Pinterest Challenge Day 29: 3-Ingredient Nutella Cookies

Dear husband,

I'm sorry I used the last of your Nutella. I thought I'd surprise you when you came home to some delicious, 3-ingredient Nutella cookies. I was wrong.
Love,
Your wife

Unfortunately, my last Pinterest Challenge post is a complete flop. It called for 1 cup of Nutella, 1 cup of sugar, and an egg. It looked fool-proof:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066261836/

I've actually made these 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies in the past that turned out pretty tasty. They weren't quite as good as regular peanut butter cookies, but the ease of execution made up for it. I assumed the Nutella cookies would be the same.

No. They weren't just not as good as I'd hoped. They were bad. They were so sweet that my teeth ached from eating them. They were as chewy as toffee and got stuck in my teeth. I felt like I needed to scrape my tongue after eating them. I couldn't even taste Nutella through the grossness, and they didn't even look pretty:

I hear by name these 3 ingredient Nutella cookies the worst cookie of all time. I don't even know what to do with them. There's no way I'll eat another. Andrew's coworkers think I'm the greatest cookie baker since Ruth Wakefield, so I can't tarnish my reputation by having Andrew bring these abominations to work. So, I guess they're going in the garbage. What a waste of Nutella :(

Next time I think a Nutella cookie sounds good, I'll make peanut butter cookies and sandwich some Nutella between two to make a cookie sandwich.

Well, these Nutella abominations mark the end of my Pinterest Challenge. I had loads of fun completing these. It gave me something to look forward to every day. I'll likely continue posting some of my completed pins as I get around to them, but they're bound to be a lot less frequent. I hope you enjoyed this series and will try some of these pins--just stay away from the Nutella cookies.

Edit: Husband responded to the news about his Nutella with this gif.

Pinterest Challenge Day 28: Four-Cheese Stuffed Shells (Freezer Meal)

I've wanted to get more vegetarian freezer meal ideas. With little ones, there are some good days when I'm able to do a lot of cooking. There are also some challenging days when I'm so worn out, the only thing I want to do is pop something into the oven and that's it.

I came across these stuffed shells and pinned them for later:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066092325/

My friend recently had a baby, and I had plans to visit her today. I wanted to bring her some freezer meals, so I decided to make these last night. The recipe makes two 9x13 dishes, which I think serves six. I changed it to make four 8x8 dishes--two for me, and two for her. It worked well. Besides that, the only changes I made were to use basil instead of the other herbs because that's what I had on hand (and, hey, basil tastes great). Also, I used jarred sauce instead of making my own because it's easy, and I really like Ragu chunky sauces.

The recipe came together relatively easily. I made it after the kids went to bed, so it took me an hour of uninterrupted time. In my opinion, that's not bad to get four meals made in an hour!

After I mixed the cheeses with the basil and spinach, I stuffed the mixture into a plastic bag and was able to quickly pipe it all into the cooked shells. Here's what it looked like after that stage:

I topped each pan with approximately two cups of jarred sauce and a handful of shredded mozzarella:

I covered it in plastic wrap, foil, and then stuck the cooking instructions in there before topping it with the lid that the disposable pans came with:

This evening, I decided to cook one to be able to write a review with my Pinterest post. It was done in just shy of an hour. It made 10 shells, which fed me (3), Andrew (3), Oliver (2), and left two for lunch tomorrow.

The flavor wasn't outstanding, but it was good. I felt it was something I'd definitely eat again for the ease of it. Unfortunately, about half an hour after I finished my meal, I was doubled over in agony. It was my first time cooking with cottage cheese, and, apparently, I react to it like I do to sour cream. No bueno! I'm feeling a little better now but still am experiencing some slight cramps. Boo.

I still have one in the freezer, but I think there will be an evening that Andrew can bake it for Oliver and him if I want to duck out and get some quality "me" time.

Pinterest Challenge Day 27: No-Bake Energy Bites

When I read the word "energy" on a food product, I immediately translate it to "calories" because, well, that's what calories are. But let's be honest with ourselves: regular baked goods are high in calories and aren't very nutrient dense. These "energy bites" might be high in calories at about 150 per bite, but they're made with simple ingredients and have a lot of nutrients in them. It's probably better to eat two of these than two "standard" cookies.

So, I decided to give these a whirl:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066129750/

They came out very greasy. They were so greasy that the chocolate chips were too oily to really stick in the balls. Also, they left grease marks on the wax paper I set them on.

