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."

Reruns

After we post up a Pinstrosity here on the blog, sometimes we never see another submission from that same pin. And then there are the pins that I'm sure we'll always be getting submissions on as long as we're running the blog. These are the classics and they never fail to make me chuckle. These submissions are like watching reruns of Napoleon Dynamite...that movie never gets old and gets more and more funny every time we watch it. So today, I thought I'd give you some of these "reruns" of old Pinstrosity classics and the fresh submissions we've received for them. 

The Original Pin:

http://queenvannacreations.com/blog//2012/02/01/ice-ballons/

Colorful ice balls. Great for lining the walk for a winter party. 

The Original Pinstrosity Post:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2013/01/food-coloring-explosion.html

There are easier ways to repaint your kitchen. 

This past January, after a lake effect storm up north, Jenn decided to give these a try.

"So here's my attempt at the ice ball thing. I had it all planned out.. even had a good balloon delivery system (BDS) to ensure that there was no chance that the food coloring ended up anywhere else in the house. Fun fact... I don't use liquid food coloring.. only Wilton gel... after the 1st one ending up all over the wall and sink I went to plan B... the toothpick delivery was amusing.. and the faucet is finally starting to run clear now. Yes dear neighbors, I'm the crackhead making multiple trips outside with no jacket in sub zero temps to deliver my little landmines to their happy homes in the snowbanks. Do you know what happens when you have wet hands and go to open the door back inside? Dude! I'd also like to blame you people for the looks I will be getting for the next few days with my purply red blue green hands.. but we both know that's not the 1st time... so I can't blame you for that one.

Pinterest ice balls the next day... its -8 and I tried them.. they are all very hard. I cut the balloon off the red one and it seemed okay... peeled it back to the immediate glug glug glug of the non-frozen inside pouring out..."

The "Rerun" Submission:

"So yea that will make people stare..heheh" I love that "bloody" balloon. Makes me laugh every time I look at it. Jenn did eventually have success though after 48 hours of the water balloons sitting out in the sub-freezing temperatures:

So, not a super quick and easy pin, but not unattainable either! 

What about those "[blank] in a jar" pins. We get quite a few of those. 

The Original Pin:

Rainbow cake in a jar! 

The Original Pinstrosity Post:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/06/sunshine-in-and-out-of-jar.html

Misty submitted our rerun of this classic Pinstrosity. She said, "Rainbow cake in a mason jar fail!  I think I added too much batter.  I wasn't sure exactly how close to the top it was supposed to be when I put it in the oven.  The pin said to use 3 tbsp of each color.  It didn't look like enough, so I added a little bit more.  Guess I'll learn to trust the recipes from now on. "

The "Rerun" Submission:

So we have the "[blank] in a jar" pin...what about the "[blank] in a mug" pins? Those are classics too. 

The Original Pin:

http://www.number-2-pencil.com/2012/03/06/chocolate-chip-cookie-in-cup/

The Original Pinstrosity Post:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2013/06/cookie-in-mug.html

Elizabeth tells this story: "I should've known. Anything that is "quick and easy" and can be cooked in a microwave? I'll be there. I wanted to make a quick delicious cookie but I should've realized that the "Brownie In a Mug" that I made in 5th grade would've ended up just as horrible. I made a brownie in a mug for my brother's birthday, and being the boy that he is, he will eat anything that has chocolate in it. Later that evening, he threw up. Coincidence? I think not. This "Cookie" ended up tasting like frito corn chips and tons of white sugar. It ended up as a crummy mess. The recipe stated that it needed only 40-60 seconds, but it was way undercooked when I pulled it out. I kept putting it back in, and now I have this."

The "Rerun" Submission:

"I think microwave deserts have a thing against me."

And of course if we are going to mention cookies, we can't leave out the ever present and totally awesome cookie bowl. 

The Original Pin

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Sugar-Cookie-Bowls 

Sadly...too many people just read the pinterest pin's caption and not the recipe on the website and end up with this:

The Original Pinstrosity:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/03/cookie-bowl-mayhem.html
http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/10/cookie-bowl-mayhem-take-2.html

Cali sent us in this rerun submission. "So I thought it'd be a great idea to make these cookie bowls that I saw on pinterest to put a no bake cheesecake mousse into for my roommates and I to enjoy, but it just ended up being a ridiculous mess. Note to self, do not use a "just add water" pre made cookie mix if you are trying to be creative. I ended up chiseling off the cookie on the pan and crumbling it up to use it as a crust for my cheesecake mousse on the bottom of muffin paper. Whatever, still tasted the same so I say it's a 3 on the GCT scale!"

