I Pintered-3 Easy Meals

I have been using Pinterest for awhile and I love Pinning stuff to my boards.  This past weekend I decided it was time to turn my pins into a reality again.  So I made a few recipes that I had pinned.

Let's start with the healthy one.  I love What's Gaby Cooking and she had a delightful looking raw kale salad on there the other day.  Raw kale scares me a little but I trust Gaby, plus it looked insanely healthy.  So I went for it. 

My Raw Kale Salad...

Results-I think I did a good job following the recipe and I loved the flavor of the lemon vinaigrette but I'm just not a huge fan of the raw kale.  I prefer my kale cooked down.  But yeah, I still think eating this benefited my body somewhat.

2 Ingredient French Dip.
Ok I didn't exactly follow this recipe.  I was looking for easy slow cooker recipes that weren't chicken and I found this 2 ingredient recipe at Six Sister's Stuff .  There recipe called for a beef roast and beef consomme but I couldn't find consomme.  So I bought a beef roast and cooked it in the slow cooker for 8 hours on low with a box of beef stock and a packet of onion soup mix.

I also added cheese to the sandwich and a side of the au jus made from the juice/broth that was left in the bottom of the slow cooker.  Both my husband and I really enjoyed this although I think it's on the high sodium side (but it's ok, we ate kale the day before).

Last but not least, I made these Slow Cooker Pork Chops (ok I actually made these first but whatever).  Again this recipe was really simple.....pork chops, cream of chicken soup and a ranch dressing mix packet.

I like the flavor of this (I used cream of celery soup instead) and I think it would have turned out slightly better if I cooked it a little less.  I used less pork chops than the original recipe called for.  (I also used frozen mashed potatoes instead of making my own garlic ones like the recipe suggests.)  But overall it was good and far easier than trying to grill a pork chop.

In conclusion, Pinterest is cool.  These recipes were easy (especially the last too).  And if you want to feel healthy, eat a bunch of raw kale.  Not only is it good for you but I think you burn extra calories by chewing on the kale for so long. 

What have you pintered for dinner lately?

Oh and let me know if you Pinter so I can follow you.  You can click on the big P at the top to go to my Pinterest and see all these recipes (and a bunch of other stuff I have pinned).

Coming soon...my recent craft Pinters.

Holiday Recap Part Deux-There's Been Another Murder and My 'Boyfriend' Turns 32!

Some of my friends and I planned a low-key dinner party for New Year's Eve (since a few of our friends were out of town and another one of them was 8 months pregnant aka probably not into club/bar hopping).  Then we decided that might be a little boring so we turned it in to another Murder Mystery Party.  You might remember the first one from here.  As long as you can get a group of people together who are willing to participate and dress up it can be a fun/entertaining night.  I purchased our Murder Mystery kit online at Night of Mystery.

So More Holiday Awards.....

Best Hostess-Mrs. Acorn-She entertained.  We will just leave it at that.

Best Sport-Our sweet pregnant friend Beezus5 who was dressed quite fashionable as a teen starlet even though she is 8 months pregnant.  Although she had to wear flip flops due to ankle swellage, she did somehow manage to have the best looking hair of any of the girls.  (No offense to anyone else's wonderful hair.  I myself was rocking a bumpit).

The bumpit is always appropriate.

Best Dance Partner-Curly T refused to let B dance alone in the corner the whole night.

Best Dressed-Everyone, especially the boys.  I wasn't quit sure all the boys would be in to dressing up since most of the male roles were former boy band members or rappers.  But everyone really brought it especially with their faux jewels and berets.  We forgot to take a big group picture so these will have to do.

Most Likely to be Super Late but Actually Showed up Semi-On Time-Shanzles!  Yay, way to go!

Best Champagne Bar-B, for actually looking up champagne cocktails, printing out the recipes and buying all the ingredients.

Best Dessert-ME!  For purchasing this lovely Raspberry Lemon Cake for my New Year's Day birthday boy.  We ate it right after midnight on his actual birthday.

