Bird Nest Breakfast Cups [PCL]

PCL = Pinterest Come to Life

I made Bird Nest Breakfast Cups this morning - inspired by this. They were super easy, pretty good and Bella was able to help (always a plus). Mine don't look as good as the picture from Pinterest, but they still tasted good! Hubby approved, too. The only thing I would try to change next time is cooking the hashbrowns a little longer to see if the bottom gets crisper.

They turned out to be 200 cal each. A little high for me - so next time I'll omit the sausage in mine or use ham.

Bird Nests with Sausage

If you want to make them, you could follow the recipe from the blog I found it in. Or here's what I did and I ended up with 9 cups.

• shred 2 large potatoes 
• shred 4 oz reduced fat cheese
• cook 1/2 lb of breakfast sausage 
• spray a muffin tin with Pam
• place some potato and cheese in each tin. save a handful of cheese for later.  
• bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees
• remove from oven, turn heat down to 350
• crack an egg on top of each cup. Break the yolk a little.
• Sprinkle some sausage on each cup. Top with a little more cheese.
• Bake for another 15 minutes (or until egg is cooked).
• use a knife around the edges of the cups to remove.
• enjoy!

Pan Pic

Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Not long ago, JT made some awesome lettuce wraps with ground beef. I was in charge of stopping at Cub to get lettuce on my way home from work. For some reason, I thought two huge bunches of bibb lettuce is what we needed. We used about 1/4 of what I bought. 

I decided that tonight was the night to use it up and found an awesome looking Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wrap recipe. My verdict? Super easy to make, but cut back on the lime juice. I love lime, but it was too much even for me. My husband, however, loved it and even ate the last of it up during dinner - unheard of for a guy who loves leftovers more than stuffing himself at dinner. So I guess overall it was a winner and will be made again (with about 1/2 the lime juice).

I didn't think to take a picture of our final product (the one above is from Taste of Home), but I served it with white rice. I mixed in carrots and celery with the chicken but served the shredded cucumber on the side since I don't like it. We had crumbled blue cheese so I made the sauce in the recipe, but regular blue cheese dressing would be fine as well.

Chocolate Mocha Jello Shots [PCL]

PCL = Pinterest Come to Life

Every year our group of "married friends" has a belated holiday party in January. This year's  I made some fancy Jello shots inspired by a blog I found on Pinterest, That's So Michelle. She has a lot of fab jello shot recipes, but I thought a modified version of her Peppermint Mocha Holiday Jello Shots would be perfect for the party.

I. Loved. Them.

I did make some modifications and doubled the recipe:

• brewed 2 cups of Keurig coffee - I had Green Mountain Breakfast Blend on hand.
• let it sit until warm, but not hot. Then pour into a sauce pan. 
• sprinkled 2 packages of Knorr gelatin on top and let it sit for 2 min
• added 1/2 cup of sugar and stir
• slowly stired in 2 cups of Pinnacle Whipped Chocolate vodka. They were pretty strong, so you can add less if you want...or the original recipe calls for Godiva Liquor, but vodka is cheaper! 
• poured into small cups. I found mine at Walgreens. 
• let sit overnight. Once ready to serve, topped with Redi Whip and added a chocolate wafer straw (something like this) as a garnish. The original used a mini-candy can, but since it wasn't really Christmas anymore I thought a cookie was more appropriate. 

They are best eaten with a spoon and cold. Once they sat out for a while they started to get runny, so put them back in the fridge if you don't eat them all. The above made about 18 shots. And like I said,they were  pretty strong... but that's how I like them :) They do have a strong coffee flavor, so if you want to cut that down maybe only brew 1 cup. In the end, I enjoyed them and will make them again!

Broccoli Salad [PCL]

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I made Broccoli Salad this weekend for a party. It sounded and looked SO GOOD....but it didn't turn out as good as I expected. Everyone else claimed to like it, even my husband who I know would tell me the truth. But I thought it was kind of "blah". I expected it to taste like the broccoli salad in the salad bar at Ruby Tuesdays but it didn't.


I don't know what it was missing, or if my memory of the salad I was comparing it to was off...maybe it was the dressing. It just wasn't flavorful. I wouldn't make it again but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. I might just be too high maintenance when it comes to broccoli salad!