Here are all the leftoverchips that were too oily to stick:

The only "oil" used was in the peanut butter, so maybe I used the wrong kind--I used Jif Natural. I like getting protein from the peanut butter, though, so I'm wondering if I reduced the honey (the only other liquid besides the touch of vanilla), maybe the dry ingredients would be able to absorb the oils from the peanut butter better. I think I'll try these again one day (soon, since now I have leftover ground flax and shredded coconut) and cut back on the honey to see if that fixes the problem. If it doesn't, then I'll have to try decreasing the peanut butter or increasing the flax.

Here were the bites I made. I actually got 20, but Oliver sampled 2 as I rolled them out:

Up close, you can see how shiny these bites are from the oil. Check out the glistening chocolate chips:

These tasted good, and they were filling, which I like. On the other hand, they were so greasy that my son left miniature chocolate chips all over the house from where they fell off the energy bites.

Pinterest Challenge Day 26: Buckle Toy

Oliver loves fastening buckles. He snaps all of the buckles on Jo's various seats--her infant chair, rocking bassinet, and car seat--whenever she's not in them. When I saw a pin for a buckle toy, I knew Oliver would love it. I pinned it to save the instructions, and I ordered buckles off of Ebay for very cheap.

Here's the pin:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066039307/

All I did was buy a piece of thick fabric (muslin), and I cut it out in a large rectangle. I folded it in half, that way it would have a back, and I wouldn't have to worry about cutting two smaller rectangles the same size. I wove ribbon and belts through the various buckles and pinned them where I wanted them to go.

Then, I hand sewed some buttons (I found monkey buttons!) on the piece. My mom helped me design and sew some fabric pieces with button holes in them to attach to the piece, so the buttons had something to fasten into. This way, Oliver could practice fastening buttons, too (He can't do buttons yet).

We sewed along the edges to secure the buckles in place. Then, right sides together, we sewed up the two sides together. The bottom was closed because of the fold. We flipped the toy right-side out, and then we top-stitched the top to close it off. My mom sewed around the entire thing to finish it, and it was done!

It probably took about 4 hours of work all together. This is the end product:

It's going to go in Oliver's Easter basket in a few weeks. I think he'll love it!

Pinterest Challenge Day 25: Shadow Puppets

Today's bin just barely got done because I procrastinated. If there wasn't just 5 days left in the challenge, I probably would have just decided to chalk today up as a failure. None the matter, I got it done under the buzzer!

I completed a pin that I think Oliver is really going to enjoy:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066132857/

Shadow puppets! I mostly just used the pin for the idea. The detail in the work involved was a little much for me, so I simplified it to have not-quite-as-nice shadow puppets.

All I did was look online for silhouettes of animals using Google Images. I then printed out the animal silhouettes onto photo paper. I cut them out (didn't reinforce them) and glued them onto popsicle sticks. I strengthened the bond with a single piece of tape. That was it!
To make them work, all you need is a flashlight (or other safe light source) and a dark room. Shine the light onto each puppet, and enjoy looking at its shadow on the wall.
I just finished this pin, and Oliver's already asleep. So, it won't be tested tonight. I'll be sure to play with the shadow puppets soon, and I promise to update my blog with the results!

Pinterest Challenge Day 24: Vegetarian Sloppy Joes

I've made vegetarian sloppy joes in the past by roughly chopping up a bunch of portobellos and substituting them for meat, using the recipe on the back of a sloppy joe seasoning packet. I like those sloppy joes, but Andrew isn't a fan.

I had no pin in mind today. When the kids finally decided to take a nap this afternoon, I quickly scrambled to find a pin for dinner, as that was all I had time for today. In fact, I'm amazed I've found time to write this post. Crazy day!

Anyway, here is the vegetarian sloppy joe pin:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066258253/

I used Morning Star Farms frozen crumbles for the "crumbled ground meat substitute." I forgot to buy the can of tomato puree, so I roughly chopped up three tomatoes that I had in the fridge and stuck them in the food processor. Hey, it's pureed tomatoes, so it works! Ahem.

I have to say, I enjoyed these sloppy joes, but they weren't what I look for when I crave a sloppy joe. They tasted like, well, barbeque sauce. Barbeque sauce is all well and good, but that's not what comes to mind when I think of sloppy joes. They were fine. They were good. It's just not really the type of food I'd seek out again. These probably will not make it to our kitchen table again, unless my husband specifically requests them.

Pinterest Challenge Day 23: Calzones

This pin has been really popular among our challenge group. It's a calzone that looks difficult to make but isn't. After hearing everyone rave about it, I decided to try it, too:

http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066246033/

I bought the refrigerated Pillsbury dough for it because I didn't leave time for making my own. Using the premade dough made this recipe really easy because I didn't even end up needing to roll it out. I just unwound it on a greased cookie sheet and was ready for the next step!

