That's Pinteresting!

Pin it! That's the new thing isn't it? You like it? You want to remember it? Find it again? Share it with your friends? Pin it!  So many wonderful things out there... maybe too many!! I could spend hrs perusing the endless pages of "pinned" things.. and sometimes I do! It's almost like a drug.. how did we EVER live without it?!?!

 Best thing about Pinterest for me? you mean, besides all the amazingly adorable pictures of animals? All the amazing recipes!!!  I am always, always on the hunt for new ideas in the kitchen, who wants to eat the same things over and over again?  And the thing I love the most about Pinterest recipes is that these are not "cook book" recipes, with weird, hard to find ingredients that you will only use once and then throw away. These are easy, tasty, everyday recipes that you can usually whip up with things you already have in your cupboards! So I started pinning like crazy... ooohhh that looks so tasty!! - oohhh that looks so beautiful and fresh!! - ooohhhh I NEED to eat those cookies RIGHT NOW!!!   and so it went until I looked and saw that I had pinned dozens of recipes and hadn't tried any of them!!! At that point I told myself that before I would pin anything else I would try the ones I had already earmarked... or at least a lot of them!!

Here is a compilation of the ones I've tried thus far and my thoughts on them.. some even with pictures! ;)

String Cheese Mozzarella balls - Super fast and easy, fairly tasty. Really, as tasty as the string cheese you buy. We buy the low fat string cheese which lacks a little bit of flavor so I seasoned the bread crumbs with fresh parsley and minced garlic. It helped a lot! I would definitely recommend this one if you want a little snack or an easy appetizer.
Corinne's Rating: 3 out of 5


Mini Tacos - Now these are amazing!!! I LOVE anything that lets me use a muffin tin! I added a few diced potatoes to my taco filling to stretch the meat a bit more and I used mozzarella cheese instead of cheddar, a lot less grease and fat that way. Only suggestion I would make is to cook it for a few minutes longer in the oven than it calls for, to really get that crunch on the won ton wrapper. And hey here is a picture of the ones I made!

Corinne's Rating: 5 out of 5



Peanut Butter & Garbanzo Beans Chocolate Chip cookies - I was a bit skeptical about this recipe... garbanzo beans?!?!? in cookies?!?!? But this recipe has no butter, no flour, no sugar, no oil... I had to try it. Well, this one came out a little wonky... mostly my fault though. I accidentally overcooked them, it's kind of hard to tell when they are ready. Also, usually when I use a recipe that calls for peanut butter I always use crunchy peanut butter, I just love the extra little bit your get with the added crunch. However, I would not recommend it for this recipe, it really needs the creamy stuff to make the dough softer. You don't get the crunch anyways since you make this dough in the food processor. Even with all of that, we still ate all of them! Pretty tasty.
Corinne's Rating: 4 out of 5


Pizza Muffins - Once again, does it get any better than using a muffin tin to make your meals? And this recipe calls for the mini muffin tin!!!! Awesome!! These mini muffins are more mini quiches than muffins, but who really cares. I substituted the pepperoni bites with roasted turkey, much lighter that way. I didn't serve them with sauce but used them more as dinner rolls, they are so tiny and cute! It takes absolutely no time to make the dough and they are delicious!! Definitely something to try! Oh, and I have a picture of the ones I made!

Corinne's Rating: 5 out of 5


Chocolate Chip cookie in a cup - Sadly this one was not as good as the Brownie-in-a-Mug. The dough is pretty good, but once you cook it in the microwave it becomes weird and somewhere in between a cake and a cookie.. sounds good right?!? Unfortunately it's more like a super dry cake meets an overcooked cookie. Not so good. But the dough is good so it's still not a zero.
Corinne's Rating: 2 out of 5


Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins - Ok, so let me start by saying that the name of this recipe is misleading, triple implies that there are 3 different types of chocolate involved. Not so, there is only 2, the cocoa powder and the chocolate chips. That being said, this actually turned out pretty good. Mine don't look anything like the ones in the picture, and they were very pudding like. Not sure where I went wrong, however they were still super good! and strangely addicting! You definitely needed a glass of milk with them though! Oh so chocolaty!! Yeahy! I am going to try making them again soon and see what I do with them this time!! I would definitely recommend trying this recipe.
So yummy! and here is a picture of the ones I made!

Corinne's Rating: 5 out of 5



Salted Caramel Pretzel Bark -  This was my one failure, and it was heartbreaking because it tasted so good, it just didn't set up! I haven't tried it again but I think there is something wrong with the way the recipe tells you to make the caramel... that's not how I have made it in the past. If you get the caramel right though, this bark is fantastic!! even though it didn't turn out for us, and it was stuck to the tin foil, we toiled and toiled to get even the smallest of morsels peeled off.. it was that good!! Definitely will try this one again... it could be one of my favorite sweets ever... I just love the contrast of sweet and salty in my desserts!
Corinne's Rating: 2 out of 5 with a possible 5 out of 5 pending retry



Creamy Avocado Pasta - Two thumbs up all the way!! This sauce is super fresh, nothing cooked besides the pasta. Tangy and rich at the same time, in the healthiest way possible. The creaminess of the avocado makes for a thick irresistible sauce which is enhanced by the citrus elements. I didn't have limes so I used lemons, also skipped the basil (only because I didn't have any :(  ) and the Parmesan cheese. This sauce is so awesome there are no words to describe it!! I bet it would be fantastic on grilled chicken or even grilled fish. Can't wait to make it again!!! oh and I do have a picture, not the best quality picture but hey, it's better than nothing

Corinne's Rating: 6 out of 5!



