A Major Pinterest Win for me

Did you see this Pin going around?

The link is here, at the genius Moey's Heart and Hearth. This is an amazing tutorial on how to decorate a cake with a character. I think this has to be the BEST thing I've ever found on Pinterest.

My four year old wanted a Dora cake (coincidentally). So I followed the tutorial and here are my results:

The Dora turned out so good people couldn't believe I made it. Now I just need to figure out how to make my handwriting better!

And in quick Pinterest recipe news... these two recipes were really good. I served them together tonight:

Tomato Basil Soup

And Butternut Squash Mac N Cheese

Pinterest Report #5

This is going to be a quick one. Our house was taken over by Croup so there hasn't been much sewing or cooking going on. Just a lot of sick baby care. The good news is that we are on the upswing so things should get a little more interesting around here soon.

First off - the bad. The original pin:

Honey Garlic Pork Chops.  Mine came out totally bland and boring. But - I followed the directions! As I'm reading the comments and how much people loved them I see that everyone either baked them or marinated them. Neither was on the original directions. I baste them and Mr. FO grilled them. So maybe they would have had much more flavor if they had marinated or cooked in their own juices. I probably won't be trying again to find out. These were so boring no one even wanted the leftovers (unheard of in this house!!).

The good:

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken with Fried Rice. Okay, I didn't get to make the fried rice because this was the night I had to take Evan to the doctor with his horrible cough. But I'm sure it's pretty good. It looks like other fried rice recipes I've made before.

The chicken though - was amazing! It definitely tastes like fast food chinese, but not greasy or aftertastey (yeah, i just made that word up).  I had to smack the vultures away from the pan in order to have enough for leftovers. It will definitely be made again. And we just ate it with the jasmine rice I had prepped for the Fried Rice. Totally yummie.

And again I have to plug a pin that I posted myself. If you like "high end" Chinese food. You know what I'm talking about right? The stuff from the really good sit down restaurants?  You have to check out this book.

I have easily made a half dozen recipes or more from it and every one has been THE BEST Chinese food I've ever made/eaten. If you want to try a recipe from the book, this is the one that hooked me:

Honey Walnut Shrimp. Seriously unbelievably good! Let me know if you make it, or any of the recipes i've pinned.

Sewing night and other small projects.

I went to a sewing night with PMQG at Round Bobbin the other night. There were 6 of us there and it was a lot of fun.

You may remember that I have been looking for the perfect fabric for my Neptune baby quilt. I wasn't feeling the Gray or White even though the Gray won out on the poll I posted.

Teal and Coral were suggested. I ordered Everglade but that wasn't striking me either (it will however look really good with Prince Charming so I know it won't be wasted).

So then I ordered Kona Flesh, but it is definitely too pinky for me. Not enough of the coral color.

So that was my number one job at the quilt shop, to find fabric for this quilt. Anna helped me find a great fabric, the grungy prints from Basic Grey for Moda. There is definitely some perks to shopping for fabrics in person and with friends!

It's hard to photograph well, but I think it's going to be great with those fabrics.

I didn't get to work on that quilt friday night. I spent my night doing my mock up block for the 4x6 bee. I had this block picked out for the summer session that never happened. Since I was lucky enough to get into the paper piecing group again, I tested my block in my colors. It's pretty time consuming, but I love it and think it will be a great block for my bee.

And this next one is kind of random, but I don't have enough to do a full Pinterest report and we did talk about it at the sewing night (haha!). I had a major Pinterest fail last week. Have you seen this pin about hemming jeans?

I was excited to try this and did two pairs of my jeans. It was super quick and I was thrilled. Until I washed them. These were good Gap jeans (though a few years old). They came out like this....

Three problems: holes(!), fraying and the hem flips up.  Reading over her comments some suggested serging or zigzag stitching the part that you cut. That would take care of the fraying and possibly the holes. But I don't know how you keep the hem from flipping up?  At any rate, I would recommend finding a good private tailor. Mine charges $7 for hems on jeans. Totally worth it as my jeans will now need to be capris or shorts. sigh.

Pinterest Report #4

This one is all recipes again. But before I get started, have you seen this website? Pinstrosity.blospot.com?  So funny. They post peoples attempts at making stuff from Pinterest. This post in particular had me laughing out loud at my computer.

So, what did I do this week?

Southwest Egg Rolls with Avocado Ranch dressing. These were  big hit. And surprisingly, they are meatless! Mr. Fabric Obsessed doesn't usually go for meatless and he was very satisfied with these. And I've been using the dressing for my salads since then. One thing I will say is that it makes a lot! I wound up freezing half of it so hopefully it freezes well. I'm looking forward to having it again.

Grilled Balsamic-Garlic Pork Tenderloin. Also another big hit. Although like she says in her post, it's hard to mess up Pork Tenderloin!  This one was even good re-heated (since there is only two of us we had leftovers). Another recipe I will make again!