The "Rerun" Submission:

And then there's one of my favorites. This hails back to the very beginning of Pinstrosity with one of our first posts. 

The Original Pin:

http://blog.hwtm.com/2012/01/diy-tutorial-creative-yarn-chandelier/

The Original Pinstrosity:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/02/bunch-of-hot-air.html

Melanie says, "My friends and I just moved into a new suite and the blank white walls were desperately in need of some decoration. My suitemate saw this craft and asked if I would try it. I bought balloons and glue and got out my utilitarian brown yarn and skimmed the directions…big mistake. Turns out, in order for this to work, you need to mix the glue with corn starch and water. And you need to dip the yarn in the glue mixture, not coat the balloon with it. When I popped the balloon, the whole thing crumpled. It was a sad sight to behold. I hung it up anyway, as a testament to the necessity of reading directions."

The "Rerun" Submission:

Oh these make me chuckle, I love it! I could add so many more, but you probably weren't looking for an epistle to read today. That just means we'll have to do another "rerun" post in the future. Oh darn.

Have a Pinstrosity on your hands, but we've already posted someone else's submission of the same project? Send it to us anyway! 

Doggone Cute Cupcakes

I am a pet person. Like REALLY a pet person. Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for my Husband who IS NOT a pet person) we live in an apartment. One day I will have my Irish Wolfhounds, a big back yard and my one sassy cat.

 

Until that day I live vicariously through Pinterest whose obsession with pets 1) Can be a bit alarming  2) Sometimes hilarious  3) Maybe a little over creative and 4) Awesome because pets are awesome and we love them to death. Also 5) Grumpy Cat...because I love her (my apologies Tardar Sauce, you are in fact a girl...misprint!).

http://blog.catmoji.com/2012/09/cat-of-the-week-10-tard-the-grumpy-cat/

 

 

Michell sent us this pin she made for a friends birthday. She said her friend really loves her West Highland White Terrier pooches.

 

If you don't know what that is...exhibit A:

http://blog.catmoji.com/2012/09/cat-of-the-week-10-tard-the-grumpy-cat/

 

Adorable right!?!

 

The Original

http://www.familycircle.com/recipes/desserts/decorate-playful-puppy-cupcakes/?page=1

 

Can I just say that people are SUPER inventive with cupcakes?!

 

Well Michell went to make these and first go round this happened...

 

 

The Pinstrosity

 

 

These puppies look more like an undercover Miss Piggy ( I think the eyes look like sunglasses lol)!

No worries, Michell had patience and persistence and tried again with MUCH better results!

 

The Pin-Win!

 

 

 

 

I think Michell's are WAY cuter than the original!

She said her kitchen was WAY to hot making all the icing melt on the cupcake AND the proportions of the ingredients weren't a good match.

She changed up some of the supplies, cooled down the kitchen and went to work. The size of the large marshmallows as the snout were way too big for her cupcakes, I think she either cut the marshmallow in half and used that as the base of the snout or just built the snout out of icing. Either way it looks awesome! Unfortunately you have to be subscribed to the original website to figure out all their design secrets, so she was going off a picture here! She did great (second go round), her final product turned out adorable!

 

Hope you all have a awesome Tuesday!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sensory FAIL

My nephew is incredibly active and curious. Toys and gadgets don't keep him entertained for long. He wants to be exploring, dismantling, jumping, and moving. The two things he'll sit still for are Elmo music videos and videos of himself. While this really is cute and funny, I know it wears my sister out. She is a trooper though and has worked hard to find activities for him to do that will help keep his attention, focus his curiosity, and let him explore things. She's found things that work well...she's found things that don't work (she's kept a log of the various toddler/baby activities, which you can find here). Anytime I see something cool on Pinterest for her to try out with her boy I tag her in it. She probably gets tired of her obnoxious childless (okay...technically I do have a child right now, but I'm not really raising him yet...just growing him) older sister sending her activities and links...but what is an older sister for but to annoy and meddle? Two traits I found I mastered in my life (I'm typing up my old journals from when I was a kid...if I weren't already pregnant that'd serve as a pretty good prevention technique). Today's post has an activity I would have definitely tagged and sent to her on Pinterest. It looks like a blast. Sarah thought it looked like a great idea as well. Bubble Wrap and shaving cream combined into a fun kid's activity? What could go wrong?! 

The Original Pin

http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/05/play-with-bubble-wrap-and-shaving-cream.html

Look how happy she is! It makes me want to play in shaving cream and bubble wrap. Ultimate slip and slide?! 

