Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Pinterest Cooking, Week 2

I know I am a few days late getting my reviews to you all, but this week was a little crazy.  My mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer the end of last week and so I have been busy going to different doctor's appointments with her this week.  On a good note, she did get good news that it is at its earliest stage (stage zero), she has a 98% survival rate and as of now she won't need any chemotherapy, just radiation.  So here is what I experimented with this week.....
I attempted these taco cups.  They are figure friendly with 93 calories per wrapper and only .5 gram of fat.  I topped them with sour cream and veggies.  They are something that you can do really quick.  You could even prepare the meat ahead of time and just bake them for 10 mins.  One thing that I did to make sure the meat didn't dry out was I added somewhere between 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup of taco sauce to the taco seasoned meat.  

These were delish.  I made the cinnamon crisps myself and I didn't veer from the directions at all.  A healthy dessert and I will be making these again!  You can find the recipe HERE!

 
This was also a very good recipe.  I added streamed broccoli and grilled chicken.  Another quick and easy recipe and if you are a pasta/Italian cuisine lover, like myself and the hubs, you will enjoy this dish.  Find it HERE!


We are finishing our basement and my parents have been staying each weekend with us because my Dad is doing the drywall work along with a LONG laundry list of other things.  With that said, he loves Outback's Chocolate Lava Cake.  I baked mine in the oven and everyone was very pleased with it.  I served it with vanilla ice cream, whip cream and chocolate fudge sauce. Here is the recipe : Use chocolate cake mix that requires oil, make cake mix, pour into pampered Chef deep dish covered baker, 1 can chocolate frosting - split into 6 dollops, cook in microwave for 15 mins uncovered. = molten lava cake! 

This past week I was all about being easy.  These were easy.  Very delectable and easy!  Get the recipe HERE!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

5 Days of Pinterest, Week 1

In my last blog post I wrote that I was going to do a little experiment for the next four weeks using recipes off Pinterest.  I was inspired by a Pinterest party that I went to two weeks ago.  So here is what I tried this week.....


This recipe for lemonade was really good.  The only thing that I changed was, I added more water.  The recipe only calls for you to add 3/4 of a cup of water to the 1/4 cup of lemon syrup.  I thought that it was way too strong for my liking so I doubled the amount of water I added to the syrup.  It was a hit at my monthly Girl's Night event this week!  You can find the recipe  HERE.

The second thing I tested this week, were these Apple Enchilada's that I also served on our monthly Girl's Night event this week.  I used Trader Joe's homemade tortilla's and I thought they were very nice.  I also doubled the amount of apple pie filling that I used.  You can find the recipe HERE!  They were a very nice dessert!

Cajun Chicken Pasta was what was for dinner Tuesday night, I loved this.  I accidentally put the wrong spice in, so I am interested to try it again without the extra spice and see if it is even better.  This was a very quick and easy recipe.  It makes a ton and I am sure that it freezes lovely.  Because of the extra spice that I added I chose not to keep it.  It is very figure friendly also!  You can find the recipe HERE!



















Another thing that I tried for Girl's Night was a slider bar.  I combined both of these recipes together to make one Turkey Burger with Cranberry Sauce.  They were my husbands favorite. From HERE, which is the picture on the left I used the cranberry sauce recipe.  Which was excellent and very easy to make.  It is also something that you can make ahead.  It grains flavor as it sits in the fridge so it is something that you can make and then clean the mess up before your guests arrive.  From the picture on the right, I used the actual burger recipe, you can find it HERE.  They were very moist burgers and had tons of flavor.  For the cranberry sauce that they tell you to add to the actual meat mixture, I kept the "garbage" part of the cranberry sauce (the seeds and chunks of berries that were left over after you strained the mixture and got the sauce) and added it in for some texture.

The fifth and final recipe for this week is Eva Longoria's Chicken Tortilla soup, which I am making this evening and will blog about it tomorrow morning!

Friday, July 13, 2012

Pinterest 5x's a Week!

This week my friend Cristal hosted what she calls a "Pinterest Party".  The whole concept is that each person makes a dish or drink that they, have pinned.  They are also suppose to give a short run down of pros and cons.  So, I have been inspired to blog my own personal "Pinterest Party" for the next four weeks.  I will make at least five things a week from Pinterest and give you a run down on how everything went.  You can find me HERE where you can try things that I haven't tried, or try things that I have already tried and not blogged about!  I am excited about this new series and look forward to cooking these different dishes and sharing all the pro and cons with you all!

