Thanksgiving Treat Troubles

I have a confession to make. I haven't done any prep-work or planning for Thanksgiving or Christmas yet. None.

So if you're anything like me and just now trying to figure out some last minute ideas, I thought I'd put a few together for you out of submissions we've received.

The first Pinstrosity submission was submitted from a craft day where they tried to do 4 different DIY projects. One of their attempts was to make this cornocopia treat. This could be used as a treat for kids, or even dressed up to be cute place cards for Thanksgiving place settings, or even a great centerpiece or decor item.

Photo and Tutorial by The Craft Patch

We were told in the submission that "If you wet the cones too long, they got too soggy. Not long enough, they wouldn't curl! If you microwaved them just 20 seconds as the site recommends, they broke when you tried to curl them! If you microwaved them longer, they were too hot to handle!"

The first place I go anymore for troubleshooting a tutorial is the comments section of the original post. Those are goldmines! This one was no different. From perusing the comments there were people that had the exact same troubles with this cute craft, and some that tried tweaks and found things that worked. Here's what I learned from others' experiences:

• Differences in microwave powers made a difference. Not every microwave runs on the same default power setting. Start with a lower power setting to keep the cone from getting as hot, but allowing it to be in the microwave for longer (to allow for more softening). Think of a piece of bread in the microwave vs the oven. In the oven it gets dried out and hard. In the microwave it gets soggy and limp. You want that softening! 
• These still may get pretty warm or hot...wearing oven mitts would be hard to work in but they could help you get the results you want. 
• Some people found greater success with the sugar cones in shape of waffle cones rather than with real waffle cones. 
• Some found that the brand of cone you used made a difference, but I didn't see any consistency with brand recommendations. Some had the name brands work better, some had the store brands work better. It may be less of a brand issue and more of a batch or age of the product issue. 

This 2nd Pinstrosity submission could be a fun treat, or even paired with a tag for a cute name card/place setting! 

Photo and Tutorial by Seventh House on the Left

Often we paraphrase submissions or just give one or two liner quotes, but this is one that you need to read the original of (I did split it into smaller paragraphs, but the words are all original!) as Morgan wrote this up so perfectly and humorously!

"This is a tale of Thanksgiving treat gone awry.  My boyfriend's parents were coming to visit my parents for the very first time around Thanksgiving.  I decided it would be fun to make something for everyone to enjoy and show off my creative and Martha-Stewart-like kitchen abilities.  I found this adorable link on pinterest and decided to go for it."  

"As you can see, I had everything except the chocolate wafers (even the Betty Crocker Cookie icing AND I even worked out which would be the limiting ingredient so as to buy enough of the rest of the ingredients), but it's just the structural base, so a sturdier cookie could work just as well seeing as how I had NO IDEA where to find Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers CookIes.  Plus, my cookie had a hole in the middle so the Nutter Butter was even MORE supported (I'm an engineer and I worry about the stability of my cookies). "Hunt them down" they said…right like the state of Kentucky has these fancy-pants cookies.  And "order them off the internet" you say?  It wasn't THAT important."

"Anyway, I was so excited to start working that I began when my mother put the turkey in the oven.  Here is where I encountered my first and most important mistake.  You know what happens when four women are all bustling about cooking Thanksgiving dinner in a kitchen the size of a college dorm room?  It gets HOT.  I should have worked on these in an industrial grade deep-freeze.  The temperature of the room was obviously way too hot for the "glue" aka the white cookie icing to harden enough for these suckers to set up.  They just kept falling apart like sad little cartoons having massive strokes."  

"My second mistake was not realizing how much TIME it would take to put all of these together.  I mean, I set aside at least 3 hours to do this!  Also, as it turns out, I don't have a whole lot of patience or skill when it comes to delicate cookie decorating.  What ended up happening is my boyfriend's mother (who is super crafty and has the patience of Mother Theresa) helped me assemble them.  She would put one together and I would put it in my deep-set pan and put it directly in the freezer.  I really felt like I was running a sweat shop and she was my poorly paid with no benefits employee."  