Sarah says, "I was trying to get creative with sensory activities for my boys. Enter, Pinterest's "The Bubble Wrap Sensory Slide". The picture of the adorable little girl looking thoroughly pleased and shrieking with joy as she played in the bubble wrap and shaving cream had me sold...Shame on me for thinking this seemingly effortless activity would turn out like it was supposed to AND that my kids would actually enjoy it.  I recruited my mom to bring us bubble wrap from work, went to the dollar store and stocked up on shaving cream and planned the showdown with the ever-fickle game of perfectly timing organized activities with nap time, meal time, potty time, daddy-comes-home time, bed time, etc. I put a notable amount of energy into making this deceptively uncomplicated project into a three-minute reality for my family."

"It is important to note that my children are familiar with both shaving cream and bubble wrap. This is how it played out:"

The Pinstrosity

I'll just give you Sarah's play by play in her own words:

• Laying out the bubble wrap on the grass really just involved me chasing it around the yard as it blew in the wind."
• It took more than five 12-oz cans of shaving cream for "desired effect".
• The kids wanted *nothing* to do with that strange mess mommy made on the ground.

• After I enthusiastically demonstrated what they were supposed to do by jumping up and down, popping bubble wrap with my feet and using my best supportive and overdone, over-zealous mom voice to encourage their participation (and realizing it is way harder than it looks to stand on slippery plastic covered in shaving cream), I picked up each boy and set them right on top of the bubble wrap and made them try it.
• My 16-month-old sprung right up and off the bubble wrap like a wind-up toy the second I set him down. I'm pretty sure he levitated; irate baby #1.

• My almost-3-year-old stood up and fell down and stood up again then tried to walk but the bubble wrap stuck to his feet as he tried to walk away and it "followed him" - you can feel the passion in his fury in these pictures. 

• The worst part of the bubble wrap sensory slide was every time you lifted your foot to walk or take a step, the bubble wrap would stick to your feet; it stuck to everything.
• It was over in three minutes.
• Side note: Food coloring plus children is a stupid idea.
• Thank you Pinterest, for underhandedly bringing me an experience of foolishness I never knew existed, in front of my children, husband and on-looking neighbors. Not cool, Pinterest...not cool.

Poor Sarah! All that hard work and excited anticipation for a let down. Magdelyn and Stephanie I'm sure could say, "I know how you feel!". Even though I don't have kids yet, I feel like I can commiserate as I do with with the teenage girls at church (I love them, but sometimes I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall). Having a highly anticipated activity flop is so disheartening. But kids' fickleness does have a plus...in a year, this activity could be the coolest thing those to boys can imagine. Or it could be a repeat trauma for all involved. I'd give out advice on how to help a kid like an activity like this or on how to try this activity again and making it a positive experience...but I'm pretty much a zero on the experience meter here. Oh I could make something up and still give out ideas and advice...but I don't imagine that'd be all that helpful, lol. Mom's out there...any suggestions?  

Emergency Crayon Candles

We love getting nerdy and going all "Science Fair Project" with some of our Pinstrosity investigations. It's just fun and it kinda makes you feel like a kid again. Who doesn't love a day when they get to feel like a kid? I always get excited when we have an email from one of you with a full out investigation into a Pinterest pin. When that happens it's like I found a kindred nerd spirit. I love that being a nerd is cool these days. The world needs more nerds. And I say nerd with all the love in my heart...I'm a nerd and I'm proud of it. But moving on. Bri decided to test out a pin that has flown around Pinterest to see if it was all it was cracked up to be. It involves fire and crayons...a project can't get better than that! Bri said we didn't have to include all her pictures...but I thought they helped illustrate her point perfectly, so this post is full of awesome crayon & fire photos. 

The Original Pin:

This particular picture I got at http://memecollection.net/emergency-crayon-fact/, but it has been posted on countless sites all over the internet. 

Bri didn't have Crayola's on hand, but she did have a variety of other brands and decided to give those a try and see how they worked. 

The Pinvestigation:

"So I started with a pink crayon, a lighter, and a paper plate."

"Getting the stupid thing to light was a joke and a half. It just kept melting the wax. Then I melted the point off enough that the paper started to burn." 

"It would tease me though and burn about 30 seconds then create this ashy gray stuff that I would have to scrape off. Then I would get it going again thinking 'this is going to work this time!' Just to have the crayon taunt me back by saying 'no way, you stupid! I can't believe this is what my life is!' Totally heard it in my head the whole time! 

  

"So I moved it aside to the crayon graveyard so I could try again!"

