouldn't work. It wasn't smooth top liner, it has built in holes. Like this:

So I could put that down on the shelves, but any liquid or anything would just flow through the holes to the shelf and then I'd have the liner and the shelf to clean. No thanks. Luckily I thought ahead and then measured the shelves before I want to Wally World. My fridge is the normal upright kind with the freezer on top and the fridge on bottom. Which means the shelves in the fridge are wide. Wide enough that they don't make placemats that big. I thought about doing a few placemats side by side, but I imagined them shifting around, spills going in the cracks and under the mats and then stinking. It just wasn't going to cut it. So then I thought about a tablecloth, but to get one that would work well was more than I wanted to spend on fridge mats. So I scrapped this project. I did try, but it just isn't really all that feasible in my fridge. If I had a side-by-side fridge with more narrow shelves, this would work just fine I'm sure. 

Pin Report #7

http://www.agirlandagluegun.com/2012/03/oh-walti-love-you-aka-disney-printables.html

It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to do this, and then I came up with an idea I loved. I have this ceramic "canister" on the kitchen window sill above the sink. We use it to hold our scrub brush. It's handy, but it's not the most beautiful thing:

So I thought I'd paint it with that ceramic paint I used on my mug garden project (update on that...it's going great! One succulent died. That's when I realized I'd forgotten to water them for a while...oops), but the other 3, including the bamboo, are thriving. I got out my light blue and started painting away. After 2 coats of paint, and not enough paint left in the bottle for a third coat, the canister looked like this:

That wasn't going to cut it. I just couldn't get the paint smooth with any kind of brush/sponge, and there wasn't enough paint to give it a thick enough coat that the original color didn't show through. So...that idea had to be scrapped. Luckily that paint washes off super easy before you bake it so I was able to just wash off the blue paint and restore the ceramic back to the gold/brown it originally was. 

But that left me still with an unfinished project, and I was bound and determined to make this one work somehow. I rummaged through my art supplies and found a 5x7 scratchboard that I hadn't used yet and decided that was it. So I got on the computer and played with fonts until I found what I wanted. I ended up with this "picture":

I printed it, covered the back in graphite, taped it to my scratchboard, and used a pencil to trace the letters and transfer the graphite to the scratchboard. Then I scratched away and this is what I ended up with:

I figured since it looks chalkboard-ish I'd put it by the awesome chalkboard piggy Em and Camille got me for my Birthday. And, it's right at the entryway to my kitchen which is where some of my least favorite chores happen (and I carry the laundry through there to get to the utility room...so I'll see it when I do laundry too). Plus, it helps hide our internet box, so that's happy too!

Pin Report #8

http://theseamery.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/fit-to-a-t-baby-romper-tutorial-part-2-making-the-pattern-and-cutting/

I went through my t-shirts, picked out the 5 I wanted to use, and came in eagerly to read the directions before jumping into this project. As the only garment of clothing I've ever made is a simple skirt, I wasn't sure what some of the terms meant and, I'll be honest, I was a little intimidated by the tutorial. So I looked around on Pinterest and found a similar idea that seemed much more along my confidence lines (perhaps doing one of these more simple patterns will give me the confidence to try this romper pattern). 

So, here's the pin that I switched to:

http://thismamamakesstuff.com/tutorial-rockin-baby-gown-t-shirt-refashion/

Their instructions were decently easy to follow, just pay attention to the words and the pictures. Here's what I ended up with after about 2 hours of work on it. That includes printing the pattern, cutting the fabric, sewing, a snack break, and running back and forth between the dining room table where my sewing stuff was set up and the living room where the computer is to read the directions. Now that I know how it works I'm sure these'll be super quick and easy to pump out. 

Pin Report #9

http://askannamoseley.com/2012/02/getting-rid-of-that-boy-smell-in-the-bathroom/

Well, I did this. My bathroom doesn't smell lemony at all. It just now smells like vinegar and pee. Maybe I'm missing somewhere else where the pee smell is coming from? I scrubbed the toilet, I got the floor all around the toilet. I got the wall/cabinet by the toilet. And I still just smell pee. Where else could little girls get pee?!

Someone commented on my Mix-It-Up Monday post when I said I was going to do this that "Lemon juice and vinegar are both acids, so soda should fizzle when you mix it with the lemon juice; when the reaction is finished, there is no way for it to re-fizzle when you add more acid." The baking soda did fizzle when I added the lemon juice, but I was able to get it into a pancake batter-esque consistency, so I figured I'd just keep going. I let it sit for the 15 minutes it required, and then sprayed vinegar on it. It did fizzle again when I sprayed the vinegar on, so there was enough soda left in the paste to still do the work with the vinegar. But my bathroom still smells like pee. Either this didn't work or I've got some other pee problem area. Blech. 

