Last Week of Summer

The summer flew by! Usually by this time I'm ready to be back in classes and have people back on campus, but I've been enjoying having time to myself.

I guess that means that it's time to post the remainder of my Pinterest things!
First of all, I painted my nails back at the beginning of the summer. I really enjoyed the watermelon look. I did discover that I should practice using my left hand more!

I made some Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins that I was planning to take with me when I went to St. Louis. Unfortunately, the recipe had a minor typo. It called for way too much baking powder. It ended up tasting chemical, and the texture was off. I should have been warmed when the batter was more like cookie dough.

 

Something that I was much more satisfied with was a Mac'n'Cheese dog. There was an actual pin with a recipe for it, but I just took a normal hot dog and put some mac'n'cheese on it. My sister thought I was crazy, but it was yummy!

The rest of my projects were not from any particular pin. First of all, I had some flower pots, so I painted them. The first 3 I made for my mom's birthday. The others are for me. I just have to decide what I'm going to put in them!

 

I was randomly inspired to draw a castle. I didn't want to figure out how to draw the towers, so it ended up being a fortress.

Finally, I've been working on a couple of blankets. The first is a fleece blanket. I got a kit for it years ago and decided to finally do it. I ended up realizing that it was meant to be a baby blanket, so I made it for my family's dog.
The second is crocheted. My intention was to use up old yarn that was leftover from projects that I've completed. The problem was that I had yarn of different weights. I've gotten to the point where I've started taking yarn out of my mom's craft closet that I know she won't use. By now it's about twice as long as in the picture.

 

Approved Recipes

Throughout the summer, I've tried several new recipes. I still have a couple planned for what little bit of summer I have left.

I made some Pizza Pocket Crescents for supper. I modified the recipe given to match what I wanted to eat. I've made them twice now, and I am a super fan. I ended up finding some squeezable pizza sauce that worked great to dip them in!

 

The next meal I made was Mac 'n' Cheesy Chicken Stuffed Shells. I made it for my family, and we all liked it at least a little. My dad and I both loved it. The main problem was that the recipe made way too much stuffing for how many shells we made. I would definitely make it again, but I would make more shells.
 

The next recipe I'd like to share wasn't actually from Pinterest. In fact, it wasn't really a recipe. I had been experimenting in order to make great nachos. I finally found a combination that tasted very much like Old Chicago's Nachos Grande! A thin type of nacho chip, layered with Mexican blend shredded cheese and shredded mozzarella. I also included taco seasoned hamburger and anaheim peppers. If I had had tomatoes, I would have included those as well. I put all this on a plate and microwaved it. Easy and delicious!

Next, I made myself some Crockpot Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti. My crockpot was WAY too small for the recipe. The picture below shows just the sauce without the noodles added. I ended up putting in a few noodles, letting it get warm, eating those noodles, and adding in more until all my noodles were in the mixture. It made enough for me to have several meals. I got a little sick of it by the time it was all gone, but it was good!

Finally, my sister and I made Oven Fajitas. I was very happy with how they turned out. They were very easy, but it took longer than I would have spent on a meal just for myself.

Pinterest and the Summer Holidays

I still have quite a lot of catching up to do with this blog. Oops...
First, for Father's Day, I made this. Not a Pinterest craft, but I was still pretty happy with it. I made the design for the letters using Microsoft Word, and cut them out. Cutting them out was the hardest part.

I made this bracelet for the 4th of July. It obviously isn't perfect, but I was still pretty happy with how it turned out.

 

 

I made the mistake of making all the threads the same length. Since the blue is showing most often, it got used a lot quicker. The bracelet barely fit because I ran out of blue way too early.

It's a tradition for my family to make s'mores for the 4th of July.This year, I tried different combinations of bite size chocolate bars. My favorite by far was the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup! Shown below is the s'more with a KitKat. It didn't get melted enough to be as good as the Reese's.

I also convinced my mom and sister to make Campfire Cones with me. Apparently I never got any real pictures of them, though. Mine got pretty burnt, so part of the cone just tasted like burnt sugar!

Here are some other pictures I took from our celebration!

 

Sister Weekend

It's been awhile since I've updated the blog! I've done a lot of Pinterest things that I have to post about, but I'll keep it to only a few per post.

About a month ago, my sister spent the weekend with me. We made an itinerary and everything. Luckily, that meant we planned ahead about what we were going to eat, so we started the weekend by getting groceries. Apparently my mom told my sister that she would've loved to be able to follow us around to laugh at us trying to find all the stuff we needed. We managed rather well, though!

Saturday morning began with a Cinnamon Roll Cake. We used the optional "begin the night before" directions. That was a good idea because it still took a long time to finish on Saturday. Definitely not a "wake up and have breakfast right away" kind of breakfast.

It was a little bit dry, but it still turned out super delicious, and we both agreed that we would make it again, but we would probably make extra icing!

After going to a movie and introducing her to Cherry Berry frozen yogurt for the first time (which I'm happy to say she loved!), we made Jalapeno Popper Cheesy Stuffed Pretzel Bombs. I'm glad that we were both working on it. It went much smoother when we started working in an assembly line style.

We both really liked them, but we ended up freezing a lot! They're better after being microwaved anyway because otherwise the cream cheese was a bit overpowering.

By the time we were finished with the Jalapeno Pretzels, we were ready for a real supper. We made Spicy Chicken Poblano Risotto, which my sister was glad to find out was rice, not pasta. We couldn't find some of the ingredients, so we improvised. My sister used gloves to cut up the hot peppers (and jalapenos from the previous recipe)- I would highly recommend this! Instead of cooking wine, we used a Barefoot brand Pinot Noir. That meant that we had a wine to accompany dinner that perfectly complemented the meal! The arborio rice that the recipe suggested was a little expensive, but I've used it since then to make other basic risotto meals.

This meal definitely passed our taste test, but we decided it was a lot more effort than it was probably worth. Nonetheless, I ended up with leftovers so that I didn't have to cook the next night!

It was a great weekend. We were both surprised at how well we got along, and she seemed surprised that she didn't die from my driving (I'm a great driver! She just doesn't trust her baby sister).


What kind of things do you do to spend time with your siblings? Let me know in the comments!

Food inventory

I made a decision to be able to move at least one pin on Pinterest to my "Accomplishments" board each week of the summer.
The first one I've completed was based off of this pin.
I've been working on emptying out my freezer while I don't have a roommate so that I can defrost it, but I kept forgetting what I actually had, so I wouldn't incorporate it into my meals or snacks. Writing each item in my freezer and fridge on the actual fridge helps me know exactly what I have.

I added the freezer contents to the whiteboard I keep on the freezer door. Everything in the fridge is written on the actual door, separated by drinks, food, condiments, and snack drawer.
I checked before writing it all out that the dry erase markers would actually erase off the door, and it worked quite well.

Now, I'm hoping to be able to do an inventory of my cupboards as well so that I don't always have to search through them to find the things that have gotten pushed to the back!