Orzo Inspiration

Does your mouth water while looking at picture after picture of delicious recipes on Pinterest?  I love reading the comments that people write.  "Tastes as good as Mama made" "Don't waste the calories" "Best....I've ever had", you get the drift.  One day while trying to figure out what was for dinner, I started going through the pantry and refrigerator.  I knew we were having a yummy garlic chicken, but what to go with it???  My kids like orzo and so do the husband and I...why not make some.  Easier said than done.  Plain orzo is just bits of pasta.  I wanted something to compliment my chicken.  I toasted some vermicelli, aka, broken pieces of angel hair, boiled the orzo and vermicelli together and went online for some inspiration or a recipe.  I typed in my ingredients and found this:

Creamy Garlic-Parmesan Orzo.  

Photo by Boomette

 
Sounded easy enough, I had the ingredients, but didn't want to use Parmesan.  We love Locatelli Pecorino Romano cheese...yummmmmmy!  I've never put onion in my orzo, but we went with the recipe and besides adding flavor, it added a new texture.  Next time, I think I'll add mushrooms too!  I added a few cloves of roasted garlic also to stick with my garlic themed dinner.

This dish was delish!!

Thanks again Pinterest for peeking my interest and inspiring a new dish in our home.

Yup, that's Pinteresting!

Dog Hair Squeege

http://bobben.tumblr.com/

  

Have you seen this Pin about squeegeeing your carpet for pet hair?  I did and I got pretty excited.  My dog sheds like crazy!!  I never graduated to a bag-less vacuum cleaner.  I'd like to, but mine still works and I see no point in replacing it...yet.  Probably 80% off what I pick up with my vacuum is dog hair, so why not try this technique?  I figure I'll be saving money by using less bags and I'll get a bit of an arm workout.  Win-win!!  This is also something that the kids can do.  Triple win!!!  Since I already own a couple of  squeegees that I purchased from my local hardware store, this Pinteresting technique costed $ZERO$ to try out.  We have to vacuum daily to collect the dog hair, so we had to wait till morning to try this hair removing technique.  I have to say, it does work, to an extent.  I still needed to vacuum, but I was able to pick up quite a bit of dog hair squeegeeing the carpet.  I have Berber carpets and Shag.  The squeegee technique definitely worked better on the Shag carpet, but again, we still needed to vacuum.  i'm curious to see how much longer we can get a vacuum bag to last now.....I usually replace mine every 10-12 days or so, so I'll let ya know.

Yup, that's Pinteresting!

Glittering Cotton

Two days prior to field day, my oldest daughter tells me she needs to make a field day shirt.
Me:  "Sounds like fun to me, what are you going to create?"
Daughter: "Oh, I'm not going to make it, you are."
Me: "Huh?"
Daughter: "Yea Mom, I have no idea how to do these things, it has to look good."
Me: "Let's go to the craft store and get some ideas"

Typical in our home, you tell me you NEED a craft done, I'm your Mom!!  I've never penalized my kids for coming to me last minute with a craft request.  I normally work best under pressure, so naturally I enjoy these kinds of tasks.  My first trip to the craft store cost about $80 in supplies.  Yes, I said $80!  Am I nuts??  I bought pens, glitter, paint, ribbon, felt, iron on letters, dye, beads, you name it I bought it, this shirt was going to rock!  Then once I collected my mind a bit, I got to thinking and I took back nearly everything except for the shirt, glitter and ribbon.  I actually bought an additional item: Alene's Fabric Fusion and used my 40% off coupon.

Total cost was still more than I would have liked to spend, about $30, but much better than my initial tour at the store.  I had to keep in mind that I now had supplies of these items for other projects and that made it a little easier on my budget conscience.  I am the budget minded one in our home, but when it comes to crafts...I can really blow it quick!

I decided to make a stencil of the letters my daughter wanted on her shirt and use the Fabric Fusion along with the glitter to create what would have been Iron on letters.  I bought micro-fine glitter thinking that the glue would encapsulate it and the glitter would stick to the shirt after wearing and washing.  Keep in mind I came up with this in the aisle, so I didn't know if it was going to work.  Is it possible that I've actually come up with a method all my own and on the fly??  I also cut slits in the sides of the shirt and laddered them, then added ribbons to the bottom of the shirt.  At my daughters request, we also put a shooting star on the back.  Admittedly not the best shooter, but I tried.

