BBQ Chicken Pizza Heaven

Have you ever eaten something at a restaurant to only want to duplicate it at home and it doesn't really go the way you thought it may?  Once, while eating at Planet Hollywood, I had what I determined to be the best BBQ Chicken Pizza EVER!  That was quite a number of years ago.  I've ordered elsewhere, I've even tried to make it according to the ingredients on their menu, but I never had that same taste occur again....until tonight!

I wrote out our dinner menu last week and wrote down BBQ Chicken Pizza for tonight's dinner, never looked for a recipe, just decided to go for it one more time.  I've been quite PINspired to try a number of things that I never normally would thanks to Pinterest.  I've noticed a few pictures of BBQ Chicken Pizza, but haven't even clicked on them.  I didn't want to try them out and be disappointed.  Today was different, I already had the menu planned, I just had to buy the ingredients, well some of them.  Normally when I make pizza, I either make the dough or buy frozen bread dough and do the whole thaw and rise thing.  Today, it was HOT,  so making pizza dough was not going to happen.  Then the kids had friends over in the pool, time got away from me and I had to run to the store to BUY pizza dough rounds.  I've seen them in the aisle before and don't you know my local grocery store just rearranged their aisles, so it took me a few extra minutes, but there in the pasta aisle I found them....already made pizza crust.  (This is where the angels sang for me)

I bought Freshetta's GoldenWheat Pizza Round.  My recipe was going to be super simple, simple is better, right?  Remember how I said all the kids were at my house, yes, well I also didn't grill any chicken for my pizza, so short cut number two... Tyson's grilled chicken in the bag.  I sauteed red onion, mixed Mozzarella cheese with Parmesan cheese about 1/2 to 1/4 cup of Parm to the Mozz., and I got my BBQ sauce ready.  I love Bulls Eye BBQ Sauce.  I swear I could eat it with a spoon.  Eww, saying that out loud, it kinda seems a little well, GROSS!  Anyway how I made the pizza.  Sorry, I don't have an exact recipe.  This is just how I cook.  I use recipes to bake or for an outline to make something, but I always just ad lib.  

 I prepared my ingredients and fired up my grill.  I poured the BBQ Sauce over the crust and placed about a 1/4 of the cheese over the sauce.  I then placed my already heated up chicken and onions overtop of the saucy cheese mixture and topped all of that off with more sauce.  Oh, and we love mushrooms in our home, so I mixed some of those in with the onions and chicken.  I placed the pizza in the grill on medium heat for about 10 minutes.

LOOK...doesn't it look yummy!!! 

Little slice of heaven...aka, BBQ Chicken Pizza.

Tie Dyed

I know you've seen them...tie dyed shirts.  They are all over Pinterest.  People make their own dye's, some use acrylic paints, some just go and buy dye like Rit and get creative.  I'm creative, to an extent.  My kids wanted to to tie dye and I was all for it, but I was buying a kit.  I used my 50% off coupon at the craft store and we got busy.  My kids don't like their shirts to be entirely colorful, they wanted some white to show through.  That being said, the kit we purchased was enough to dye 5 shirts.  We dyed 6 shirts varying in size from Youth Medium to Adult Medium and we still have an ample amount of dye to do at least 3 more shirts. First you have to be sure to have some pretty important supplies on hand.

100% cotton tie dyables (shirts, shorts, bandannas, hats, whatever)

Lots of rubber bands

Gloves (if you don't want to look like an umpaloompa for a few days)

Newspaper or Grassy Area

Cooling Rack (optional)

Dye

Water

Soda Ash

Squirt Bottles

Zip Top Bags

The kit I bought came with gloves, 3 colors of dye, squirt bottles, rubber bands and soda ash.  All for $6.00!

We twisted, turned, rubber banded and dyed our shirts.  Sorry, no photos of the dye process.  That was too messy with the kids participating.  It's easy though, just make sure whatever colors you dye the top side, you do the same on the back side.

During rubber banding, I learned that working from the back side of the shirt vs the collar side was easiest to manipulate.  

Placed them into Zip top bags overnight.

Actually wound up being about 30 hours.  Carefully, cut all the rubber bands and rinse under running water.  I then washed all of the shirts in a cold wash with a tablespoonful of vinegar and let them air dry outside.

Here they are, cool huh!

Yup, that's Pinteresting!

Hair Chalking

How many pins have you seen on Pinterest about hair chalking?  Countless, right?  I just love the colors, they look so vibrant and beautiful.  I have two daughters, both of which were really excited to have their hair chalked.  Even more excited were their three friends who also thought it would be fun!  Don't worry, I got Mommy's permission for each child.  I have looked at a number of Youtube videos and blogs about chalking.  There seems to be many techniques and favorite ways to chalk ones hair.  I preferred a combination of the techniques I've watched and read about.

I learned that if you braid a section of hair (smaller is better) that when you undo the braid, the hair looks like a feather has been applied.  I tried really hard to photograph this, but I wasn't very successful.  This technique worked best on the Blondie.  I also learned that you can gradient the colors and do basically whatever your mind thinks up.  We used plain 'ol pastel chalks that you can find at your arts and crafts store.  I already owned them, so this Pinteresting idea cost me zilch to try....bonus!

Here are a few things we did:
Wet the hair
Twisted sections
Applied the chalk in a downward motion
Used the hair straightener after the color was applied
Combed out the hair to get the additional chalk out
Had a ton of FUN!

before going pink/purple

After pink/purple

Before the gradient rainbow

After the rainbow.

All layered up

Orange, Pink, Purple...these colors worked great even on darker hair

Feather technique in aqua.  Braid small sections very tightly then chalk across them.  Cool!

Yup, that's Pinteresting!

Homemade Grout Cleaner

If you've been scouring (no pun intended) Pinterest as of late, you've seen this picture of a way to clean your tile floor, well, really, the grout between the tiles on your floor.

My bathroom floor is Horrible (yes, with a capital H)  Since we purchased our home, I've wanted to replace it, but it has never really been in the budget and I'm really only replacing it because I think the grout is disgusting.  Me and only me seems to think it's terrible.  Not one person in my life has ever said anything, not even my Mother, but I think it's awful!

Anyway, I decided to try the grout cleaning solution found on Unique. Just Like Everyone Else's blog.  Formula posted here.  I gave it a good try.

Took my before pictures:

Grossest floor!!!  Eww!!!!

Sprayed the solution, rubbed it into the grout and waited about 30 minutes...I said the grout was disgusting.  I got to scrubbing.  A grout brush is definitely a key tool to do this job well.  Toothbrushes and scrub brushes just don't have the stability that a grout brush does.  The solution definitely improved my grout, but get it clean like the picture on Pinterest, it did not.

After I used the grout recipe.  Improved, but not what I wanted or expected.

I went to my tried and true cleaner.  So many people are going to give me flack about this....I poured liquid bleach along the grout lines and let it sit for another 30 minutes.  Then I scrubbed.  Good thing my bathroom is tiny, only 40 linear feet...whew!  I really believed that between the Ammonia, baking soda, vinegar and bleach that I would have stain free grout...WRONG!  I have cleaner grout, but like new it is not.  Check it out yourself:

After serious chemicals were applied.  I'm satisfied, but I still want a new floor :-)

Yup, that's Pinteresting!

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!