(no pictures taken, but mine looked pretty much like this picture from That's So Michelle ...minus the fancy bamboo bowl and serving spoons)

Ground Beef Shepherd's Pie [PCL]

PCL = Pinterest Come to Life

Tonight for dinner I made ground beef shepherd's pie. The beauty of Pinterest is all I had to do was search for 'ground beef' and I pinned about half a dozen recipes to try next time I have a pound of meat without any ideas of what to make.


The shepherd's pie was pretty good and easy to make. I used Idahoan Loaded Baked Flavored Mashed Potatoes for the topping - one of my favorites and so so good. I also used those for the meatloaf cupcakes I made a few weeks back. Actually, the shepherd's pie was pretty similar to the cupcakes except I mixed carrots, peas, celery and onion in with the meat.

Two pluses were that I got to use my new pie pan I got from Santa, and Bella was super excited to eat pie for supper. I should have let it sit a little longer before "slicing" into it, or maybe use less beef broth. So the presentation wasn't great, but it tasted good - which is what really matters!

Overall I rate this as a dish good enough and easy enough to add into our normal rotation!

Frozen Slow Cooker Meals [PCL]

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Quite a while back, I completed my very first Pinterest inspired task - creating several Frozen Slow Cooker Meals. I didn't take a picture of my own, so I stole this one from the original blog.

I tried five different recipes. It was a lot of work to create so many at once, so next time I'd narrow it down to two or three. I went to the grocery store only for the supplies I needed and spent about $175 to make 9 meals. At $20 a meal, I'd say the task was more for saving time rather than money.

You can find the recipes here and here. This is what I made and what I thought of them:

• Stephanie's Goulash - good, would make this again
• Chicken Curry - would add more curry next time, but overall good and would make again
• Chicken N' Cherries - SKIP IT. Flavor is 'off' and the chicken felt sticky.
• French Beef Dip - very good, even better the next day!
• Orange-Beef Stew - alright...flank steak is more expensive than I'd like to spend for a freezer meal so I probably won't make again.

There are still a few in the freezer, but once they are used up I'll make more. It is really nice to have a back-up plan to throw in the crock pot in the morning. Just leave enough time for it to thaw enough to fit in the pot - take it out right when you get up and put it in the crockpot as you are heading out the door.

Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese and Baked Parmesan Tomatoes [PCL]

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Yum and Yum!

Tonight's dinner was totally Pinterest inspired. Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese was amazing and Baked Parmesan Tomatoes was an easy, delicious twist on a vegetable I normally don't like.

The Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese took a little prep work - chopping and measuring everything - but was totally worth it. So, so good. Not good for me...but next time I may try to make a lighter version. I used canned chicken and made a batch sans hot sauce for the girls.

I'm normally not a huge tomato fan, but the Baked Parmesan Tomatoes were really good. I think I cooked them a little too long, so make sure to watch the time, but just 1/2 tbls of Parmesan cheese on each slice added great flavor. I'd do it again, but I guess Jeremy isn't a fan of cooked tomatoes...the things you learn after 11 years together!

My First "Original" Pin [PCL]

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I put "original" in quotes because I'm sure I saw this somewhere and it inspired me today. I doubt I'm the first to think of this but I didn't have a Pin to repin, so I took a picture and uploaded my work directly. Someone already repinned it!

I was inspired today as I continued to clean up Christmas aftermath. I cut up an empty wrapping paper tube and used it for all of Bella's hair binders, clips and bows.

It's not pretty, but it'll do the job. We'll see how long it lasts. My work already paid of, however, when Jeremy gave me compliments for organizing. He's usually the one coming up with 'solutions' for things...so he was impressed with me. It's the little things in life. <3

Magic Milk Paint [PCL]

[PCL = Pinterest Come to Life]

Bella and I tried Magic Milk Paint this past weekend. The end result? Eh. It LOOKS cool, but other than that wasn't very exciting. 

The "magic" part is when you touch the food coloring with your toothpick dipped in dish soap - the food coloring "runs away" from it. That IS cool. But lasts about a second and then the thrill is gone. After that, Bella had fun stirring the colors around in milk but it ended up being too messy and wasteful for what it was worth.

My advice would be to skip this project. Save the milk for dinner and the food coloring for cookies.