"As you can see, they turned out…..ok-ish.  I had my fill of pies, so I didn't actually try them, but the men-folk REALLY enjoyed them.  My boyfriend said that you wouldn't think they would taste good at all, but they flavors actually went well together, but it basically induces a diabetic coma.  I learned my lesson and probably will make them again in the future because they are just so cute, but will certainly work in a colder climate, put each in the freezer as soon as they are done, and take a muscle relaxer, listen to massage music, and drink some herbal tea while working on them."

And today's final Pinstrosity submission. These individual pie cups would be perfect for parties, kids, or even those large extended family plus their neighbors Thanksgivings.

Photo and Tutorial by Make and Takes

"Everything was going pretty well until it came time to take the finished pies out of my - admittedly vintage - muffin tins.  As you can see, they didn't.  Probably 20% of the crust stayed behind, firmly adhered to the metal.  What a mess!  Of course, they still tasted fine, but hardly the adorable little snacks I'd been hoping for!"

"I used an all-shortening pie crust recipe, but I don't think that was the problem.  It was clearly my tins.  Yes, I sprayed them with cooking spray, but I could have used more. But different tins would have been a better solution. Silicone "tins" would probably have been idea, since they're less sticky to begin with and can be deformed to un-mold.  In fact, if I'd just bought the disposable aluminum ones they probably would have worked better, because again they could have been deformed.  Or, as Mom pointed out as she was trying to help get the silly things out, I could have simply used cupcake papers.  >>face palm!<< Why didn't *I* think of that?!"

This is a pin that I have actually done! Well...not this pin exactly. There are a ton of mini-pies made in cupcake tin pins. I read a few and realized that all different types of pie crust recipe were being used and it didn't seem to make a difference, so I just used my normal all-shortening recipe from my Mom that I LOVE, and then followed the instructions on the can of pumpkin for pumpkin pie filling. As the crust to filling ratio is quite different with these than a normal pie they do bake up a little different. I made mine a few years ago so I don't remember exact details, but I do believe I made my crusts just slightly thinner than normal.

Sticking can definitely be a problem with these, more than with a normal pie. For my normal pies I can lay the crust in the pan and just gently press it in enough to get the right shape, but for these you do have to really press it in quite a bit to get it to mold to the cupcake shape of the pan and to get the creases pressed together. With all the extra pressing of the dough against the pan the chances for there to be sticking is much higher. My first pan of these mini pies stuck a little, so for the second pan instead of my normal Pam spray, I went to the "old fashioned" shortening and flour solution. 

Using a paper towel, a napkin, or your fingers, coat the cups up the cupcake tin. You don't want globs of shortening left, you want a smooth layer over the pan. Once you have that sprinkle some flour over the pan and shake it around to get an even dusting of flour stuck to the shortening. Then press in your pie crusts. This will help prevent extra sticking from having to press the creases and mold the dough!


I love the original ideas of each of these pins and the attempts made at them! Reading their submissions and then reading comments on the original sites just helps reinforce that "Life isn't Pinterest Perfect, but that's okay!" These 3 projects are not impossible projects, but they may take some tweaking sometimes as we all have different situations going on in our homes! If you give one of these a try, let us know how it turned out! 

Pinstrosity Personal Pizzas

Whewy, Monday was a rough day. Mondays are usually just another day for me, but this past one was a Monday Deluxe. Dead car battery. Angry readers. Changes of doctor appointments. Unhappy baby. Tired Moody Momma. Etc. Etc. Etc. Makes for a rough day. It was a day that called for pizza...lots of pizza. Pizza cheers me up. And Doughnuts. Sadly...I didn't have either, and the dead car battery made getting pizza (or even pizza ingredients to make it at home) a 40 mile round trip hike that I wasn't willing to take. I'd have even gone for a tiny little palm sized pizza, but alas...it was not to be. What do tiny pizzas look like you ask? I'll show you. 

http://www.rhodesbread.com/recipes/view/2094

Don't those look yummy?! Mmm, I want one. And how cute?! You could use heart cookie cutters for valentines day, shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day, pumpkins for Halloween, etc. Perfect! I seriously want to try these out, but since I can't at this exact moment I'll show you a submission we received from Miriam and her adventure. 

