I'm really glad that I started this challenge on a weekend and a weekend I had no particular plans at that. It gave me a chance to really get a feel of what I'm getting myself into. I expect the weekends to be easy to fill with different projects and recipes. The weekdays kind of worry me. I'm a fulltime mommy, soon to be wife (if he ever asks!!!) and I also work full time at a job that is pretty strenuous on a day to day basis. I foresee myself searching Pinterest for anything that might help me distress after a long day of work. Maybe some quick and easy suppers...Some make at home bath stuff...tips on getting your man and kids to do all the housework for the week. Ok, maybe that's wishful thinking, but that's the really great thing about Pinterest. You can find ANYTHING! And if you can't find exactly what you need, then you can search the web and pin it yourself for everyone else. I know I'm going on and on about this. But I'm an addict. And that's why I'm even here writing this blog, right?
On to the events of day 2...It turned out to be a really great day. I spent the morning cleaning and used the first pin of the three I ended up doing today. I have a dishwasher in my apartment, but have always been disappointed in it. No matter what detergent I used or what kind of spot free product I tried, my dishes were never clean enough. Well, while browsing on Pinterest one day I came across a make your own dishwashing detergent pin. I decided to try it today. HOLY COW! I was amazed! I am never buying dishwashing detergent from the store again! Never EVER! My dishes were spotless, my glasses shiny, the silverware were absolutely gleaming.
This picture does not do it justice, but my ice cream scoop came right out of the dishwasher shinier than the day I bought it. Pretty cool! This is also going to be very cost effective. That's always a plus around here!
After cleaning and while making lunch for my family I also started on two more projects. I have been craving tuna salad for the last couple of weeks like my mom makes. She puts tuna, boiled eggs, onion, mayo, and pickle relish in it. I've found myself desperately wanting to recreate this and other meals mom made lately. I just miss my momma. It's hard being 1400 miles away from her! So, anyway I decided I would make some for a light supper for Sunday night. I've come across the pin about baking "boiled" eggs instead of boiling them. I thought, what the heck? Might as well try it. I preheated the oven to 300 degrees and put 6 eggs in a small muffin tin. They baked for 30 minutes and then I filled a bowl with ice water and transferred the eggs to it and let them rest for 10 minutes. I peeled one egg right away. There were a couple of dark spots on the white where it looked like it was a little over-cooked. I'm wondering if maybe I should have turned the eggs during baking? I don't believe the website I got the directions from said anything about doing that, but I may try that next time. All in all though it worked pretty good. One out of the six eggs was hard to peel but the rest came right off. I'm still undecided whether or not I like this better than boiling them. It was interesting to try though!
I also started making dough for some pretzel bites. We had planned on going to the lake for Sunday afternoon, so I thought those might be good to take along. I've made homemade pretzels a couple of times. Once in home-ec in jr. high and once when Derryk was a baby. Pretzels are really fun to make and most people, especially if they aren't bakers, don't realize that you have to boil the pretzels before baking. That's what gives them their chewy texture. Kraig was in and out of the kitchen while I was making them and he couldn't believe it when I told him what I was boiling. I made one batch of regular pretzel bites with coarse salt and then I made another batch with sugar and cinnamon. I also made an icing that I drizzled on top of them. They were fantastic! The sweet ones were gone within minutes and the regular ones followed close behind. They were pretty much devoured by the time we left to go to the lake.
I didn't have anything to make cheese sauce for the regular pretzel bites... :*( Oh, that would have been good! But instead, remember my chipotle ranch I made for the pizza on Saturday? We dipped them in that. Not too bad!
The recipe I used only had directions for the regular ones. So, the sweet ones I just kind of came up with. I ran out of white sugar but had brown. I mixed it with cinnamon and rolled the bites in it after brushing them with egg wash. The icing was a little cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Not sure of the amounts. I always make my icing and glazes by feel and taste. I've always planned on making scrap-book type cook books filled with my favorite recipes for my kids. I know that if I ever want to do that I'm gonna have to start measuring my ingredients!
I feel like I'm off to a good start. I've got lots of ideas planned for next weekend. Hopefully I'll get out of the kitchen and get some much needed organizing done. One of my big projects involves organizing all the dvds we have. I've procrastinated for far too long! Of course I've already found an awesome idea for that on Pinterest. As for now, it's my bedtime. After such a busy day around the house and an afternoon full of sun at the lake I'm exhausted. I'm sure I'll be pinning in my dreams...
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