Well that's it for now, I have only made a small dent into my list but at least it's something! Next on my list you ask? On deck this week is Mini Meatloaf Cupcakes and Pancake Bites!! I can't hardly wait!!


Till Next Time...

Where has the summer gone?

July 25th, 2012.... 9:30 am .... 65 degrees warm.  Where is my summer?!?!?

Apparently there was a vote back in the spring about whether or not we would have a summer here in Washington this year... I was not aware of this vote and I am not sure how I would have voted back then but I know how I would vote now! YES we want summer!! I guess not enough people were of that opion so summer has been voted out. What are we left with? Unpredictable cold/warm weather. Rain and even some hail... not to mention days where the temperature doesn't even reach 70 degrees.

Now, I love me a cool summer, I mean who wants to be hot and miserable for 3 months out of the year... but still... can't we go somewhere in between??!  I can probably count on both hands the number of summer days we've had.  Oh well... I am sure Finnighan is enjoying the cold summer, poor baby, if it was any hotter he might have expired from it, can you imagine having all that fur on while it's 90degrees?!?!

Other downside to a cold, rainy summer? We still need to mow the lawn every week!!! Where is the dead grass, I ask you?!?!?

It's a Priming matter.....

So... I am not going to start this blog by stating the obvious, apparently though, I developed early onset Alzheimer's and forgot I had a blog!

Quick recap of the past 6 months.... The move went well, we are enjoying our new place even though we wish it was a little bit bigger. The Shed (and yes I capitalized because I LOVE it that much!) has been absolutely life changing for us... just the fact that the majority of our business is now out there and not dominating our living space has made a huge difference in my stress levels! It's nice to be able to turn work off when we are trying to relax! Two thumbs up for my Shed!!

Here it is!!! Isn't it beautiful?!?

Custom Kingdoms continues to keep us busy, very busy... sometimes too busy! I keep waiting for the time when all this will come to a screeching halt and we won't get any more orders... so far it hasn't happened. We have been running strong for 20 months straight now and it consistently amazes me. We have been so blessed, we now find ourselves in the akward position where we need to figure out what we want to do with this business as we really can't get any bigger without making some serious changes... also, do we want the time sink?!? Dana does love his career and I don't think he would want to put that on the back burner to do this... we'll have to see where this goes.  For now we are just so grateful for its success and for the extra income that helps us pay our bills and put food on the table!

Speaking of Custom Kingdoms........
One of the steps in our process is priming! Now priming is a dirty job and my least favorite duty. It's messy and dusty and I think it's going to give me cancer one of these days. The primer fumes alone are enough to make one want to swoon!  Priming has always been the worst part of setting up our shop... where to prime? There is the constant rain, so it needs to be a covered space, also it needs to be enclosed so we can prime even when it's windy. How can we reduce the amount of black dust that gets tracked into our house... and can we keep it separate enough so not everything around it get covered in primer dust?!? We have had low to moderate success in setting up our priming station and here is a quick evolution of it over the years:

1. At first it was a rickety old card table that would blow over if you sneezed its direction that was situated on the balcony of our first apt here in Washington. It was messy, unstable and made our balcony basically unusable for any other purpose... not to mention the primer dust levels in our apt were pretty high.
2. Then we moved into a house and after we threw the card table out we downgraded to a box in the middle of our garage covered with newspaper! Our two car garage was constantly covered in balck dust from wall to wall no matter how many times we would clean it, sweep it, hose it down. Plus, the downstairs was practically unbearable for the first 20 min after I primed. Yuck! After over a year of this I had a small break down and Dana built me a priming station made of the finest materials! .... PVC pipe and cheap plastic sheets! Still in the garage though... not the best
3. When we moved out of the house and back into an apt we set up our fancy priming station on our back porch which was nice and covered and provided shelter from the wind. That was to this point the most successful set up. It minimized the amount of dust spread around it and coming into the house as well as the fumes. We did have a few wind storms that managed to knock it down but for the most part we were golden.
4. Then we moved again into our current dwelling. It's a duplex, which is lovely, it has a Shed (have I mentioned that already?!?) and a nice backyard. Only problem is that the priming station was just standing out there exposed to all the element which meant when it wasn't knocked down by the wind, I still couldn't use it because of the rain. It has been a trial, I have had to prime inside the Shed (horror of all horrors!!) inside a box, and totally gave up on the priming station as it would usually find it's way back to the ground within a day of me putting it back up. On good days, meaning when it didn't rain, I would cart the box outside and prime there.

All this brought us to last Saturday when I had another small break down and basically demanded that Dana fix the Priming issue. My man is the very best and he totally took care of it! (even though this was not the first time I had asked... maybe the break down is what did it!)  And since pictures are worth a thousand words here are two that will explain everything!

BEFORE

AFTER

Need I say more?  We are now ready for anything! Speaking of which... I have the next order ready to prime..... I am looking forward to using this bad boy!

Till next time.....