Showing posts with label Flashback Friday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flashback Friday. Show all posts

Friday, August 22, 2014

Flashback Friday: Redneck Waterbed

Why is today Flashback Friday? I'll tell you. It's because I have a Pinstrosity to share with you today, inspired from a pin that "fathered" two previous Pinstrosity posts. 

Behold, Pinstrosity #1:

Rachael found that if your land isn't completely flat, you run into trouble.  Rolling blog anyone?

Pinstrosity #2:

Magdelyn found out that ironing plastic isn't very fun, and that plastic is prone to holes when jumped upon by young yahoos. 

And then finally today I give you Pinstrosity #3:

Rowan followed the instructions at this site, but learned that this was a lot of work for only 10 minutes of playtime. "This photo is taken after only ten minutes of play. My nephews loved it but It quickly got bunched up and sprung leaks. Thankfully I did not add the food-colouring that the post suggests because otherwise I would have ended up with coloured children. In the end we just ended up with a wet tarp.... Really not as fun as advertised."

So, three ladies have found this isn't as easy or as satisfying as it looks at first. But for those 10 minutes it does work, is sounds like fun! Visit the previous two redneck waterbed posts (click on the names of the two previous submitters) for the various tips submitted with these Pinstrosities! 

Friday, July 18, 2014

Flashback Friday-Healthy Ice Cream???

Em here, so this is one of our VERY FIRST POSTS EVER!!! And it's summer so I feel it is relevant in that it is about Ice Cream :) Homemade healthy ice cream...too good to be true?? Check it out!


Healthy Ice Cream?
I was looking for sugar free desserts the other day and came across a recipe for yogurt, honey, cinnamon ice cream. I pinned that faster than...something really fast. I LOVE cinnamon. I love honey. I love ice cream. A combination of the three? Yes please. This sounded heavenly.

The Original Pin
 

You'd think with three ingredients, this would be pretty fail proof. 

What Went Wrong:
  • Our gel canister ice cream maker was way too cold and the yogurt concoction froze solidly to the sides almost instantly, so the paddle couldn't turn. 
  • With the sides of the ice cream maker coated in a solid layer of overly frozen yogurt, the yogurt in the middle just got cold...it didn't freeze much at all. 
  • I wanted ice cream and this definitely was not ice cream. It was good yogurt, but it didn't even come close to ice cream for me.
This is 20 minutes after scooping out the soft yogurt...it's still frozen solid. I could mortar a house with this stuff! You can't use metal on these gel canisters...and as you can see, a wooden spoon just doesn't cut it.

How to fix this:
  • Let the ice cream maker thaw out some before I try and freeze yogurt
  • Try the alternative method given in the blog of freezing in in popsicle form. 
  • Try different flavors in the yogurt...maybe I can make it less yogurty and more desserty.
    • Vanilla and caramel flavorings
    • Throw in some fresh fruit (ooh...berries!)
    • If you still want to make it healthy and sugar free but don't want the honey taste, try using Truvia or some other natural sweetener. We like Truvia at our house.
  • Buy ice cream if it's ice cream you're wanting. 


Do note, that this isn't a bad recipe at all for regular yogurt when yogurt is desired. I'm going to make it again, just not when I'm craving ice cream.  
 

Friday, July 11, 2014

Flashback to the Strawberries

You know there's a problem with a pin when you have enough submissions to make not one, not two, but 3 posts about it. This one is just problematic. Today we have two more submission to add to the pile of pin disappointment.

The Original Pin
http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/recipes/dried-strawberries-ruscalleda/

You know what's coming, don't you.

The Pinstrosities
http://momminitup.com/culinary-fun/pinterest-lies/


These are just about the closest I've seen to actually getting this pin down. But they still aren't the twizzler-esque bites of heaven they appear to be in the original pin. 

Emily, the submitter of the 1st photo said, "So after having intended to make these for a year or two, I finally got around to trying them last night. After more than two hours of baking, I opened my oven to find this. They taste worse than they look. I don’t know why I was surprised – the description should have tipped me off. Better than Twizzlers? There is no such thing."