"I was having a little Christmas get together and thought these mini cookie cutter pizzas would be a great treat for the kids. Simple, just use Christmas cookie cutters to cut out shapes from pizza dough, add sauce, cheese, whatever. So I bought refrigerated pizza dough and rolled it out, cut shapes, then tried to lift the extra dough off, leaving the tree, candy canes, etc to be decorated. Only the cutters didn't cut through all the way. So it started stretching and tearing. And pizza dough is a little sticky. Yeah.  I tried to lay it all down back where it was and re cut the shapes with a little more force. Come to find out, it only takes one little area to stick and things go wonky. So new plan, I will just redo it by smushing up the dough, flattening it back out, and recutting. Hmm, this worked better in my head!  It was not universally flat, and I was struggling. So my husband stepped in to save the day. They didn't look THAT bad before going into the oven. However, the end result speaks for itself."

The Pinstrosity:

Not the pretty shapes from the original pin, but it's pizza. It doesn't have to be pretty to taste good (have you caught our theme on food yet? We'll pick good tasting and not so pretty over beautiful and inedible any day). 

But what if you want beautiful and tasty? The key here lies in the original directions. The Pinterest caption wasn't wrong, it just wasn't complete. You do roll out the dough, cut it with cookie cutters, top it, and bake it...but there are a few steps in-between. The "pizza dough" in the original pin is actually Rhodes Roll dough. 

http://www.rhodesbread.com/recipes/view/2094

Now really quick let me make sure you know we're not getting compensated by anyone to link to Rhodes or to tell you about them (we don't ever do those kind of posts). They are the authors of the recipe and the creators of the original pin image, so we link to them and use their directions.

So, in case you didn't just read the recipe I'll summarize. They have you take a thawed, but still cold, ball of dough, flatten it out to a 4 1/2" circle, and cut it with a cookie cutter which was dipped in flour. This is where Miriam first ran into some trouble. The cookie cutter didn't quite cut the dough all the way through. Rhodes' fix? Have a small knife handy to cut away the extra connected dough. You can see that here in their tutorial video:

Not too shabby!

If you watched the video and/or read the recipe, you also probably caught the fix to the problem of the dough puffing up during baking and pushing the toppings and sauce off. What is the fix? Pre-baking. Before you add sauce or toppings, you want to bake your dough shapes for 8-10 inches minutes (inches..bhahaha, let's just skip this week). In the video we're told that if the dough starts curling up on the edges (or puffing up too I'm sure), then pull the pan out, flip the dough over, and return the pan to the oven. After you pre-bake, you top the crusts and then bake again. The pre-bake is the key to keeping the cute little shapes for your pizza crusts.

Lessons learned today? Pre-bake, and caption your Pinterest pins well!

Happy pizza creating!
Ooh! Now I want a Pinstrosity cookie cutter to make Pinstrosity Pizzas!

Mix It Up Monday Holiday Hazards

Many of us love this holiday season (I know...some of you don't) and want to make better and better memories each year. While I'm all for the great memories, I'm also for low stress and simplicity. The holidays don't have to be meticulous, overdone, or fancier than the neighbors to be great. That's easy to say, I know, but putting it into practice can sometimes be hard. We want every holiday to be the best yet! What is one thing you can do to help lower the stress of the holidays and to enjoy them more? Know the hazards ahead of time. If you know what your pitfalls are, they are easier to avoid. Last year we were sent a great graphic about the Hazards of Holidays, but we were unable to use it in time. This year, we definitely want to get it up with plenty of time. So without further ado, I give you The Hazards of Holidays (I know...these are mostly geared towards Christmas, but you can apply them to Thanksgiving and New Years as well):

by MastersInHealthcare.com 

This isn't a graphic to scare you into being a Scrooge or not celebrating. It's here as a heads up. Don't let these hazards take over your holiday. Normally feel stressed with the holidays? Did any of these jump out at you and make you go, "Yeah! Me too!"? Focus on minimizing that stress this year. Say no to parties if you have to. Go homemade with all your gifts if money is tight. Stay home with your own family if the extended family affairs are more than you can normally handle happily. It's okay to do the holidays your own way! They are here as celebrations, not as downers. So celebrate and enjoy!