 "Attempt two came with a blue crayon. My husband started getting interested at this point and had the idea to shave off the top down to the paper and cut a slit in the paper to vent it out." 

"We had a flame that started to last a long time! By that I mean longer than 30 seconds. I did have some gross crayon juice bursting out but that's what the plate was for right?"

 "The gross crayon juice made a pretty fountain down the whole crayon the flame seemed to remain there until it got bigger and bigger."

"It got a little scary."

 "Then the burning blue flame of death fell over. It was still going strong though."

"Now we have only lapsed about 3 minutes of time here. All in all it lasted about 5 minutes and made a big scary mess more than anything." 

"We poured water on it so that it wouldn't burn through the plate. I was going to get this stupid thing to work."

"So we tried a third time with a purple crayon. This time no paper at all." 

"As we were lighting it the wax just kept melting. So with our melting wax we decided to put it to good use. We used the paper we ripped off the crayon and dipped it in the wax and the attached it the crayon. I know weird idea but we were at a loss!!" 

"Needless to say it didn't really work."

"So we went to the fourth try. We took a black crayon and put the point down on the plate in the melted purple wax."

"We also put a slit in the paper because that seemed to work before. Still would not work right." 

"SO then we decided that instead of lighting it from the top directly what about lighting it from the side. Guess what!? It WORKED!! It lit the top up and burned!!! It did lean on the other crayon but we had fire!" 

"I felt like I should have been a cave man hitting my chest jumping up and down! It was a great fire! We even roasted some gummy bears on it! (They weren't very good.)" 

"Now it burned for about 15 minute until it died. The purple crayon went with it. I have no idea where 30 minutes came in. It was pretty bright when we turned off the lights. Was it enough to do chores or cook with probably not. But it was a light of some sorts right? "

"So we decided to try it a fifth time with all we learned. So we went back with a pink crayon, with a slit, right side up this time, and lit it from the side."

"We had fire for about 30 seconds and then it died with a pink pool of wax..."

"So what did I learn from this mess? That crayons aren't really good for emergency lighting because it take A LOT of effort to do so. I would rate a 5 on the GCT scale. It did not go up in flames but should have!"

So, if the power goes out and you need light...don't reach for your kids' box of crayons (or your own, I have a few boxes of crayons myself). It's not worth the hassle. Unless you just want to kill time...and crayons. 

So what have we learned here on Pinstrosity about emergency lighting?  Crayons aren't the best option. Neither are oranges. But...bacon covered burgers might do the trick for you...only you'd have to prepare them in the dark. I think I feel a theme week coming on. Testing out all those "emergency fire" and "emergency lighting" pins that I've seen out there would be this redneck nerd's best week ever. Oh, now I'm super excited. Bri...you don't know what you started, bwahahahaha. 


Update; 1:48 pm, August 27, 2013: 
We've had some comments that the Pinvestigation isn't complete without testing Crayolas, as all crayons are not created equal. Bri didn't have Crayolas on hand to test, so she couldn't. I went and dug through my crayons and found I had two brands: Crayola and Crazy Art. So I tested those two. Here's how my test went:

1:32 pm: After 2 minutes of working with it, I finally got my first crayon (the purple Crayola) lit. I used an almost new crayon and had to get the point melted down to the paper before it would light. 
1:34 pm: I got the yellow Crazy Art crayon lit. I broke off the tip as close to the paper as I could so it didn't take as long to get lit as the first crayon. 
With both crayons I melted the bottom slightly so that it would stick to the plate and stand up better in case the table got bumped. It took me 5 matches (burning both ends on each stick) to get the two crayons lit. 

1:39 pm: The progress of the crayon candles. The yellow isn't doing so hot.

1:41 pm: The yellow crayon goes out and doesn't want to relight. It's done. Crayola purple crayon looks to be about 1/2 way burned.

1:49 pm: The purple Crayola is still burning, but it STINKS!

1:50 pm: The Crayola falls over, but is still burning.

1:51 pm: The Crayola goes out.

The purple crayon burned pretty completely. It has some crayon juice, as Bri called it, that pooled at the bottom, but most of that was from melting the point off in the beginning. Nearly all the wax burned out of the paper, as you can see in the photo below.

So, the Crazy Art burned for 7 minutes and the Crayola burned for 19 minutes. It had a good & steady flame. So one box of 16 Crayola crayons would give you about 5 hours of tedious "candle light". So, it does work...but it didn't burn for 30 minutes. And it was troublesome to get started. And it's stinky. And what a waste of a crayon. But in an emergency, with nothing else...it does work and you can get a small amount of light time out of them.