Pinterest Experiments - April 2013

Banana Tres Leches Cake    WOW!!!  This cake is really great - sits like a brick, very dense, but really good.  My favorite part was the warm banana topping - make plenty of that because you'll want one in every bite!  I froze half the cake (without the topping) and was able to whip up some more topping and eat it a couple weeks later which was nice.  I definitely recommend this one!  (Pinterest Link Here)

Amish Friendship Bread  - This was a great recipe since it doesn't require days of work (like the original Amish Friendship Bread).  This recipe gets a great result in one day with No Kneading!  I liked the suggestion of one lady on the blog to replace half the butter with apple sauce.  I plan to use "chunky applesauce" next time I make it so that there are chunks of apples in the bread - YUM.  The only other suggestion I would make is that I like a good sugar crust on top so rather than swirling with a knife at the very end, I think next time I will swirl it just before adding the last bit of sugar topping!  Another great recipe I recommend!  (Pinterest Link Here)

Mongolian Beef  Loved this one too!  Great flavors and really quite easy!  After cutting up my flank steak, I cooked half of it for dinner and froze the rest for later.  After eating we still had a lot of sauce leftover and I couldn't bring myself to throw it out -so I froze that too.  That was a couple months ago.  Last night I pulled the steak and sauce out of the freezer and cooked it up.  It was delicious all over again without much effort at all!  The only change I made was to add fresh green beans to the sauce, it tasted great and I'm sure other veggies would too!  Thumbs up!  (Pinterest Link Here)

Funeral Sandwiches.  Time for a Thumbs Down?  Sorry if you have tried these and liked them but I am not a fan.  I can see why they are called Funeral Sandwiches - because if they don't give you a heart attack they will certainly depress you!  Actually they aren't bad, I just hate to eat something that is loaded with fat and not have it taste Amazing!  Personally I think they are a waste of your daily calories.
(Pinterest Link Here)

Croques Monsieur.  These babies on the other hand, are loaded with fat and I was perfectly ok with it.  I couldn't believe how good they were and I loved every bit of them!  My kids thought they had died and gone to heaven.  AMAZING!  I will probably only make them a couple times a year but that will just add to their allure!  Be careful with your broiler - you don't want to go to all that work only to have them burn at the very end.    (Pinterest Link Here)

See why I need to work out 4x a week!  

My Pinterest Experiments

I (like many of you) love pinterest!  I have gotten great recipes, decorating ideas, party inspiration, etc., etc., etc.!  You have seen the decorating projects around my home that Pinterest has inspired -and now I have decided to let you know how I feel about some other Pin's I have tried. 

This past week I tried these three - here's what I think..... 

This sauce looked so good on Pinterest I was drooling.  I had my doubts that I would love it since I am not that big of a cauliflower fan - but this honestly blew my mind!  I had it on noodles and served it to my kids too.  My oldest son asked for seconds (a miracle!).   My other two kids were just ok with it.  I loved it and am excited to try some of her other recipes using this sauce.   So Thumbs Up to this one!

(pinterest link here)

 Since it is Easter I tried this one last night with my kids.  Looks so cool and fun!   Sadly I have to give this one a big thumbs DOWN!  The shaving cream looked cool just like in this picture, but it didn't transfer well onto the eggs.  I let the eggs sit quite a while (probably 30 min.) in the shaving cream in hopes that the color would transfer well.  The eggs ended up looking very light and pastel - hardly any color at all -and definitely no cool swirly affects going on.  My kids loved playing in the shaving cream which was great but when it got on their clothes it stained them pretty bad - I'm working on getting that out now!  Next time I'll stick with the Dollar Tree egg dye kit!

Finally I have to give this last pin a thumbs up and a thumbs down.  A thumbs up because the cookies are amazingly delicious and a thumbs down because I have eaten way more cookies this week than I have in a VERY long time.   Wow - just looking at this picture makes me want to go grab another cookie out of the fridge right now!  My only suggestion is to make sure you cook them on a dark colored cookie sheet - I did mine on a light one and had to keep cooking and cooking them to get them to brown up slightly on the bottom - very frustrating!  Once I tried the dark cookie sheet the recommended cooking time worked perfectly!  (Pinterest link found here).

From time to time I will be back with more Pinterest Experiment posts to let you know what other Pins I am giving the Thumbs up or Thumbs down to.

Now go join Pinterest if you haven't already!  Seriously why haven't you?!?!