Pinterest Recipes

If you're anything like me, you have a bunch of recipes pinned to your boards, but rarely get around to trying any.  Am I right?  Well, this week I decided to try out a few.  First up was homemade Ranch dressing.  I was skeptical since all low fat versions of ranch dressing are a disappointment once I try it.  This recipe was a little different.  1 cup of plain non-fat Greek yogurt, 1 packet of Hidden Valley Ranch and 1/2 cup of 1% milk.  Mix it all up, pop it in the fridge and you're good to go.   Mine came out wonderfully!  I used a little more yogurt in order to thicken up the consistency.  When it was all said and done, I had a thinker dressing that tasted right in between plain Ranch dressing and French Onion dip.  Low fat, low calories and the tastebuds are happy!

My success with the dressing gave a quick boost to my confidence and I decided to tackle the Creamy  Baked Chicken Taquitos as well.  The whole family loved them!  You can find the recipe here: Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos.  A couple of things that I did differently: Once the chicken breasts were cooked, I threw them in the food processor thinking it would be a quick way to shred them.  This should be done in our KichenAid mixer with the paddle attachment, but I couldn't find that after searching for several minutes.  So, out came our ol' trusty food processor.  This method resulted in chicken salad pieces-- which I thought would work just as well, if not better, because of the kids.  I mixed all the ingredients together, but I felt that there wasn't enough cheese.  That's usually my excuse for everything.  So once I was ready to wrap the rolls, I added a layer of mexican blend cheese.  Once everything was done, and the taquitos came out of the oven, the smell was fantastic!  I don't think we had one taquito left over for the next day.  This recipe will definitely be added to the meal-planning rotation.  Is it Paleo?  Nope.  But every once in a while, it's good to shake things up-- especially when you're desperate to find something that the kids will eat!

So, two successful recipes found on Pinterest.  We'll be trying more in the future, I'm sure.  I need to start focusing on stocking the freezer with pre-made meals so we have quick dinner options once Brock arrives!

What recipes on Pinterest have to tried?  Do you have any tips to share?

16 Weekends

16 weekends.  That's all we have left until Baby #3, "Pickle" (no relation to the title of my blog), arrives.  In reality, we only have 14, since Hubby is traveling for two of those weekends.  In real reality, we probably only have 12 weekends, since no one expects me to make it the full 40 weeks.  I'm shooting for 38 weeks personally, but we'll see.  Baby #1, "Pumpkin", arrived at just barely 37 weeks due to preclampsia.  Baby #2, "Sprout", came along at 35 weeks due to pregnancy-induced hypertension.  I'm trying to be realistic about Pickle.  38 weeks sounds like a reasonable goal. 

So, we're looking at around 3 months to get Tiny House ready.  Which entails a lot more than one would think.  Tiny House, for those of you who don't know (which is like, all of you) was supposed to be our "just until Hubby finishes law school" house.  A max of 2 years.  That was 9 years ago.  Still here.  Still not my dream house. Still have bunches of stuff to fix.  And definitely too small for 2 adults, 3 kids, oversized furniture, a toy factory, an art studio, 3 dogs and 4 cats.  But I trust in God's timing, so we'll make due until He leads us to a bigger home.  

"Make due" means turning our rarely used downstairs family room into Pumpkin's bedroom.  She's excited.  Me?  Not so much.  It's going to be tons of work, cost more than we think, and it means I won't have a place to escape to when Hubby's snoring gets to be too much.  We're facing (1) selling all the stuff that currently resides in the family room-- big screen TV, two couches, a gigantic play kitchen, an end table, heaps of scrapbooking supplies, and various other sundries that I can't recall at the moment; (2) painting the walls, which will require at least 2 coats of primer to start, since we chose a deep red-ish plum color when we first moved in; (3) buying dressers/wardrobes due to lack of a closet for her new room; (4) moving furniture, clothes, books and toys; (5) installing a bedroom door; and (6) fixing up the full bath for her (just needs updated a little, and a new shower head). 

After that, of course, we'll need to repaint what is going to be Pickle's room, buy a Big Boy Bed for Sprout, find those antique drawer pulls for his (antique) dresser, move the changing table and crib to Pickle's room, set up the pack- n -play next to my side of the bed, dig out the newborn clothing, find all the necessary baby stuff, wipe it all down, clean it all up and put it all back in service for Round 3.

Not that these things aren't do-able.  They are.  They're just time consuming, and we're short on time as it is.  I've heard "oh, but it doesn't really need to be done until the baby is ready to sleep in the crib." Really?  All this moving ,painting, shuffling, and selling is going to happen AFTER the house contains a 7 year old in second grade with  homework every night, an extremely energetic toddler that is the very definition of chaos, an attention-needing newborn, two full time jobs, super long commutes, karate lessons, cheering, football games, birthday parties, laundry, dinner, etc., etc., etc.???  Yeah.  Ok. That's crazy talk.  I hate when folks think they're giving practical advice when it's clear they haven't actually thought of the logistics.

So, we're back to looking at 16 weekends max, 14 weekends in theory, and 12 weekends realistically.  Y'all ready for this adventure???