Here is what we tried at our " Pinterest Party".  BTW this will not count as my five for this week, so YOU will actually get more for your money this week!

I made these Hawaiian Sammies:  The recipe calls for Swiss cheese, but I do not like Swiss, so I chose to use Provolone instead.  The recipe was a hit with the girls and very easy to make.  Assembly took about 5 minutes to do.  The honey mustard sauce probably took the same and you bake them for 20 minutes.  So These were probably done in 30 minutes give and take a few.



 You can find the recipe HERE.

Cristal made Skinny Pool Side Dip.  I actually made this for the 4th and it was a hit.  It is very figure friendly and weight watchers savvy!  I thought it was very easy to make it didn't even take me 30 minutes to throw it together!

You can find the recipe HERE.

Jessica made this Spinach Artichoke Pasta.  It was delicious!  In my opinion a great way to get kids to eat their veggies!  I am not a big fan of artichoke hearts, but I didn't even know they were in there.  She said that the worst part of this dish was thawing and straining the spinach.  But besides that, everything turned out great and it was pretty easy!

You can find the recipe HERE.


Celeste made these pizza roll ups.  They were very good and she said they were very easy to make and very pocket friendly.  She substituted reduced fat rolls instead of just regular FULL fat rolls, to make they a little more figure friendly.

You can find the recipe HERE.

Elyse made these Peanut Butter Pretzel Buckeye's and man OH man were they good.  Rich, but GOOD!  She did say that the assembly was tiring.  It was quite a bit of work rolling all the peanut butter mixture into small balls, pressing the balls together between two pretzels and then finally dipping them all in chocolate.  But at the end of the day after all that work, they were very enjoyable.  The recipe did make a ton of these so I suggested that you split the peanut butter mixture in half right off the top.  Freeze it in the large zip lock bag and just save it for another day.  Then when you go to use it once it is thawed, I haven't tested this method, I am just suggesting that it could possibly be done, you could just cut the the corner of the zip lock bag and pipe out the mixture.  I will have to try my method and see if it works!
You can find this recipe HERE.

Savannah made Rotelle cups. 

These were a hit and she had no complaints about them.  You can find the recipe HERE.   

Stephanie made Cake Batter Chex Mix.  If you are a cake batter lover, you will love this stuff.  Most of the ingredients you will have in your house.
You can find the recipe HERE.


Thursday, June 21, 2012

Master Suite????? I SURE Think So :)

So here are some before pictures, the furniture placement was a little different.  I only had the furniture in this placement for a small period of time.

Please don't mind the pile of towels!

And now........
I painted the wall red to match my pillows and valances.  I love a little pop of color!  I got rid of the collage picture frame and created my own collage with different frames. 
I also wanted to put just pictures of us since we have been married, rather than all wedding photos!

So I showed you my pillow inspiration and decided that instead of pillows I would rather have canvas signs on each of our night stands!  I also replaced our lights with smaller lamps and to tie in the gold and burlap, I purchased a golden brown burlap shade!
Please ignore the paint.  I am not finished with the tray!  I found this "Love goes on and on" poster sign at T.J. Maxx.  I was so excited to find something that was perfect size for the top of our armour.
I added this book case so that there was something under our television.  I had a very small table, but I just didn't feel like it did the trick!

I love the white canvas with white writing!

I didn't do anything to the chair in front of the window instead of adding one other pillow and rearranging the setting of them!
I also found this glass vase at T.J.Maxx for $6.99.  The book in the middle is our guest book from our wedding.  I bought it at a small boutique when we were in Canada.  It is very chic and sophisticated.  My absolute favorite piece from our wedding!  I also went with a slightly lighter shade of gold on the other walls, I didn't want the room to be too dark, once I added in the red.
My inspiration for burlap runners, was a picture that I posted in my previous post of a burlap table runner.  I was going to use regular colored burlap, but that was all they had so I went with cream on cream.
I purchased this little corner tower at Home Goods!  I used to keep a basket in the corner with Josh's daily stuff in it, but it just didn't work out!  So I decided to try something different!
My whole inspiration came from this little valance.  I found it at Lowe's and instantly feel in love!