I still made my own sauce because, as I've said before, I don't like the store bought pizza sauce. I kept it fairly simple and diverged a bit from the sauce I usually make. I drained a 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes. I mixed the drained tomatoes with half a cup of olive oil, six cloves of minced garlic, and a couple tablespoons of minced, fresh basil. I spread that out on a cookie sheet and baked it at 250 for an hour. Then, I tossed that mixture in the food processor with about a tablespoon of sugar and a couple pinches of salt:

Andrew ended up liking the sauce better with the sugar instead of honey, so I think I'm going to stick with that change from now on.

I spread the sauce in the center third of the dough and sprinkled a few veggies on top. Then, using kitchen scissors, I sliced through the rest of the dough into strips on each side of the sauce like this:


I added some shredded mozzarella cheese and a touch of Parmesan. Then, following the guide from the pin, I criss-crossed the strips over the sauce and cheese mixture. I ended up with this:

I baked it at 375 for 30 minutes, as directed, and pulled this out of the oven:

Isn't it a gorgeous calzone? Here's how it looked sliced:


Cheesy and oh-so-delicious! Between Andrew, Oliver, and me, we ate the whole thing. It's that good!

Pinterest Challenge Day 22: Monkey Pancakes

My son loves monkeys. He has half a dozen stuffed monkey animals at our house, and he can't sleep without one of them. In fact, he woke up at 3am this morning. I was downstairs (already awake for the day), and, from over the monitor, I heard, "Monkey? Monkey?" I had to go unearth "Monkey" from his monkey blankets and give it back to him so he could go back to sleep.

So, when I saw a pin for monkey pancakes, I had to repin it to save for later.
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066132869/

That later day came today! As soon as Oliver was up for the day, we set to work. Oliver held Monkey in one arm while stirring with the other. He kept exclaiming excitedly, "Monkey pancakes!" even though he couldn't possibly know what monkey pancakes were.

We finished making the pancakes, and I built a monkey. I used a warm chocolate chip to draw in the mouth. I set a banana on the plate and proudly presented it to Oliver.

He loved them! He'd announce all of the facial parts before biting into them. Don't worry: he took care to make sure "Monkey" got some, too.

Pinterest Challenge Day 21: Popsicle Memory Game

Isn't this homemade memory game adorable?
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066133372/

I wasn't sure if Oliver would be old enough to play it yet, but I pinned it to save the idea. I had some popsicle sticks, so I decided to make this toy this evening. I printed out two sheets of the popsicle images from the website linked to my pin. Unlike the blogger, I decided not to make them perfect by using an exacto knife. I totally understand that you want pieces to look as identical as possible for the memory game, but I decided that wouldn't be important with a two year old. Scissors did the job just fine.After I cut out each and every popsicle, I folded them over the edge of a table. When that was done, I decided to glue them to the sticks with glue instead of using double-sided tape, mostly because I did not have double-sided tape.

The game ended up looking really cute!
Unfortunately, it's too late in the evening for me to try this game out with Oliver. We'll give it a go tomorrow. Even if he's not into it just yet, I know this game will be a winner at some point!

Pinterest Challenge Day 20: Fairy Glow Jar

I got excited for today's pin. I really thought I was going to make a cool toy for Oliver. Check out this pin:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066231421/

Even though it's clearly photo-shopped, I could visualize a glowing, glittering jar, and I could just see Oliver's delight.

For $2 at Michael's, we bought a package of glitter and two packages of two glow sticks (for a total of four).

I had an empty, clean peanut butter jar that I decided to use because it's plastic and wouldn't break. I dumped the glitter in and then slowly added water, shaking it to keep the glitter from clumping. Then, following this guide from ehow, I cracked all the glow sticks. I took my scissors and cut one open...

Splat! Neon green liquid shot out everywhere, including all over my glasses, which I was happy I was wearing. Andrew helped me clean. I poured the glow stick into the jar, and, by poured, I mean I shook it vigorously for the liquid to come out drop by drop. When it hit the water, it stopped glowing. I thought maybe it was diluted, so I proceeded to use all the glow sticks.

Here's what I ended up with:

All the glitter clumped together into a goo, and the glow sticks dyed the glitter green. There was no glow inside the jar whatsoever. It was a jar of goo.

Andrew knew I was disappointed, so he tried to get Oliver to play with it anyway. He used the light of his cell phone to light up the jar from underneath:

That was pretty cool, but because Oliver couldn't run around and shake the glowing jar, he quickly lost interest. This pin bombed.