Cinnamon Candles

I love the scents of Fall. Apples. Cinnamon. Spices. Baked Goods. Pine Cones. Sap. Green Chile. Mmmm, it's the best time of year! I'm always looking for ways to bring those scents in the house. There's just something about walking into a house and smelling fresh pine, or yummy baked bread, or roasting green chile stew that makes it feel so autumny and festive and wonderful. I love getting the smells naturally (by baking, bringing nature indoors, or making stove top scents), but those scents don't always last long and I'm honestly not a huge baker (which is probably a good thing as then I'd be a huge eater and then I'd be just huge in general). I'm not an avid candle burner, but I do like a food strategically placed and scented candles during the holidays. You can buy the prescented candles, but there are always ways of sprucing them up visually while also adding some awesome scents to the air. We've seen so many pins about securing aromatic items to a candle and then burning the candle to help release the scent. Coffee beans. Candy canes. And now today we have a submission with cinnamon sticks. 

The Original Pin

http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/holiday-ideas/cinnamon-stick-candles-fall-ideas.html

The directions are simple. Use a rubber band to secure the cinnamon sticks to the candle. Cover rubber band with twine. Burn candle. Smell cinnamon. Actually, the smell cinnamon part isn't ever really mentioned in the directions, but that is the caption that is often pinned with this picture. But it would seem to make "scents", right?

The Pinstrosity

It looks gorgeous! But here's what Carly has to say about the scent: "The look was there for a cute, fall candle..however there was absolutely NO cinnamon scent! I let it burn for hours in a room with a closed door to see if I could get a scent & no such luck! It seemed like such a great idea! 2/5 on GTC fail scale--a moderate fail; the look was there but the scent wasn't!"

I've tried decorating with cinnamon sticks a few times and it's been a hit and miss thing. If you buy the sticks in a pre-packaged sealed bag you never know if you're getting good aromatic sticks or just slightly cinnamonized sticks. When we lived in Tucson we would get good aromatic sticks of cinnamon from Sunflower Market. Sometimes craft stores have cinnamon sticks that have extra cinnamon scent on them...those could be fun to use!

So this project may or may not fill your house with a yummy cinnamon scent, but it will spruce up your candles and give a great fall look to your house. That's a win at least. 

A Cracked Spin

Not every "failure" is a failure. It's just another project waiting to happen! Here, we'll show you. 

The Original Pin

http://dream-it-make-it.blogspot.com/2009/10/mmmmm-fried-marbles.html

Those are so pretty, I love them. The lighting in the photo really makes them shine! Rowena gave them a try, following the instructions exactly, and this was her outcome:

The Pinstrosity

She said, "not exactly what I was going for, but not a total failure. They cracked some, but not the way the picture showed it. Maybe the oven should have been hotter, I don't know." 

You definitely want those marbles to be hot coming out of the oven so that when you put them in the ice water they crack through the center. Another issue may be that Rowena used cat's eye marbles and not just plain/solid marbles. The cat's eye might have prevented the marble from cracking just how she wanted. 

But, even though these didn't turn out quite like she hoped, luckily Rowena didn't give up on her project. She turned back to her Pinterest and found this pin:

The Other Original Pin

http://www.etsy.com/shop/bullseyebeads

Aren't those pretty and clever? Here's how Rowena's turned out:

The Pin Spin

Perfect! So don't despair when a project doesn't come out just quite like you hoped. Set it down and return later if you have to, but often there's a great Pin Spin that you can get out of what seems like a sad project. 

These acorn marbles would be so cute in a bowl, put in a bouquet, used as place cards for a nice dinner (just add a fun string and tag!), or made into jewelry! Great job Rowena!

Goopy Turkeys

We hope you all had a very safe and fun Halloween. A part of me wants to add "and that you didn't have any major Pinstrosities with parties or costumes" but at the same time a part of me is hoping to see some great Halloween Pinstrosity submissions. Is that sadistic of me? Sorry. 