Stenciled and glittered

Stencil removed...not so bad!

On display

The shooter

Laddered down the sides with ribbons attached

My Fabric Fusion idea worked out pretty well.  I learned a few things.  I definitely need to use more glue than I did for the glitter next time for wash and wear.  The majority of the glitter did stay on the shirt and it's been washed numerous times, but I want it to stay "newer" looking longer.  I realized that this particular idea did not actually come from Pinterest...I know right, shocker, but I do believe that looking at so many ideas this past year and a half has inspired me to get creative all on my own.

Yup, that's Pinteresting!

Quinoa Pilaf?

Mmmm...I have a love for quinoa.  Pronounced (keen-wa).  I'm always looking for a different way to make it.  Tonight was no exception.  I decided to rummage the fridge and create a recipe.

2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups of Quinoa
12 oz of portabella mushrooms sliced
2 green onions (scallions) chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
1/2 of large vidalia onion sliced
1/2 cup give or take of Locatelli cheese grated
1 circle around the pan of Extra Virgin Olive oil
1 pinch of Morton's Salt with Garlic

Pour chicken broth into saucepan with Quinoa, bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to low.  Cook for about 15 mins. 

I first prepared all my ingredients and started with the onions first.  I sweated them out and added the mushrooms and garlic.  I let the mushrooms cook for a bit till they were soft and then added the scallions.  Tossed the cheese into the pan, then  I mixed all of this with the already prepared Quinoa.

YUMMMO!

Yup, that's Pinteresting!

Organizing your Dresser

Andrea's method of folding from Simple Organized Living, and the Pinspiration for this post

My daughter tells me everyday that her room is clean.  Clean??...that's a little bit of an exaggeration if I ever heard one.  My idea of clean and her idea of clean are definitely NOT the same.  I consider clean to be tidy, dusted, vacuumed, bed made, etc.  Her idea of clean, as long as I can see the whole floor and she can run a vacuum we're good.  Since school is starting soon, I thought I should get a go at her drawers and figure out what fits and what doesn't.  A spring cleaning of sorts but in the summer.  I firmly believe if you are going to buy new items to go into your home, you must get rid of the same amount of old, if not more.  There are a few exceptions, but this is generally the case.  I came across this Pin on Pinterest and was Pinspired to fix my daughters drawers.  It comes from Simply Organized Living.  Andrea from over at SOLiving is living her dream by organizing for a living and blogging about it...how wonderful for her to live her dream!  Even more wonderful is that she shares her how to's on her blog/vlog for all of us to learn and use....Thank you Andrea!!!


Here is what I found when I opened my daughter's pajama drawer.  Here is our before:

Folded, but really squished in there and hard to find what you want to wear

Yes, it is mid summer here at home, but my daughter still wears her winter pajamas.  (Someone please tell my husband he can make it less frigid in our home, my electric bill will thank you)  Pajamas take up a lot of space.

And our after:

Nice, neat and easy to find what you want to wear.  We even matched bottoms to tops across from each other!

I didn't get a before for the T-shirts, let's just say they were not neat and organized.  Here is the after though:

Beautifully organized, we love it!  Thanks Andrea!!!

My daughter says she likes "this way very much because I can see all of my shirts and I don't have to dig in them to find the one I want."

Let's see how long this will last.  

Yup, that's Pinteresting!

Car Baking?

On a nice hot day in August there are many things to do.  When you live in a home without air conditioning, baking is not something you attempt when the heat index is already at 100 degrees.  So what do you do when your children are "dying" for chocolate chip cookies?  I happen to have purchased a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough from a local fundraiser sometime ago.  I rolled the dough into cookies and stuck them in a freezer bag to pull out a few when we felt like "fresh baked" cookies.  Spoiling my children with actually baked cookies instead of Chips Ahoy or the like has sort of back fired a bit on me here and there.  Every time they "have" to have them, so do I.  Super simple way to add the LBS on there!  Luckily for me, those cookies are almost finished.  By the way, they must be the most awful cookie I have ever tasted, but yet, somehow I continue to eat a few every time we bake them.  I much prefer the Chips Ahoy, or better yet, some hot out of the oven Nestle Toll House cookies.  Oh, right, back on track....

