Who's with me on this one!? I LOVE Pinterest, I love the ideas I have found, I love how helpful it is with photography, cooking, crafting, quotes, the ideas are endless. I do not find myself on there for hours because, well, I do not have hours to give to it. But I'm pushing 100 pins and decided it is important to try what I am pinning.
My plans for hanging artwork of the kids is still pending - I fear the frames will be expensive. But I found a really cool wall in the house where it will certainly work. I have also started to collect the pictures to hang :) I've been thinking about sizes and how we'll hang them too.
But for this blog, here's what I've got: Banana bread, apple rings, chicken marsala, cleaning solution, inspiration bowl and picture frames. The bread, apple rings and chicken came from sources online. The bowl came from a craft project at work and the frames... well that was all me! I will post the recipes within this blog, keep scrolling if you'd like to go past them:
Let's talk through the recipes first - I am looking for some serious help in the crafting department.
So once a year Chris has a Holiday party in January. Every year my in laws come watch the kid(s). So I always want to try a new recipe with them. This year it was Chicken Marsala, garlic green beans and chocolate banana bread. I found the cooking wine at a really great liquor store called Knotty Vines. The girl there was incredibly helpful as I was completely clueless. (I haven't had any sort of alcoholic drink since before Sophia was concieved). Anyways, I had had Chicken Marsala for the first time only a month earlier and found it SO GOOD. So I gave it a shot. And guess who liked it?! Everyone. At least they said they did :) And I sure did. Anytime I can add mushrooms to a recipe, I am a happy camper. And they are big enough that if you don't care for them, you don't have to eat them. Give it a shot, it is so worth it. And the expert at the wine store said that I could keep the remainder of the Marsala Wine in the fridge for months and months, so it wasn't a one time recipe.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 25 minutes
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients:
- 4 boneless chicken breast halves without skin
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon dried leaf basil
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 to 8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
- 1/2 cup Marsala wine
Preparation:
Pound chicken to 1/4" thickness between 2 sheets of plastic wrap. Combine flour, salt, pepper, and basil; mix well. Heat oil and butter in a heavy non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Dredge chicken in seasoned flour mixture. Cook chicken until lightly browned on first side, about 2 to 3 minutes. Turn chicken and add mushrooms around the chicken pieces. Cook about 2 minutes longer, until lightly browned; stir the mushrooms. Add Marsala wine to pan. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer 10 minutes. Serve this easy chicken with hot cooked pasta, mashed potatoes, or rice.
And now the banana bread. Oh my goodness. This was so so so good. I used Gherrardelli chocolates - even better! It was moist and delicious. The only thing I would have done differently is not mixed the chocolates into the batter. I would have instead put them on the top and let them sink in. When sliced, the bread was much darker and much chocolaterier on the bottom from the heavy chocolate chips.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 cup roughly mashed baby bananas, about 5 bananas
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup plain whole milk yogurt or sour cream
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter an 8-1/2" x 4-1/2" loaf pan and set aside. Sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda and set aside.
- Put the butter, honey, sugar, salt and cinnamon in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream the mixture on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 5 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, add the bananas and vanilla on medium speed until the mixture looks broken, 1 minute. The bananas should be smashed, with a few small chunks remaining.
- Turn the speed to medium-low and paddle in the egg until incorporated, 5 seconds. Turn the speed to low and gradually add the sifted flour mixture, mixing just until no traces of flour remain, 10 seconds. Add the yogurt and mix until the batter has a few remaining white streaks, 5 seconds. Gently fold in the chocolate chips, if desired. Be sure to avoid over-mixing. You can also mix everything by hand in the order listed above.
- Transfer the batter to the greased pan and bake in the center of the oven until a tester comes out clean, 45 minutes. Cool the bread in the pan for 5 minutes, then unmold and cool completely on a rack
Next up; I just made these this last week. It is from a blog called "Eat Yourself Skinny." I think that the poster and I could be great friends. Except she lives somewhere in the south. And that would be creepy that I am stalking her to be my friend. So she'll be my inspiration for recipes instead. I gave up "junk" food for Lent this year. Although I consider myself Lutheran/Catholic, I wanted to really challenge myself in something that I believe was toxic to my body. Don't get me wrong, I've already got a bag of the delicious Cadburry chocolate eggs waiting for me and I will be purchasing a tube of BBQ Pringles the day after Easter. But for now, I will be riding myself of the unneccessary :) So that brings me to Apple Peanutbutter Granola Rings. SO GOOD. I loved making the granola myself too, I hadnt done that before. They almost tasted like the cinnamon pecans you can buy. Here is my suggestion; they are not going to stay crispy long - the granola and the apple get soggy. So if you are making it to serve, make it just before you serve it. Or skip the whole "Ring" and slice up a small apple, slap on a small amount of PB and dunk it for your snack. Keep the granola in an air tight container. Hey, even Chris ate them!
