Friday, June 8, 2012

Pinterest Favorites

So I'm thinking about doing a little bit of an experiment to see how cheaply (and healthily) we can eat.

I have to wait another week or two for my fridge to clear out a bit first though.

In the meantime, I've become addicted to Pinterest. I pin food recipes to my "Eat All The Things!" board and then I make anywhere from 3-10 of those recipes a week and pin them onto my "Ate All The Things!" board with a few notes on how it turned out.

So far I've tried 88 recipes, and I currently have 135 that I still want to try.

It's been an amazing way to discover and try new things.

A couple of my favorites?

This chickpea salad. I know it sounds lame. I never imagined that a CHICKPEA SALAD would be at the top of my list. However, of all the recipes I've tried so far, I've remade this one the most. Everyone who tries it loves it, even my veggie-hating husband. I had it for dinner last night. I served it to my foodie aunt and uncle last weekend. I'm taking it to a cookout this weekend. Do you understand the point yet? It's fantastic.

This focaccia bread. I have baked with yeast probably 50 times now, and have only been really successful a few times. I have made a lot of mediocre and/or terrible breads. But this? No, not this. This was phenomenal. It could not have gotten any better. I didn't even know that focaccia could be so... dreamy. This is my new secret bread weapon ladies and gents.

And did you know that homemade butter is ridiculously easy to make? And that if you make it people will be all like "Wait. What? You made this? You MADE butter? Seriously?" and then their brains explode. It's awesome. Also homemade butter goes really well with dreamy warm-from-the-oven focaccia. Jus' sayin'.

I also love this whipped garlic sauce. It goes with almost everything. It makes stuff you put it on 100 times better. Plain brown rice? Add some whipped garlic sauce and all of a sudden? HOLY CRAP THIS RICE IS DELICIOUS!!! Unless you hate garlic. And then you should probably avoid this sauce at all costs. The garlic flavor in this sauce is no joke.

Chicken with mustard cream sauce is the best way I have ever had chicken. EVER. E-V-E-R. I cannot emphasize that enough. Evvvvvvverrrrrrrrr. Okay. I'm done.

These confetti cookies are my new favorite cookie. If you are a vanilla lover, make these. Make them now.

I won't make this often, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this Chick Fil A copycat recipe does in fact taste nearly identical to my beloved Chick Fil A. It helps that I marinated the chicken in pickle juice though. (That's the secret, I swear.)

A lot of the recipes I tried I would make again, but these are a few really outstanding ones.

I also learned how to etch glass, that you can keep a cake moist by putting a slice or two of bread on top, and that if you put green onions in water they will grow and grow for weeks!

Pinterest is an incredible time waster if all you do is look at the pretty pictures... but if you actually take some of the ideas and try them out... it's actually really useful.

Who knew?