Well, as Halloween is over we'll move on with the next major holiday here in the U.S., Turkey Day! Or in our family it's Turkey/Ham/Steaks/Whatever we want to eat that year Day. And to start us out with this year's Thanksgiving Pinstrosities we have a turkey submission for you from Sita!

The Original Pin

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2010/11/oreo-turkeys-and-cookie-pilgrim-hats/

Aren't those adorable? Little naem cards were added to each turkey and then set out on the plates as place card holders. Genius! Sita read the directions, went out and bought the supplies, and assembled her darling turkeys...

The Pinstrosity

They remind me a little bit of the zombie ducks and owl cupcakes we've posted up previously. Maybe this is just a fowl problem? Hehe. 

This food "craft" will take some patience and practice. Writing/drawing with those icing packs is hard! Sometimes I can get it looking okay and other times it's a disaster. It is often way too easy to squeeze out more frosting than you actually need, as only little dabs will usually do the trick. I think many of us are used to crafting with glue that dries clear and so it doesn't matter as much if we're slightly goopy or messy. Frosting isn't as forgiving sadly. But luckily the clean up tastes better! 

Show and Tell Saturday: Cheap and Easy Decor

We love to decorate for the Holidays, but store bought decorations can be so expensive! DIY supplies can be expensive! We went a few years without really decorating much because we couldn't afford it. Or that's what we thought. The past few years we have decided that we are going to find ways to decorate the house for various holidays without having to shell out a ton of dough. Will you ever see our house in a magazine because of our decorations? Heavens, no. Are some of the decorations slightly cheesy? Yes. But we found it is way more fun to have cheap and cheesy decorations and to add some festivity to the house than it is to just wallow in our poor pity and not do anything at all. So...I know the major holiday season is still a little ways off, but it'll come fast. I'll show you some of the things we've done for each season around the house, and some of our plans for future cheap seasonal decor.

Autumn:
Our biggest "trick" when decorating for Autumn is to try and incorporate nature into our decor. Autumn is so full of great colors and textures. Take a walk in your neighborhood and see what you have around you. This can work in rural or urban surroundings. Pick up leaves, nuts,dry and dead flowers, grass, twigs, rocks, etc. You can put these in bowls, vases, on wreaths, topiaries, etc. With the rocks you can even pick up boring ol' gravel pieces and paint them (solid colors or designs) to fill a vase or bowl. A few years ago I went out in my front yard to gather acorns to put in a bowl and found that the animals had beat me to them. But, there were still a ton of the acorn "shell" tops left, so I gathered those up, along with a bucket full of yucca pods. Luckily I already had 2 Styrofoam balls on hand (I don't remember why), and so I glued the acorn shells and the yucca pods to the balls to make a topiary and a yucca ball. I love the color and naturey touch they add to the house, especially during the fall.  

Use nature items (gourds, leaves, rocks, etc.) as name "cards" for a fun autumny dinner. 

Halloween:

My husband's favorite holiday is Halloween. I'm not a huge fan of gruesome Halloween decorations, or the overly cheesy Walmart decorations, so the past 2 years I've worked hard to come up with our own style of Halloween decor. 

 From bottom to top:

Bloody Candles: Pinspired Project (see next picture).

Dried Corn: WalMart

Troll (by the corn): Gift from my brother-in-law from his time in Norway.

 Black and White Photos: Photos my Great-Grandfather (Em's Grandfather) took.

Quidditch Photo: Personal photo project. 

Boots: From a local thrift/antique/consignment store. 

Framed Leaf: Melted Crayon Project

Yucca Ball: DIY

Metal Kaleidoscope: Gift from a friend. 

To make these we lit a red taper candle and let it drip on the white candle, turning the white candle as needed.  

I found these boots at a local thrift/antique/consignment shop and had to have them as they were only $10. They are way to small for my feet but I knew they'd make a fun fall/Halloween centerpiece and/or decoration. 