Pinterest Challenge Day 19: Grain-Free Mudslide Fudge Cookies

I procrastinated today. At 5pm, which is getting late in our house, I asked my husband to "quick, find me a pin I can whip up tonight!" He chose these five-ingredient, grain-free, mudslide fudge cookies that I'd pinned because we had everything on hand:

http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066214118/

I used raw honey and dark chocolate cocoa powder because that's what was in the house. They were so fast to make. From start to finish, they were done in 10 minutes. I pulled them out of the oven, and they looked beautifully dark:


Oooh, you can just tell how they taste by looking at them, can't you? Dark chocolate lovers, indulge! These came out tasting dark and oh-so-good. My husband commented that they tasted unlike anything he's ever had before and described them as "meringue meets cake."

This is the kind of recipe I'll keep on hand to quick whip up at night to fill a chocolate fix. Plus, they're not so bad for you, right?

Pinterest Challenge Day 18: Baked Eggs in Tomato Cups

I decided to do one of my breakfast pins today, so I made baked eggs in tomato cups:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066137778/

They're as easy as they look! I bought some tomatoes on the vine, sliced off the tops, and scooped out the insides. I cracked an egg into each, and I topped it with a dab of butter and a sprinkling of salt and pepper:

I baked those bad boys for close to half an hour because the eggs just were not cooking (the egg whites stayed clear up until the last 5-10 minutes). I wonder if using cold tomatoes is to blame.

One tomato split open almost immediately in the oven. Two others split open near the end. Again, it's probably my fault. When I scooped out the pulp, I also scooped out the ribbing. I probably weakened the tomatoes when I did that.

In spite of the set backs, breakfast was fab. Andrew told me the tomatoes were perfectly tender, and Oliver especially enjoyed the mango smoothies (12 oz of OJ, half a fresh banana, 4 ice cubes, one diced mango that I'd previously frozen, and 1/4 cup of Greek yogurt) that he helped me make.

I love how simple this recipe is, but it's still elegant. I don't think it'd make a good weekday breakfast for us, since it needs to bake for so long, but I intend to do this again on a weekend morning.

Pinterest Challenge Day 17: Color Match Up

For my Pinterest Challenge today, I made a color match-up toy for Oliver using this pin as a guide:

http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066132887/

I grabbed two sets of paint samples in the primary and secondary colors (red, yellow, blue, orange green and purple). I cut out squares from one set and glued them on clothes pins. I bought the clothes pins for a dollar from the dollar store. Then, I pinned each clothes pin on its matching sample card. Here's mine:

I showed Oliver how to play the game. He understood, and he'd set the clothes pins on top of their corresponding sample card. He couldn't figure out how to open the clothes pins himself, though, which frustrated him. He soon lost interest in the game for favor of trying to open the clothes pins. His inability to do so made him angry, so I ended up putting the toy away.

I think this game is a good idea, but Oliver is just too young for it. However, I have to wonder: once he's old enough to use the clothes pins properly, won't a color match up game be too easy for him?

Pinterest Challenge Day 16: Miniature Chocolate Chip Cheesecakes

I saw a pin on Pinterest for miniature chocolate chip cheesecakes, so how could I not repin it? Here's my pin:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066116245/

I knew these would be delicious as long as the recipe worked, so I was eager to give it a go. I didn't have cupcake liners on hand, so I used my silicone cupcake cry and greased it with Crisco. The rest of the recipe, I followed exactly. Here's my best helper assisting me in the kitchen:

When I poured the cheesecake batter into the cupcake tin, I kept it mouded slightly in the middle because I'd noticed in the original pin that the cheesecakes had caved a touch. When I pulled the miniature cheesecakes out of the oven, they looked beautiful (no caving!):

After 15 minutes, I ran a knife along the edges and tipped the cheesecakes out to set on a wire rack.

Disaster! The crust didn't hold. I skipped the wire rack and transferred them as gently as I could to a container. I was able to keep some of the crusts intact, but once we bit into them, the crust crumbled away entirely.

These tasted just like classic cheesecake, and I love their miniature, individual serving sizes because they keep me from over-indulging. I intend to make these again some time, but I will increase the butter in the crust from 2.5 tablespoons to 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) to try to get the crust to stick together properly. I should note that I live in a very dry climate, and many recipes need more wet ingredients to turn out properly here. So, it's possible the recipe is spot on for people living elsewhere, but here in Colorado, the crust recipe failed. I still consider these a success, though. Yum!

Pinterest Challenge Day 15: Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

For Valentine's Day, I decided to make my husband some chocolate-dipped strawberries and put them in the heart-shaped box that I made last week.