Pin Report #10

http://www.thecampuscompanion.com/party-lab/2011/10/21/aurora-drink/#.UjdiOcaTiqg

I'm sure this is the one you've been waiting for. And I saved it for last, bwahahahaha. We had some nasty-gram comments (which we didn't publish because of the profanity content, as the disclaimer in our comment box says) saying we were dumb for thinking that galaxies would show up. I know the galaxies are photoshopped into the picture. But that's part of what we're showing. The directions of the pin do say this though: "it is a drink that is pink in natural light, but glows aqua-marine in black-light." So, the idea of testing this pin was to show that, yes, the galaxies are shopped in, and to see if the color change happens with the pinned caption containing the non-alcoholic drink (someone else will have to test the alcoholic version). 

I mixed up the drink (doing 1/9th of the recipe because it's just the two of us and if it was nasty I didn't want to have gallons of this on hand). So what did we find out? 

The mixed up drink under normal light:

Pretty and delicious looking!

The mixed up drink under a black light:

No galaxies. No aqua-marine glow. 

The taste? Kinda weird. Not one we'll be remaking. 

So I don't know if we need a more powerful or high-tech black light, if it was the non-alcoholic version that just didn't work, or if this never actually works...but it definitely didn't work for us. 


So there you have it! My 10-Pin Report. I actually didn't know if I'd get through all of them, so I'm feeling rather proud of myself right now. It helped that I knew I was going to have to report to you all...so thanks for that pressure! I hope you all have a great final September weekend! Hooray for Fall!!

Dog Gone It

I've never thought of myself as a picky eater, now or growing up. I say that, but then I do remember a few stand-offs I had with my mom over food that I was too much of a stinker to eat. Some nights I'm sure she wanted to run her forehead across the cheese grater after we fussed about the food she made for us. Thankfully she stuck to her guns and taught us to eat what was placed in front of us and we learned to eat all sorts of food. That went decently well until my youngest brother. There is no making him do anything he doesn't want to. Mom, Dad, and us kids tried everything in all the books to get him to do different things, but if he didn't want to do it that was the end of the story. Mom got pretty creative in trying to disguise food so she could get some nutrition down his sweet but stubborn little throat. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I know my mom can commiserate with Suzanne, the submitter of today's fantastic Pinstrosity. 

Suzanne says, "My son is a picky eater so I found a cute Pinterest idea "dog in a dog" that looked easy." 

The Original Pin:

http://www.rhodesbread.com/recipes/view/2267

Roll the dough around the hot dog, shape the appendages. Bake. Looks easy?
"Apparently, dough baking is not as easy as it looks, and you have to be careful to roll the 'legs' and 'ears' perfectly even or it will not look right."

The Pinstrosity:

"My son refused to eat it and said, 'Why is the plane broken?'  When I told him it was supposed to be a doggie, he became upset and felt that I had 'killed' the dog in the oven.  Sigh.  I would have added the eyes and nose but I felt the overall dog body was such a fail that I did not even complete it.  ARGH!  Not even close!!!"

"The directions should have called for making sure that the legs and ears were symmetrical and evenly rolled, and the baker should keep an eye on the dog baking in case the oven does not distribute heat evenly. Rats!"

Signed,

Suzanne

Mother of a 2.5 year old

So apparently it's a dog eat dog world, but not a kid eat dog world. 

Snowman Slaughter

Wow. What a day. It ended up being busier than I expected, but it was wonderful. A family photo shoot, a quick stop at Em's house (always a highlight in any day), cooked 2 fun dinners, got to tell our dating/love story to some awesome girls, and then I just got done hosting a 7 course meal for my brother and cousin, and their fun dates.  It's been an awesome day, but it meant that I have not sat down at the computer all day until right now (other than to retrieve the recipes I needed for the dinners). 

So I thought I'd share with you two of my Pinstrosities today (with that much going on, there's bound to be at least one minor Pinstrosity, right?). The theme of the 7 course dinner tonight was snowmen. Thanks to Google Translate, our "restaurant" was "le bonhomme de neige", which we assume is french for "The Snowman". We tried to get more creative than that...but I swear that for every 3 syllables in English, there were 32 in French, and while that would have been fun, we had trouble pronouncing "le bonhomme de neige" as it was. Anyway...each course had something to do with snowmen...or they were supposed to at least...we forgot with one of the courses to assemble it. Oh well. So...here are two of the courses from tonight's meal. Tasted great but the visual appeal was a little lacking. 

The Original Pin

Looks simple enough right? I wasn't doing the meatloaf part, but I loved the snowman mashed potato part. So I jumped into it. What could go wrong? Scoop mashed potatoes together and decorate. Well, my mashed potatoes were a little thin...so scooping them didn't really work, so we worked them into balls...sorta. And then I went to decorate them and found that I didn't have a whole jar of peppercorns like I was sure I did...so I improvised. 

