Pinterest: It's What's For Dinner

First of all, thank you ladies for your sweet comments on my last post. It was so great to "meet" April and find another great blog to add to my list. Christine encouraged me as always. It was her blog that inspired me to start writing back in 2007 when I was just learning what blogging was all about. Ashley was encouraged to start writing on her blog again as she anxiously awaits the birth of her little boy this summer, and this little blog has allowed me to get to know Todd's cousin Allison, whom I've yet to meet in person. I'm so glad our blogs let us keep in touch and I hope to finally meet her sooner than later!

While I'm giving a little blog love, I need to give a shout-out to Emily, a friend of mine who inspired this post. She has done a great job of blogging about the meals she has made from Pinterest. I know that I've pinned close to 100 recipes at this point, wondering if they're as good as they look, and Emily helps to take out the guess work. She rates the recipes, says what works and what didn't, which recipes need tweaking, etc. So, I thought I'd do the same.

Todd and I are really striving to eat healthier, but these recipes are in no way the healthiest ones on Pinterest. We've gone organic when it comes to milk and most fruits and veggies. Our beef is as organic as it comes (Todd helps butcher it himself!) and we're moving to free range chicken as well. But, we still sneak in easy, stress free recipes because we're trying to stay afloat most days, so no judging!

The photos below are borrowed except for one we managed to take ourselves.

Since I've made more than a dozen of the recipes I've pinned, I'll consider this post part one.

Crock Pot Chicken & Dumplings

Super easy recipe. It's made in a crock-pot start to finish. It doesn't get much easier than that. I like the fact that it doesn't need many ingredients, so it's a great go-to when I need to make something with ingredients I have on hand. I add a few more veggies than the recipe calls for. I think I doubled the carrots and I like to add peas, or some other veggie to round it out.


Crispy Cheddar Chicken

Not a bad entree, but I had a hard time getting the cheese to stick to the chicken. There has to be a better way. I think I liked the sauce better than the chicken itself. Not sure if I would make this again.

Rustic Pot Roast Pot Pie

Todd took this photo on his iPhone. To be honest, I tweaked this recipe so much it hardly resembled the original. Believe me, you don't want to stick to the original. I substituted the beer for beef broth and added a ton of veggies. Todd and I both love okra, so I added half a bag of frozen (thawed) okra and other frozen veggies. The recipe said to add potato flakes to the soup mixture to thicken it, but I would have needed to add half the box and I wasn't going for that, so no potato flakes for us. Instead I just added a little bit of cornstarch and strained the soup mixture before adding it to the pie crust. In the end, we both liked my adaptation. I would definitely make my very-tweaked version again.


Bite Sized Baked Brie

Yes. Loved everything about these. Todd's mom and I made these over Christmas and just thinking about them makes my mouth water. You really can't go wrong with Joy the Baker!

There you have it. I'll hopefully have part two ready very soon.