 From left to right:

Witch's wreath (there hanging on the wall on the left of the piano...click the link to see it better...it was made from items we all usually throw away): DIY from previous year 

Mummy head topiary and Ghost: DIY from previous year 

Necktie Garland: DIY from previous year

Leaves: Walmart. I put them in an orange vase we found in the house when we moved in. The vase is being held up in a bowl we got for our wedding by 4 dried ears of corn. 

Halloween Silhouettes hung on a ribbon with clothes pins: DIY from previous year. These always get comments from visitors and they were so much fun and so easy to make! We keep these in a folder during the year so they don't get munched in the Halloween box. 

And then last year in the Dining Room was my Batmobile. Hehe...I'm so punny. 

The previous year these bats hung from my porch roof. 

Thanksgiving:
We actually haven't really done anything specific for Thanksgiving yet. I want to. Maybe this year? These are a few ideas I have on my Thanksgiving Pinterest board:

http://www.freshlychopped.blogspot.com/

I love the look of the leaves and clothespins. This would work great for just regular fall/autumn decor as well. To make it Thanksgiving decor each leaf could have things we're thankful for written on them in gold or black ink.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourhomebasedmom/8173548067/in/photostream

I like the quote more than the decor in this one. This could be written on a table runner, a chalk board, done up in a cool font in Word and printed out, etc.

Christmas/Winter

Our Christmas and Winter decor is all the same thing in our house. I always feel like we have a ton of Christmas decor, but then when we go to pull it out I find that we don't. Most of it is from my single days and our first year of marriage...so most of it is kinda corny and cheap. I've been working on getting a few more items made, but I haven't gotten very far yet this year (my goal was to make 5 decorations by September...I have one last one to finish up today to reach that goal). 

Tin Can Luminaries:

http://madebymarquette.blogspot.com/2011/08/tin-can-luminaries.html (this link shows step by step how I made these). 

I made about 10 of these for our 5th Anniversary dance that we held. I still have most of them kicking around. At the time I made them I used ribbons in our wedding colors to decorate the cans with, and I've just used them like that for Christmas decor, but I think this year I'm going to pull those off and use some Christmas ribbon, maybe some burlap (small amounts...I'm not a burlap-a-holic), maybe some mistletoe or pine clippings. We fill these with beans or rice for sturdiness and then add a candle (real or battery operated). We have a drawer in our kitchen where we store extra cans to use for projects like this.

Christmas/winter nature decor:

The blog this originated from is no longer online. 

We go and cut our own Christmas tree each year (we live where it's free to get a permit and the National Forest is just down the road), and it always needs a little bit of trimming up once we bring it home. Before we've just chucked the trimmed branches out in the yard but this year I think I'll save one or two and do something like this.

Wood bucket Christmas Tree stand:

We happened on this tradition completely by accident (you can read about that here). We needed to improvise a tree stand and after looking around the yard found these wood planter buckets that previous tenants had left. With the help of bricks, a no. 10 tin can, and gravel, we were able to rig up our own free tree stand. It's now tradition to use that bucket. Okay...we've only done it for 2 years now, but as long as that bucket holds up...we're going to use it as our tree stand. 

DIY paper ornaments:

http://madebymarquette.blogspot.com/2012/12/new-years-tree.html

We made these for New Years with metallic wrapping paper we bought in the after Christmas sales. But I remember making these as kids for our Christmas tree. My grandparents made these out of newspaper for their Christmas tree when they were newlyweds and broke. These look neat out of pretty paper, regular paper, newspaper, etc.