And and just FYI, I won the best acting award for my amazing range of fake accents.  Yeah, go me.

My husband's birthday is on New Year's Day so I think I should also win the Best Birthday Celebrator Award by making sure he drank some water on New Year's Eve before bed so that he'd feel well enough to golf on his birthday.  Success.  I also took him out for a nice January 2nd birthday dinner since many places are closed on New Year's Day.

What did you do for New Year's Eve?

Holiday Vacation 2011 Recap-Part One-Christmas and Christmas-ish activities

Wow, so I think this is the longest blog vacation I've ever taken.  It just sort of happened.  Around mid December I was struck with an intense cold that lasted until past Christmas.  Then I was off work for a week and a half so I just decided to let the blog rest for awhile.  But I'm back.  My vacation was officially over at 6AM today when I woke up for work.  But my vacation was awesome so I'd like to hand out some awards to my friends and family for making it so good.

Today we will discuss Fristmas, Christmas and the 1st Annual (yeah I'm going there-it should definitely be yearly) Post-Christmas Extravaganza....

Later I will recap New Years and my husband's birthday.

Best Baking-I'm going to go ahead and call this a tie between B and I.  I was too ill to prepare the Gingerbread dough the night before we made the cookies so B followed my recipe and I coached him through it.  There was a slight mix up between baking soda and baking powder but we worked through it.  Then I used my new cake ball maker to whip up these brownie peppermint cake balls.  They might have been slightly hard but look how cute they are.

Best Holiday Decor in my House-Another tie between B and I.  B for single-handedly bringing in the tree by himself and setting it up on the tree stand.  Me, for acquiring Christmas decor over the years and sitting it around the house.

Best attempt to open/eat his own Christmas presents-Hobie!  Christmas is really about the kids, right.  Hobie really enjoyed opening his presents on Fristmas*.  He wasn't bad at gift giving either.  He managed to get B and I some much needed new salt and pepper shakers.

Most Photogenic-My brother and sister.  My brother gets it for actually agreeing to be in a photo and look at the camera and L-Fab is always great in photos!

 Best Couple-Obviously B and sleeping Hobie win best couple.  Always.

Best Inter-family Mingling-This goes to B's family below and my family (in the next pic).  It was the first time we had members of both our families hang out together on Christmas.  Plus B's family forced me to watch A Christmas Story which is good since I've never actually seen that movie all the way through (Crazy, I know).

Best Feast-My mom wins the Best Feast award for preparing billions of dishes for Christmas eve dinner as well as multiple meats.  She even made a few vegan dishes for my mother-in-law.  My Aunt gets runner up for the December 23rd holiday meal she made us.  Delightful.

Best Post Christmas Gathering goes to me and all my homies who met up on December 27th for some good times.  Special Shout out to the Young's for their guest appearance all the way from Vegas.

I was so excited to fit everyone in our freshly
painted basement!

Special shoutout to me for deciding not to cook a bunch of food and instead just get 3 Stouffers Lasagnas and some wine and beer.

Special shoutout award to Curly J aka the Brayer for suggesting we play Dirty Santa (aka White Elephant) and for bringing this awesome Sweet Talking Ken Doll as one of the prizes.  It was hysterical and fun playing with my closest friends.  (Curly T, you better be able to describe the whole second season of Parks and Rec to me next time I see you).

No special shoutout to Shanzles for bringing this wreath made of plastic bags (although it did come with a Starbucks gift card so not the worst gift ever.)

Best Holiday Craft-Shanzles.  Shannon previously failed at beach craft hour but came back strong with these cute book themed Christmas ornament.  You are officially redeemed!

Overall, it was an amazing break but I'm so happy to be back at work today.  FALSE.  I am not happy to be back at work today (but I am grateful that my University totally shuts down between Christmas and New Year's so I don't have to work).

I will return later this week with part deux of my holiday recap.  You can't wait!

*Fristmas is the made up holiday B and I share where we open up our Christmas presents to each other a few days before real Christmas and then eat some sort of delightful breakfast or dinner together.