I am so pleased with the way that everything turned out!  I really do feel like we have a master suite instead of a just a bedroom and bathroom! 


Friday, June 15, 2012

I'm BACK, and man does it feel GOOD!

Sorry for the couple of months gap between posts, life has just been very hectic since March, but things are finally starting to slow down a little for now.  So I am back at it.  I will give you a little run down on how the past few months went. 

March:  It started out well, I turned 26 on the 7th and had a good birthday.  I blogged about my brand new mixer, which has become my latest and greatest bestie!.  Then on the 24th Savannah, Elyse and I traveled to IKEA.  I scored a ton of stuff, but kind of had a rough night.  I am epileptic and had a seizure that night.  The rest of the month is all kind of a blur.
I hosted Easter dinner for my parents, his parents, my grandma and our brothers and sisters.  We offically had our very first visit from the Easter Bunny and egg hunt.



April:  My Mom, grandmother and I all traveled to Asheville, North Carolina.  To see Biltmore in the Spring.  It was gorgeous.  The azalea gardens were in full bloom and the colors were literally breath taking.  I could have stayed there all spring.  The wisteria was in full bloom and so beautiful.  I could see that house over and over and over again.  I can't wait to go back in the fall and at Christmas sometime! 

Mittens had her first birthday and we celebrated by baking every one of our four legged, furry friends pup/kitty kakes!



May:  May was the craziest of them all.  May for us around here starts off the first weekend with Derby.  We spent the day at Phillip and Anna's house.  The next week was when the poo poo hit the fan.  My mom left for Orlando, for business, on Derby day.  I was suppose to go with her, but I was worried that my bestie, Stacey, would go into labor while I was gone and I wouldn't get to welcome my favorite baby into this world.  So I stayed home and man was it a good thing.  Wednesday night, 5/9/12, I get multiple phone calls from my grandmother, but don't answer because I was tired from cleaning all day and allowing my brain to go to mush by marathoning old Sex and the City episodes I got for Christmas,but that is besides the point.  Josh comes up banging on the back door, he says to me " You need to call your grandma, your Dad is having a heart attack."  I freaked out.  When I say freaked, I mean FREAKED.  I was totally consumed by thoughts of, OMGOSH and OMGOSH my sister is alone with him, and ARE YOU KIDDING ME!  So the rest on that night we spent in the hospital waiting for test to be ran and later for him to get a private room.  So, before I ever even left the house  Thursday morning, Daniel, Stacey's husband called and said that her water had broke and they were at the hospital. I was having my own stuff to deal with, I had to go to my parents, pack my Dad a bag, because when he went into the hospital all he had on was work clothes, go to Starbucks because I was running on, oh about 5 1/2 hours of sleep, and then get my Mother at the airport by 9:00 am.  When we got to the hospital the Thoracic surgeon came out and explained to us that he had over a 90% blockage in his left artery and if another piece of plaque had fallen off he would have had a massive heart attack and maybe not survived.  They placed a stint in his heart and he is good as gold now.  Baby Ella Brooke Bonney was born Thursday evening around 11 pm and because of all the craziness in my own family, I regrettably never made it to see her at the hospital anyway :( So all of that went down between Wednesday and Thursday.  Also Thursday afternoon I had to pick up a cake at Sam's, because I was having a graduation party AT MY HOUSE on Saturday.  My very supportive parents showed up to dinner and the ceremony on Friday and again at the party on Saturday.    The last part of the month also threw us for a loop when my neurologist explained that the seizure in March, could potentially hinder our ability for having children, but that is a whole other day. 


So, I know it was long and drug out but that is what I have been up to! 

With all of that said, I have honestly stayed very positive and very knowing that God has a plan for my family.  There are days when Joshua and I struggle to find common ground through this current family trial.  So, I am redirecting all of that energy into PROJECTS!

All week this week I have been redoing our bedroom.  I never really put a whole lot of thought and effort into our bedroom.  I was tired of just having a bedroom, I wanted a Master Suite!  Something that you can find on Pinterest.  I am not finished yet so I can not show you my big reveal.  But I will show you my inspiration! 




There are a few of my inspirational pieces.  I can't wait for you all to see the before and after pics!  Sorry this post was so long there was just a lot of catching up to do!