The Rest of the Year:
I'm really bad about doing any special decorations for the rest of the year. My house stays pretty much the same from when we take down the Christmas decor (anywhere from January to the end of March, lol) until we pull out the Autumn decor. I don't know why I don't decorate the rest of the year...it would be fun. I guess the rest of the year I usually just work on "regular" stuff for the house. Even during the "rest of the year" though, we keep our decorating as simple and cheap as we can. Most of what we have in our house are things that friends or family were giving away, things we found super cheap at the thrift store, and things we made. You don't have to spend a ton of money to be able to decorate. You don't have to be super artsy or crafty to create things for your living space. Don't know where to start? Start with pictures and photos. Hang them on your wall, put them on your book shelves, set them on your tables. Hang snapshots next to "formal" portraits. Find art pieces you like at your local thrift store (you can find gems amid the tigers painted on velvet, adorned with glitter and rabbit paws). Print photos your grandparents took. Write or print out a favorite quote or verse and frame it (we have some super cheap frames that I put around the house that we switch out contents when I find a new verse that inspires me, or something that I find beautiful). Don't worry about having the magazine or Pinterest perfect home. Use magazines and Pinterest as idea starters if you want, but don't think that your home has to look like that or it's not a home. Those rooms in those "manufactured" pictures were most likely only that way for as long as it took to take the picture. What makes a room feel light and loved is you. Live in it. Let it be yours. Let it have a pile of clutter...most of us do. Don't feel like you have to be Martha Stewart or a Kardashian in order to create or afford a beautiful home. It's your home, not theirs after all.

Fall Feast Food Pins Tested

Cameron and I usually do a dinner for the Autumnal Equinox each year, but we missed it this year as I was at a wedding and he was out lizard hunting (yes, you read that right...life of a zoology major). I didn't think it'd matter much, but I kinda missed putting together a fun and fancy meal (well...fancy for us...). I decided yesterday that I'd put together a Fall Feast to make up for missing the Equinox dinner, so I pulled up my Pinterest boards devoted to food, tried to find ones I already had the ingredients on hand for, made a plan and got testing these tasty looking food pins. As I was cooking though, I realized I was making way more food than Cameron and I could eat so we called Em and Chip to come over and we feasted together on the Pinterest found meal. I pulled a few recipes from our own files, but I tried many new ones this time. I figured I'd share how they turned out, what worked, what didn't, and what I would do (and did do) differently.

So there's the set up. I love my dishes, they are just so happy looking.

Alrighty, dish #1.

The Original Pin
Tomato Bisque
 This didn't actually have a picture of this soup...but here's the link:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/tomato-bisque-recipe/index.html

The Outcome

Mine came out a little more yellowy orange instead of orangey red...but the tomatoes I canned last year weren't very red...so I'm attributing it to that. I was excited to get a chance to use my canned tomatoes. Last year was my first year canning, so I'm still a little excited to be using these tomatoes. Anyway...this tasted fantastic. I loved it. Cameron's not huge with tomato soups, but he said this one isn't bad (here's the secret...there's bacon in it and the veggies are sauteed in bacon fat for 8 minutes...man pleasing right there).

I did have to tweak this one due to the ingredients I had on hand (I don't live where just running to the store is an option), but I think it came out decently similar to what it would have had I had all the ingredients. First, I didn't have carrots...so no carrots in this soup. Second...I just had normal onions on hand...no spanish onions. Third, my herbs were dried, not fresh...so I just sprinkled them in and left them in (minus the bay leaf, I took that out). Fourth, I had half and half in the fridge, not heavy cream. So I know those made some difference, but I don't think they completely altered how this turned out. I would definitely like to try it 100% true to the recipe, but even with these tweaks, this turned out delicious and was easy to make. My biggest disappointment? The bacon crisps I had ready for the end didn't float on top of the soup, they sunk to the bottom...so they just ended up being a part of the soup and not a garnish...but that's not really anything to complain about.


The Original Pin
Stuffed Roast Turkey Breast

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/stuffed_roast_turkey_breast/

Let me tell you, this was delicious. I did tweak it, but it was still delicious. Was mine anywhere near as pretty as that. Bahahahahaha, no.

The Outcome:

It's a good thing food doesn't have to be beautiful to taste good.  Don't get scared off by that picture though, it was delicious. And again...it has bacon in it and the last step before baking this is to glaze it with bacon grease. Another man pleaser (then men did love it, btw).

I actually followed the directions decently here, just adding my own twist at the beginning. The recipe doesn't call for the turkey to be marinated, but I did it anyway. I tenderized the turkey breasts, then added them to a bowl with some olive oil, coriander (whole and ground/roasted), garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and sage and let it marinate for 1 1/2 hours. For the filling, the only deviations I did was using plain boring canned mushrooms rather than porcini mushrooms, I didn't have shallots so I used onion, and the cranberries were omitted entirely. Other than that I followed the recipe and directions to the best of my ability. This turned out so incredibly tasty and moist. We could cut it with our forks it was so tender. This is a huge win in my books, I'll definitely be making this again.