The Pinstrosity

A huge thanks to Em for letting me use her plates!

Mmmm...doesn't that just look yummy. One of the other snowmen was wider than he was tall...the potatoes were just too gooey for this to really work well. This one here isn't bad, but not what I had visualized. And then...when my smart-alecky brother was served his plate he said, "Um...excuse me, but my snowman peed." I laughed, because it's true. Tonight I used instant potatoes and I added too much water...and then I didn't have any instant potato left and didn't have time to boil up a real one. Next time, I'm just making "real" potatoes. 

And then dessert. Of course it would be dessert. 

The Original Pin

http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/dessert/other-dessert/holiday-cheesecake-presents.html

I actually didn't find these on Pinterest...I have a card in my cook book (don't know where I got it from), but when I did a search online just now I found the exact picture and recipe that are on my card. 

Aren't those cute? Cheesecake squares! The recipe says to cut them in rectangles, so I thought I'd just go one step further and use my circle cookie cutters and make a snowman rather than presents. That part went just fine. But I couldn't find the gel decorating icing and didn't want to use regular decorators icing...so I decided to make a raspberry syrup (basically frozen raspberries with some sugar and water...ta da. We grew up doing that with strawberries and figured raspberries would do fine, and they did). All went well until I tried to add the raspberry sauce to the snowmen cheesecakes. I tried to drizzle the sauce to look like a scarf and it looked like the snowman had had his neck slit. So then I tried to drizzle the sauce "artistically" over the snowman and it just ended up looking like the snowman had been disemboweled.  

The Pinstrosity 

Taste? Fantastic. Visual appeal? Ew. 

So maybe I didn't score high in the presentation but I think everything tasted good. I hope.

UPDATE: I posted up the entire dinner on the family cooking blog I am a part of. I uploaded pictures of the courses and the decorations, and I provided links to the recipes and directions for the diy decorations. You can find the post here: http://mowercooking.blogspot.com/2012/12/le-bonhomme-de-neige-7-course-meal.html. 

Fall Feast Food Pins Tested

Cameron and I usually do a dinner for the Autumnal Equinox each year, but we missed it this year as I was at a wedding and he was out lizard hunting (yes, you read that right...life of a zoology major). I didn't think it'd matter much, but I kinda missed putting together a fun and fancy meal (well...fancy for us...). I decided yesterday that I'd put together a Fall Feast to make up for missing the Equinox dinner, so I pulled up my Pinterest boards devoted to food, tried to find ones I already had the ingredients on hand for, made a plan and got testing these tasty looking food pins. As I was cooking though, I realized I was making way more food than Cameron and I could eat so we called Em and Chip to come over and we feasted together on the Pinterest found meal. I pulled a few recipes from our own files, but I tried many new ones this time. I figured I'd share how they turned out, what worked, what didn't, and what I would do (and did do) differently.

So there's the set up. I love my dishes, they are just so happy looking.

Alrighty, dish #1.

The Original Pin
Tomato Bisque
 This didn't actually have a picture of this soup...but here's the link:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/tomato-bisque-recipe/index.html

The Outcome

Mine came out a little more yellowy orange instead of orangey red...but the tomatoes I canned last year weren't very red...so I'm attributing it to that. I was excited to get a chance to use my canned tomatoes. Last year was my first year canning, so I'm still a little excited to be using these tomatoes. Anyway...this tasted fantastic. I loved it. Cameron's not huge with tomato soups, but he said this one isn't bad (here's the secret...there's bacon in it and the veggies are sauteed in bacon fat for 8 minutes...man pleasing right there).

I did have to tweak this one due to the ingredients I had on hand (I don't live where just running to the store is an option), but I think it came out decently similar to what it would have had I had all the ingredients. First, I didn't have carrots...so no carrots in this soup. Second...I just had normal onions on hand...no spanish onions. Third, my herbs were dried, not fresh...so I just sprinkled them in and left them in (minus the bay leaf, I took that out). Fourth, I had half and half in the fridge, not heavy cream. So I know those made some difference, but I don't think they completely altered how this turned out. I would definitely like to try it 100% true to the recipe, but even with these tweaks, this turned out delicious and was easy to make. My biggest disappointment? The bacon crisps I had ready for the end didn't float on top of the soup, they sunk to the bottom...so they just ended up being a part of the soup and not a garnish...but that's not really anything to complain about.


The Original Pin
Stuffed Roast Turkey Breast

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/stuffed_roast_turkey_breast/

Let me tell you, this was delicious. I did tweak it, but it was still delicious. Was mine anywhere near as pretty as that. Bahahahahaha, no.