Melissa, submitter of the 2nd photo, said, "I wanted to try a post that would help me with my sweet cravings, so I found these directions for how to dry strawberries.I followed the directions, slicing the strawberries into two or three slices.  I preheated the oven and threw the pan in when it hit 210 degrees.  To save on cleaning, I put a piece of parchment paper on the baking sheet. At two hours, I noticed the one side was getting dark, so I flipped the over.  At three hours, they were still pretty moist!  The really thin ones were almost dry, but the edges were getting black.  I decided to keep them in for longer so I checked them every 15 minutes. After 4 hours, I threw in the towel and took them out.  They are really dark, the really thin ones are almost completely shriveled, and the fatter ones are still somewhat moist. The good news is that, although they look pretty awful, and I wouldn't exactly call them 'dry', they do taste really good!  I just don't think they're going to keep as long as if they were really dried all the way. Oh well!"

It has been suggested to use lemon juice on the strawberries to help them keep their color and not turn into a nasty brown mess.

Some of our commenters on our previous posts said that theirs looked horrendous, but if you could just get past that and try them, that they were pretty good.

And then there was this comment from Britters on our most recent dehydrated strawberry post that just made me smile: "This might mean a whole new level of Pinterest fails, but has anyone tried dehydrating in your car? Or if you live on a Red Neck estate, one of the abandoned cars? There will be smells, but on a hot day cars can be great for low temperature baking/dehydrating projects."  I have a friend in the Phoenix valley who has actually baked cookies in her car while she was in the store shopping. She just put them in the back window and went inside and came out when she was done to hot fresh cookies. I thought it was a genius way to turn awful weather into a win!

Friday, April 18, 2014

Easter- Redundo Rolls Revisited

With Easter coming this weekend lots of people will be making lots of fun Easter goodies.
One goodie that always seems to make the list, and then make the hit list are these Resurrection Rolls (or Marshmallow Rolls, or Hocus Pocus Rolls etc.). They never seem to turn out like you are hoping/expecting.
Here is a compilation of these "Redundo Rolls" that we featured last year around this time, Marquette put this together and I thought it might be helpful for someone this coming weekend! Take some pointers before you start!
 
Happy Friday all!
Marshmallow Rolls
 
You've seen them on the blog as Redundo Rolls. You've seen them on Pinterest as Hocus Pocus Rolls or Resurrection Rolls. You've seen them exploding in your ovens.  Today...we give you:

The Original Pin
http://eatatallies.com/2011/04/resurrection-rolls/
The Disappearing Marshmallow Rolls! We featured this on the blog before, but we've had quite a few entries since then. I've been saving this one though. Why? Because I tried it, followed our advice, and couldn't get it to work. I ended with results just like these:

The Pinstrosities
 "Mine turned out more like marshmallow snails. In the recipe/directions, she doesn't actually give measurements for ratio of cinnamon to sugar or how much melted butter you need, so I don't think that was the issue. Others had commented that the marshmallow melts and leaks out if you don't make sure your crescent roll "seams" are sealed well, so I made sure to try to do that. Thing is, ours didn't just leak out, they sort of exploded. After they cooled, the marshmallow size went down and they were delicious anyway, but they definitely didn't look like they were supposed to." -Jacy

 
 "I was super excited to see these marshmallow-y delights on Pinterest and decided to try them out for an easy dessert.  I have a bunch of campfire marshmallows left over from a camping season riddled with fire-bans (Colorado spent almost the whole camping season on fire ban).  I figured I could use up marshmallows and free up pantry space.  I broke out my giant marshmallows, the cinnamon and sugar, my melted butter and of course the crescent rolls, perused the directions a 3rd time since that seems to be a primary fail culprit. I took a whole marshmallow dipped it in the melted butter rolled it in the cinnamon/sugar mix then attempted to wrap it in a crescent. Not such a stellar job, but it worked, I had to stretch the dough a bit to accommodate the over-large marshmallow but it worked.  I decided after that maybe a ½ campfire-mallow would work and the next 2 were done in halves, it was still a bit of a squeeze and then I ¼’d the marshmallow.  The wrapping was much easier now but I was out of crescents so it was time to get dessert baking.  I was entertaining my sister-in-law and we were chatting at the table when she looked at the oven and said “uuhhh – is it supposed to explode?” Sure enough I had the stay-puffed marshmallow monster growing steadily in my oven reigned in only by feeble crescent bonds.  The dough looked like it was just about perfect so I pulled them out and this is what I had (this picture was taken after we had eaten some of the flattened sweeties) Thank heavens I put foil on the pan and sprayed it with Pam this was such a gooey mess! They were delicious please don’t think I’m complaining but the marshmallows most definitely didn’t disappear and the crescents didn’t hold any type of shape.  Obviously the next time I do this I’ll be using regular sized marshmallows but even the quartered ones (which ought to have been just about the same size) didn’t hold up.  Please help!  I want these to be the tastey pop-able puffs of Halloween that I imagined them to be!" -Alison