Now for another side dish...
The Original Pin
Smoky and Cheesy Buttermilk Baked Mashed Potatoes

I raided Cameron's cooking boards for this one actually. Good choice hunny!

The Outcome

Poor cam was late getting home and he was bringing the taters, so we sped through making this as much as we could...so we cut out the baking part. But it still tasted great. Our main substitution: we didn't have buttermilk so I used half and half. I know...it would have tasted better with buttermilk, but it wasn't bad at all with the half and half. I loved how creamy these potatoes were with the cream cheese in them. MMMmmmm. Then we did add a small dribble of liquid smoke to get a more smoky flavor. Easy and yummy!

And what is a good meal without some sort of bread?!

Oatmeal Dinner Rolls
http://mowercooking.blogspot.com/2011/02/oatmeal-dinner-rolls.html

I've made these quite a few times actually, and they turn out good every time. Well...the didn't turn out the one time my house was too cold for the dough to rise...but every other time they turned out great. They are so quick and easy (2 1/2 hrs from start, through rising time, to finished and in your belly), and they taste great. Don't get scared off by the fact that you make oatmeal, then turn it into rolls. These are great, give them a try.

I have no idea what happened to that roll on the left...it looks like a hand with a finger pointing at me or something. Tasted good though. 

What to drink?
 Water is always a staple...but I wanted a fun drink too,
 so I found a recipe on my boards for Prickly Pear Juice. I ended up just using the recipe as a basis though and made my own deal instead. I ended up with a Pin Spin, making Prickly Pear Raspberry Lemonade instead.

Like our fancy glasses? Got them at the Dollar Tree for a buck. Love great deals like that, and they class up a meal so fast when we want to "fancy". 

 And then it was dessert time...

The Original Pin

http://mowercooking.blogspot.com/2010/09/double-decker-pumpkin-pie-autumnal.html

I'd actually made this pie twice before. Once was an overwhelming success...the other time, not so good.
I found out for this recipe, using real pumpkin is key. The first time I made this I bought a pumpkin, cooked it, and used the pumpkin goop to make the pie. It was sooo tasty. The second time I bought canned pumpkin pie filling...not so tasty. In fact, it went uneaten for the most part and I chucked the remains today. Lesson learned...use real pumpkin. It's so worth it!

 This time...the taste was great, but I tried making individual servings rather than a whole pie and that didn't go quite like I thought it would.

The Pinstrosity

These tasted great (again, not pretty, but ignore that), but they weren't quite firm enough and were hard to eat out of the paper cups. I should have just left it as a pie. Oh well. Live and Learn.

 And then finally...
The Original Pin

http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2010/08/creamy-lemon-crumb-squares.html

I've had these pinned for forever. Cameron loves lemon bars, so I thought I'd try these out and see what he thought. They were scrumptious, but boy were they crumbly! 

The Pinstrosity

I mixed the crust/topping up and it just seemed too dry, so I added 2 additional tablespoons of butter. It still seemed dry, but I didn't want to add too much...for all I knew maybe it was supposed to be really dry. I'd never made these before, so I had no clue what I was looking for. I mixed the "filling" and poured it in, then sprinkled on the topping and popped it in the oven. When the timer yelled at me (mine is an excruciating whine...it was definitely designed so that it could not be ignored) I opened the oven and the crust didn't look like it'd changed at all, so I left it in longer. 10 min later there was still no change, but I didn't want to overdo anything so I pulled them out. They were super tasty, but they were so incredibly crumbly. I think next time I'll keep adding butter until the crust/topping consistency is more tacky and less dry. But they were scrumptious and Cameron heartily approved of them.

So there's a few yummy pins all tested for you guys. I'd make any of them again, they were fantastic and made for a fun meal. Thanks for sharing it with us Em and Chip!