The Outcome:

It's a good thing food doesn't have to be beautiful to taste good.  Don't get scared off by that picture though, it was delicious. And again...it has bacon in it and the last step before baking this is to glaze it with bacon grease. Another man pleaser (then men did love it, btw).

I actually followed the directions decently here, just adding my own twist at the beginning. The recipe doesn't call for the turkey to be marinated, but I did it anyway. I tenderized the turkey breasts, then added them to a bowl with some olive oil, coriander (whole and ground/roasted), garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and sage and let it marinate for 1 1/2 hours. For the filling, the only deviations I did was using plain boring canned mushrooms rather than porcini mushrooms, I didn't have shallots so I used onion, and the cranberries were omitted entirely. Other than that I followed the recipe and directions to the best of my ability. This turned out so incredibly tasty and moist. We could cut it with our forks it was so tender. This is a huge win in my books, I'll definitely be making this again.


Now for another side dish...
The Original Pin
Smoky and Cheesy Buttermilk Baked Mashed Potatoes

I raided Cameron's cooking boards for this one actually. Good choice hunny!

The Outcome

Poor cam was late getting home and he was bringing the taters, so we sped through making this as much as we could...so we cut out the baking part. But it still tasted great. Our main substitution: we didn't have buttermilk so I used half and half. I know...it would have tasted better with buttermilk, but it wasn't bad at all with the half and half. I loved how creamy these potatoes were with the cream cheese in them. MMMmmmm. Then we did add a small dribble of liquid smoke to get a more smoky flavor. Easy and yummy!

And what is a good meal without some sort of bread?!

Oatmeal Dinner Rolls
http://mowercooking.blogspot.com/2011/02/oatmeal-dinner-rolls.html

I've made these quite a few times actually, and they turn out good every time. Well...the didn't turn out the one time my house was too cold for the dough to rise...but every other time they turned out great. They are so quick and easy (2 1/2 hrs from start, through rising time, to finished and in your belly), and they taste great. Don't get scared off by the fact that you make oatmeal, then turn it into rolls. These are great, give them a try.

I have no idea what happened to that roll on the left...it looks like a hand with a finger pointing at me or something. Tasted good though. 

What to drink?
 Water is always a staple...but I wanted a fun drink too,
 so I found a recipe on my boards for Prickly Pear Juice. I ended up just using the recipe as a basis though and made my own deal instead. I ended up with a Pin Spin, making Prickly Pear Raspberry Lemonade instead.

Like our fancy glasses? Got them at the Dollar Tree for a buck. Love great deals like that, and they class up a meal so fast when we want to "fancy". 

 And then it was dessert time...

The Original Pin

http://mowercooking.blogspot.com/2010/09/double-decker-pumpkin-pie-autumnal.html

I'd actually made this pie twice before. Once was an overwhelming success...the other time, not so good.
I found out for this recipe, using real pumpkin is key. The first time I made this I bought a pumpkin, cooked it, and used the pumpkin goop to make the pie. It was sooo tasty. The second time I bought canned pumpkin pie filling...not so tasty. In fact, it went uneaten for the most part and I chucked the remains today. Lesson learned...use real pumpkin. It's so worth it!

 This time...the taste was great, but I tried making individual servings rather than a whole pie and that didn't go quite like I thought it would.

The Pinstrosity

These tasted great (again, not pretty, but ignore that), but they weren't quite firm enough and were hard to eat out of the paper cups. I should have just left it as a pie. Oh well. Live and Learn.

 And then finally...
The Original Pin

http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2010/08/creamy-lemon-crumb-squares.html

I've had these pinned for forever. Cameron loves lemon bars, so I thought I'd try these out and see what he thought. They were scrumptious, but boy were they crumbly! 

The Pinstrosity

I mixed the crust/topping up and it just seemed too dry, so I added 2 additional tablespoons of butter. It still seemed dry, but I didn't want to add too much...for all I knew maybe it was supposed to be really dry. I'd never made these before, so I had no clue what I was looking for. I mixed the "filling" and poured it in, then sprinkled on the topping and popped it in the oven. When the timer yelled at me (mine is an excruciating whine...it was definitely designed so that it could not be ignored) I opened the oven and the crust didn't look like it'd changed at all, so I left it in longer. 10 min later there was still no change, but I didn't want to overdo anything so I pulled them out. They were super tasty, but they were so incredibly crumbly. I think next time I'll keep adding butter until the crust/topping consistency is more tacky and less dry. But they were scrumptious and Cameron heartily approved of them.

So there's a few yummy pins all tested for you guys. I'd make any of them again, they were fantastic and made for a fun meal. Thanks for sharing it with us Em and Chip!