I had pinned the strawberries here:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066131976/

But I only followed the recipe loosely because I'd made chocolate-dipped strawberries before. Rather than put the chocolate in a bowl in the saucepan, I just put the chocolate directly in the pan and cooked it over very low heat. Oliver took on the important task of stirring:

Then, we dipped the berries and set them on wax paper:

Later that night, after Oliver went to bed, I zapped a little bit of white chocolate in the microwave to drizzle over the top. Then, I set them in the box like so:

That's it! The next morning, I gave them to Andrew as his Valentine's gift.

Pinterest Challenge Day 14: Eggs in Peppers

Happy Valentine's Day! My husband woke me up this morning and said to me, "I made you breakfast, and I did one of your pins for you!"

I came downstairs and saw this:

Beautiful! He completed this pin:

http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066203318/

The eggs were very flavorful. They'd picked up a hint of the pepper flavor, and he'd topped them with salt, cracked pepper, and a touch of Swiss cheese.

I told him I was going to take a picture of them for the pin, and he told me he already had! He'd also taken pictures of the cooking process. He told me that it's important to cut the peppers as straight as possible, otherwise the eggs leak out the bottom.

He chose to do two as fried eggs and two as scrambled eggs.

To the scrambled eggs, he'd added a splash of milk. Apparently, that caused the eggs to really leak under the peppers. He used a spatula to hold the peppers down to limit the runaway eggs. Once the eggs started to cook and form a seal, he scooped all the eggs that had run out and put them back in the peppers:

I enjoyed this morning in every way. Breakfast with my family, delicious eggs, and no pin to worry about today! OK, so I already had a pin completed, but I'll post that one tomorrow and take a day off pinning for today and tomorrow.

Pinterest Challenge Day 13: Slow Cooker Vegetarian Chili Shepherd's Pie

There is a serious lack of quality vegetarian slow-cooker recipes. I've even bought a book of slow-cooker vegetarian recipes, and all if the ones I tried were just awful.

A few weeks ago, I pinned this slow-cooker vegetarian shepherd's pie:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066092398/

I finally decided to make it today. The process was easy. I put all of the ingredients into bowls and let Oliver dump them in and mix them. He sprinkled the cheese on top, and then I smeared mashed potatoes over the whole thing. Easy as, well, pie!

The house smelled fantastic all afternoon. Dinner time arrived, and I was not disappointed. Delicious! Andrew gobbled it up, too, but Oliver wouldn't touch the stuff. I thought I could even skip the cheese next time. It added some flavor, but not that much. I think I'd rather skip those extra calories. Andrew insisted that the cheese needs to stay, so I guess that's that. Well, maybe I'll just try decreasing it next time. And, yes, there definitely will be a next time!

100 (Attempted) Ways to Entertain a Young Toddler, Day 67: Magnetic Pipe Cleaners (Pinterest Challenge Day 12)

Today's toddler activity came from Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066030217/

The idea is simple. Cut up some pipe cleaners and put them in a clean plastic bottle. Glue the lid in place, and allow your toddler to move the pipe cleaners around with a magnet because the pipe cleaners are magnetic.

I couldn't find many nearly-empty plastic containers in our house. We'd purchased a half gallon of milk from the convenience store one night for cooking, and it's just sat in the fridge since then (Oliver drinks organic milk to avoid growth hormones). I dumped out the remainder of the milk we weren't using and rinsed it out well.

My husband came by and was interested in what I was doing, so I let him finish the project. He even glued a strong magnet to the end of a popsicle stick. He handed it all to Oliver and showed him how it worked:

Unfortunately, the milk jug ended up being too opaque. The plastic was also very thick and didn't allow the magnet to work well. Oliver ended up just walking around with his magnet stick, testing it on all the surfaces in the kitchen.

We tried to get him interested in the bottle, but to no avail. In fact, the bottle just ended up pissing him off because the lid was glued on.

We had a $10 voucher to the grocery store that expired today, so we decided to go pick up a few items we needed. We purchased a bottle of Naked juice, too, because the bottle was very clear. We took it home, drank all the juice, and remade the project. Andrew twisted the pipe cleaner pieces into rings this time to give them more surface area.

The changes worked! Oliver enjoyed the toy for all of one minute and then announced he was "all done."

I hate to just get rid of the toy, since Andrew worked so hard on it. I decided to stow it away. Maybe when Oliver is older, he'll enjoy it more. I'm grading these activities based on younger toddlers. So, this activity gets a D. While the magnet was OK, he just wasn't interested in playing with the bottle of pipe cleaners.