 
"I followed the recipe exactly so I'm not sure where I went wrong :( Regardless of if I knew or not, I will not be trying this one again because I have yet to clean out my oven and I just don't want to add to it. I give this one a 3 out of 5." -Jamie

 
http://pinthisnotthat.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/hocus-pocus-rolls/ -Kierra

 
"I tried to make these Crescent-Roll-Cinnamon-Sugar-Marshmallow things. Marshmallow everywhere. But they still tasted good!" -Sarah

 
"As soon as I pulled these out of the oven I knew I had to send it in. I don't know if I just did something wrong or if this doesn't really work. It said the marshmallows would disappear, but they just spewed out of the sides. I followed the recipe exactly and I even spent extra time on pinching the dough closed so that there were no openings. So here's my pinstrosity. " -Sariah



 

When I made mine I took extra time to make sure that I had pinched the dough closed very thoroughly...and I still ended up with flattened and spewed rolls. I didn't take a picture because they look like all the other photos above. I wasn't quite sure how to solve this. That is, until Carter emailed us. Carter tried out the recipe the first time and got this:

 

But Carter's no quitter. Here's the story:

 "I thought I would send in my lovely experience (and high quality images) to share! And my advice on how other pinners can avoid the hell I found with these heavenly rolls."

"I had just gotten home from a horrible accounting test and all I wanted to do was eat my feelings. I had pinned these bad boys about a week earlier, so they were still fresh on my sweet desiring radar. My boyfriend was also on his way to visit me (I live in Athens and he lives in Atlanta) so I thought I would have something delicious ready for his arrival. After a quick pit stop at the grocery store, I pulled up the original site and followed the recipe from start to finish.
One of the pictures I have included is how the rolls are supposed to look, all cute and fluffy and filled with deliciousness. When my oven timer finally went off after fifteen minutes, that was not at all what I found. The picture included is how mine appeared the exact moment I pulled them out of the oven. My roommates and I had a good laugh at first, then came time to scrape them off the pan.....thirty minutes later, we had a broken pile of cooked crescent dough on a plate. This was a pin fail for the books."

"About a week later, and the night before my business statistics test, I thought I would put the other tube of crescent rolls in my fridge to use and make these bad boys again. This time, instead of pinching them shut like the recipe calls for you to do, I wrapped them in such a way that the marshmallow could still breathe. Fifteen minutes later I pulled out perfectly fluffy, delicious treats (and they taste just as heavenly as the Easter story they represent). The point being DO NOT SEAL THESE SHUT! It will piss off your marshmallow and make for a horrendous clean up time!"

I want to try these again, and now I know what to do. Thanks so much for your help and sleuthfulness (I'm sure that's a word) Carter, you're the best! 
 
Alright Pinstrosipeeps! Who will be, or has already tried these this year!? Send us your results! The good, the bad and the ugly, and we will make another compilation of Redundo Rolls! Good luck everyone!
 

Friday, March 21, 2014

St. Patrick's Week- Sunshine In AND Out of a Jar

Happy Flashback Friday all!
This is in the spirit of St. Patrick's (Day) Week!
What's at the end of a rainbow?? Maybe it's these delicious treats?!
Check it out!
Hello All!
Happy Friday! Michelle sent us this awesome pin, which turned out to be a little TOO awesome!

The Original Pin


The Pinstrosity
The name of this oh so delicious creation is "Sunshine In a Jar", Michelle said she followed the directions, but since she was making this for a baby shower, she decided to put them in a baby food jar. This didn't turn out quite like she had hoped. I would suggest, if you are putting this in baby food jars, which is a super cute idea by the way, that you put 1/3 the amount of cake mix in the jar than you would normally. This should help to minimize spillage, and makes for great presentation, and well, no cleanup, which is always a plus at my house :)
Before doing this for an event, I would suggest taking several different jars of the same size and putting different amounts of batter in each, baking and deciding which one suits your purpose.
These super fun single serving cakes would be great for a kids party, or just a fun dessert with easy cleanup! Bon Appetit!