And finally:

Tequila Orange Grilled Shrimp. This one had me nervous as I was making it. My fingers were burning from chopping the jalapenos (next time I will wear gloves!). And the pepper smell as the sauce was reducing was catching in the back of my throat and making me choke. I totally thought it was going to be too hot for me to handle. But it was surprisingly good!! Just warm spice-wise and really good. Even Mr. FO went back for seconds. Another one for the recipe book! Since I love making shrimp, I can never have too many recipes.

Pinterest Report #3

That would be awesome!

So here's what I've done recently from Pinterest. All recipes this week.

The first recipe is from BHG.com and is for Spicy Buffalo Chicken Salad. I have to admit I was pleased to see a recipe from a site with ratings and lots of reviews. Made me feel much better about making it!

I was nervous about how this was going to go over because the 'salad' part is cabbage. But it's got blue cheese and hot sauce on it so it was pretty awesome. I totally took the lazy way out with this recipe. First off I used a bag of coleslaw mix. Then, I had leftover rotisserie chicken so I used that and marinated it then warmed it on the stovetop. Its probably even better with real grilled chicken. Hubby ate it and had seconds (that's the true test you know, seconds).

The next recipe was Crispy Southwest Chicken Wraps.

This was what I had originally bought the rotisserie chicken for. I went light on the sour cream so mine were a little dry. But I brought out the salsa and they were pretty good. I would definitely add some guacamole next time. But like she says on her website, these are really flexible and can be changed up a lot. Another good recipe.

A quick one that I did along with my pasta sauce was for Rosemary Olive Oil Bread similar to that at Macaroni Grill. I cheated on this one too. I made it like the Crockpot Bread from the other week with premade dough. Because I did it that way, the rosemary wound up more marbled than throughout the bread. It was still VERY yummie!

The last one was a mixed bag. It's Shells with Pesto Peas and Sundried tomatoes.

I made this because I had a ton of pesto from Costco. I thought it was excellent. But as usual, when I try to make a meatless meal, hubby is not happy. He ate this and liked it, but then finished off the leftover Buffalo chicken!  This made a lot so I would either save it for a party or cut it in half or even a quarter to use as a side.

So there is my All Done report from Pinterest! 

Pinterest Report #2

I tried a bunch of different things this week from Pinterest. First off was actually a sewing project.

This is the tutorial for that shirt. It's a simple tutorial and easy to follow. I of course screwed it up! I decided to use voile instead of knit. I'm still kinda scared of knit and I figured voile would be flowy enough. Wrong.  Listen to what the pattern designer tells you. There are reasons.  Here is my voile version.

It's hard to tell in the photo, but the shirt part of it sticks out like I've got crinoline in it! It's not heavy enough to hang nicely. Same with the sleeves. And as I've already got broad shoulders (see the Liverpool Shirt)  it's not a good look for me. Here's a blurry shot, but you can see the shoulders.

Again, the fabric isn't heavy enough to drape nicely. It was such a simple pattern that I might try it again in knit. But I need to find a good source for knits. My local Joann's only seems to have yucky colors. And I'm also feeling a little discouraged with all these shirts I have that I can't wear!

For the Home:

This pin has a bit of confusion with it. It was pinned with "Keep one in the shower filled with a mixture of half vinegar and half Dawn dishsoap. Use it to wipe down the shower while you are in there and your shower will always be clean. Must try this!" When I follow the link to give credit here, the guy who's blog it is talks nothing about this!

Well, it is an okay idea. First off, if you do it, make sure you put the Dawn in there first or all the vinegar will run out. Also make sure you have someplace to prop it upright in your shower or again, all the vinegar will run out. I haven't used this much, but it seems to work. I may just start using the dishsoap without the vinegar.

Along the same lines, I thought I would share my own pin that I added as a result of this. It goes to this link. It's for a daily shower spray and it reduces the frequency with which you have to clean your shower. this one totally works! I've been using it for almost a year now.

The other pin I tried I can't find anymore. That's probably a good thing because it was a dud. The pinner talked about using your wall air freshener (the outlet plug kind) to use with essential oils instead of the toxic stuff that comes with it. Good idea in theory.  She says all you have to do is pull out the "wick" dump the stuff and replace it.

 

Mine is a Yankee Candle brand as you can see. I had the toughest time pulling out the wick. I had to get pliers and wear rubber gloves (to keep my hands from smelling for days). Once the wick was out it kind of broke and puffed up like crazy. You can see it in the above photo. It's kind of orange. I had a hard time stuffing it back in the bottle. I used an Orange essential oil and I had a scent in there previously that smelled like laundry. Now it just smells like orange laundry. **eyeroll**  I would recommend just going to your local health store and getting the oil warmer that is with the essential oils.

Hope you've found this helpful. I've got a couple recipes that I'm trying this week. I'll be back with reviews on those soon!