Months ago I saw a pin on Pinterest about baking cookies in your car.  That's right, in your car.  You can view the Baking Bites blog here.  Nicole Weston even shares her car chocolate chip recipe with you!!  A recipe that I must try next time, thanks Nicole!  

The kids and I prepped the cookie sheet with a Silpat (silicone baking sheet) just in case things were going to be sticky.  I had no idea how this experiment of baking in the car was going to go, and I didn't want to have to scour my cookie sheet.  We placed the chilled cookie rounds on the sheet and went to the car dashboard.

We started with the cookies on the front dashboard since the most sun was hitting the front of the car.  It was HOT in the car, but how hot...I have no idea, this wasn't a true scientific experiment, sorry.

Anyway, the cookies took sometime to bake, about 4 hours give or take 10 or 15 minutes.  I did move them to the back of the car for the last 1 hour.  The sun had moved and I thought maybe it would help "burn" them a little...crisp them up.  Didn't work, oh well.  

Here are the cookies at about the 3/4 finished point.

Eww...see all that oil, no wonder I think these cookies are awful.

I never did get an after shot of the finished product, the kids and their friends really just scooped up the cookies as soon as I said they were done.  

Good thing we were just hanging poolside and didn't have to go anywhere.  My children loved the finished result.  The cookies never got crispy and stayed pretty gooey, they were cooked enough and the kids said they tasted great...me, I think they are still awful, but I ate a few...haha!  Bonus, the car did smell yummy for a few hours. 

Yup, that's Pintersting!

DIY Garden Box

I really admire all of those folks with a green thumb.  I mean me, I really don't have any green in either thumb, but I do try...a little.  I thought it would be a great idea to grow and harvest our own vegetables this season.  Why not, it's not like I don't have the time to take care of a garden...how hard could it be???  First things first, I have to build a raised bed.  I did a lot of investigating on Pinterest and online of how to build the box, why to build the box, etc.  The benefits seemed good.  I saved bundles of newspapers to line the bottom of the box with, I purchased my plants, I was getting prepared. 

I went to my local brick and mortar home improvement store and bought the supplies that I needed.  I bought 6 pieces of 4x6x10 pressure treated lumber and 1 4x4 pressure treated post, I got decking screws. fertilizer, dirt, organic compost, pvc for irrigation...the works.

Once I got home, I tore the electric drill out of the shed, along with the circular saw, level and tape measure.  Boy, I was gonna do this...unassisted!  I measured, cut, pre-drilled, screwed the wood together and had myself a raised garden box.  I already had that black weedscreen stuff.  I think it's by Preen.  I measured and cut the weedblocker, covered that in my pre-moistened newspaper, got my dirt lugged into the backyard (jeez, that gets heavy), then my husband came home.

Finished product, just had to be flipped over

"Whatcha doing."  Uh-oh, dreaded words from his mouth.  In simple plain language...what have you done and are you planning on fixing this.  My response, proudly "I've built us a vegetable garden."  His reply "Are you going to make it level?"  Level?  I have to make it level?  I mean the wood was all cut and screwed together and I made sure the box itself was level, but making it level in the ground...what???  My reply "Level?  What do you mean?  It looks great to me!"  His reply "Let me check."  Well, don't you know he whipped that level out placed it on the garden box and it was clearly NOT level.  I was way too tired to be digging through the ground to level it and I didn't have more pressure treated lumber to build the box up on one side.  I kinda thought if I played dumb enough that he would just finish the job for me.  Yeah, I'm not that lucky.  See, my husband could care less about having a vegetable garden.  He just knows it will somehow create more work for him...i.e., the example above. 

Needless to say, the vegetable garden box looked nice for a while.  It sat filled with bags of dirt and fertilizer, right in the very spot that I wanted to harvest our vegetables from.  My husband wasn't leveling it for me, not that I ever believed that needed to happen.  I got incredibly busy with those children of ours.  Who knew two kids on four teams would keep us overwhelmingly busy??  With how busy things got and maybe a tad bit of how lazy, stubborn, uninterested I became with growing my own veggies (remember I don't have a green thumb) I never got the vegetables in the ground

Now, my garden box sits in pieces behind our shed. Yes, I took it apart.  Soon to be used for another Pinteresting idea.  For the time being, we'll continue to buy our vegetables from others and my kids will continue to use my perfect place for vegetables as a perfect place for their toys.

Yup, that's Pinteresting!