1 cup Cinnamon-Pecan Granola (recipe below)
1/4 cup natural-style peanut butter
1 Tbsp. honey
2 red or green apples, cored and cut into 6 rings
Cinnamon-Pecan Granola:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp water
2 tsp. canola oil
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 cup uncooked old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Cooking spray
To make the granola:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Combine brown sugar and 1 Tbsp water in a medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at HIGH 30 seconds or until sugar is dissolved. Stir in oil and cinnamon. Add oats and pecans, stirring until coated. Spread oat mixture on a large rimmed baking sheet coated with cooking spray.
Bake at 300 degrees F for 30 minutes or until browned, stirring twice. Spread mixture in a single layer on wax paper to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
For apple rings:
Place 1 cup of the granola mixture in a small dish. Combine peanut butter and honey in a small bowl, stirring until smooth. Spread mixture evenly on 1 side of each apple slice. Sprinkle evenly with granola.
So I was noticing my Pinterest home page and someone had pinned a cleaning solution. For some reason our master bath shower gets some build up on the floor that I can seem to get rid of 100%. I think it is the tiling that was used to line the shower. But this was just "eh" in it's results. It didnt smell so bad and it was safe for the kids to breath so that was cool - and it worked on the sinks and such as a cleaner. But I have not refilled the spray bottle and went back to other solutions. So if any of you have a suggestion for a great cleaner to tackle build up, I'd be up for hearing about it! (and I have no idea why you are supposed to warm up the vinegar, but I did as I was told).
Heat up 1 cup of vinegar nuke it for 2 minutes. Then pour it in your spray bottle, add an equal amount of blue Dawn (the website comments were pretty specific about getting the blue kind), shake gently, and it should be ready to go!
Craft time! I have been really wanting to make those fabulous quotes into some sort of old wood artwork. I was noticing, I have this cool piece of wood above my kitchen sink and the quote is simple "Don't worry / Be Happy" - I paid $20 for it at Hallmark. If I could get the hang of the stenciling then I could easily make them too!
Anyways, at work we had a team building event where we go to work on some sort of craft. I thought I'd share the idea. It is basically an inspiration bowl of rocks.
- You will need a bag of the marbles you'd see in a vase or fish tank, be sure they are flat on one side (and somewhat transparent).
- Print off your favorite words in different fonts and sizes - OR I think it would be really cool if you cut out words from magazines - for sure.
- Another cool thing - since this was for work I added in a few different exercises I could do as a quick break. Or you could do bible versus, or theme it up if you're giving it as a gift.
- Anyways, so you just put a dab of glue on the flat part of the rock and place it over your word.
- Let it dry and cut as close to the rock as possible with scissors. Then you can take some paint and paint over the back of the paper so it looks cool in the jar either way it is flipped.
- Finally you can put some varnish of some sort to give it a shimmer
- I was told that when you are struggling with something you pull out a rock and you'll get your answer. Funny story, Chris and I were play fighting about the dishes or something in the kitchen and I said, well I'm just going to draw a rock then... what one did I grab? "Fight" - haha, I took that as don't give up - and he washed the pans :) I was hoping he would have drawn the "bicep curls" or something :)
Lastly, I have these Mod Podge picture frames I've been working on. I have a few people in my life who are expecting babies - and I wanted to come up with some cool way to put a quote on a frame. The only problem is, I dont know how to get the quote on the frame and I dont want to ruin the look of the frame. I've bought a lot of different wood and scrapbook paper. I cut up the paper and glued them on - and Mod Podged over it. I thought it turned out pretty cool. But this is just a start :)
I also have a couple of ideas to incorporate with photography. I've been so grateful and lucky lately. A couple of really great gals have asked me to take pictures of their kids! I feel so honored that they think I am good enough to do so! And am SO excited. So I want to incorporate a little something special with the pictures. AND i'll need to turn more seriously to Pinterest to helping me out with posing, lighting and outdoor shots. I really do love taking pictures, just need a little more hands on practice!
So that's what I've got for you - thanks for reading, please share anything ideas you have. And as I accomplish things that I've pinned to my super secret board I'll show you! I hope you've found some inspiration or can fill your tummy a bit after this!
