Pinterest Inspired Archives - home is where my story begins...

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Becca — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 19:00:00 +0000

I’m not sure how I got lucky enough to have kids who will eat just about anything with veggies in it. I was the pickiest eater known to man, when I was growing up. I’m still pretty picky, but I will eat most fruits and veggies. My kids’ favorite soup is homemade vegetable beef. They will gobble it up and ask for seconds! When I spotted a recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup on Pinterest, I hoped my kids would like it, but wasn’t convinced it would be a keeper.

This was the bowl I served my daughter. The first thing she said was, “Aren’t you going to fill that up some more?” I told her that I’d see how she liked it and then she could always have more. Well, she asked for seconds and told me it was her new favorite soup.

Here’s the recipe that I adapted from Pinterest:

1 carton of chicken stock

1 can of corn- drained

1 can of diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed

1/2 of a white onion, diced

2 cooked chicken breasts, cut into pieces

1/4 of a small jalapeno, diced

1/8 tsp chili powder

1/8 tsp garlic salt

salt and pepper to taste

Cilantro for garnish

Cook in a Crock-Pot, on high, for 4 hours.

My daughter said she like the “little kick” of heat as she was eating it. We don’t usually like spicy foods, which is why we only used a quarter of a jalapeno and an 1/8 tsp of chili power. Still, it had enough spice that she liked it, but wasn’t overwhelming.

Happy Crock-Pot Cooking!

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Organizing Boots

Becca — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 05:10:00 +0000

I have a boot problem. No, the problem is not that I have too many boots. (That’s not a real problem because there is no such thing as too many boots.) My problem is that my boots don’t stand upright and therefore always wind up in a big pile in my closet.

I saw a seemingly quick and easy project on Pinterest and decided to give it a try. It involved stealing my daughter’s pool noodles, so I had to do this while she was out of the house.

I decided to break out my electric carving knife when it was time to cut the noodles. I must confess, I don’t use my electric carving knife to carve meat. I think we may have carved a turkey with it once, but I’ve always saved it because it does such a great job carving foam. (Remember, I’m a teacher and ALL teachers appreciate having foam dice in the classroom. They make much less noise.)

I measured how long I wanted my pool noodles, depending on how tall my boots were. Then, I marked, and got ready to cut.

If you ever need to cut pool noodles, now you know… electric carving knives are the way to go. Check this out.

I cut up all of the noodles we had, in varying sizes. My closet is MUCH happier!

I can’t say my daughter is much happier, but I’ll deal with that during the summer when she notices her pool noodles are missing.

Happy pool noodle stealing and boot organizing!

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Oh, Pinterest, What Did I Ever Do Without You?

Becca — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 22:04:00 +0000

On Thursday morning, I let my virtual closet help me decide what to wear. I didn’t wear this exact outfit. I wore black pants and brown boots instead. Never, in a million years, would I have put that outfit together on my own.

Thursday night dinner was Caprese Pasta salad. Thank you again, Pinterest.

Thursday was also the first day of styling my Pinterest inspired cut and color. Can someone please make me as cute as her too?

I also downloaded a fun new Valentine’s Day unit to do with my kids at school. Yep, you guessed it. I found it on Pinterest.

So, let’s recap. Without Pinterest I wouldn’t know what to wear, what to eat, how to style my hair, and I wouldn’t have a clue what to teach. I might be exaggerating a little, but seriously… What did I ever do without Pinterest?

All of the images came from Pinterest. I have them pinned on my page, here.

Happy pinning!

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Lunchtime Salad Kits

Becca — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:22:00 +0000

I’ve often said that I don’t know how I dressed myself in the morning before Pinterest. I rely on the “my style” pinboard on my Pinterest page to help me put together outfits. Well, now I’m wondering how I fed myself before Pinterest.

Have you seen these salad kits all over Pinterest?

I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to lunch all ready to go. My little kits have lettuce, Feta cheese, tomatoes, and a little bit of chicken. The dressing is in a separate container.

Yum.

Thank you Pinterest!

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Lazy Mom’s Cinnamon Rolls

Becca — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:03:00 +0000

It was Saturday morning and my kids wanted something yummy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the mood to be creative and find a recipe for something yummy. Pinterest to the rescue! I found this idea several weeks ago and it sounded very easy.

To make these cinnamon rolls, you roll out a tube (yes, I said tube) of Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough. You have to pinch the seams together so all of the yummiest doesn’t fall out.

Spread 4 Tbsp of butter over the dough.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup brown sugar,

and then 1 Tbsp cinnamon.

Roll them up and slice them,

and then bake them at 350 for 12 minutes.

We topped the rolls with a little frosting and the kids had no idea they were not homemade!

Five minute rolls on a lazy Saturday morning are so much better than the kind that take 3 hours.

Happy baking!

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Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread

Becca — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Saw it. Pinned it. Tried it. Loved it!

I made the cinnamon sugar pull apart bread that I saw on Pinterest, for our Seahawks football watching morning. I changed things up from the original recipe and used my bread machine on the dough cycle. Mine doesn’t look quite as pretty as the Pinterest version, but WOW was it good..

Happy baking!

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White Chicken Chili Recipe

Becca — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 19:53:00 +0000

Please excuse the lame food styling in this photo. My kids were starving and there were lots of groans when I said that I needed a picture before we ate.

My hubby has been asking me to make white chicken chili for YEARS. Honestly, I have never had white chicken chili… well except for that one time that he decided to make it himself and the kids named it Dad’s Throw-up Soup. It tasted as bad as it looked.

I decided that over the break I’d give it a try. I had several recipes pinned for White Chicken Chili, but none of them sounded like exactly what I was looking for. So, I decided to combine a few and make my own recipe.

Here’s what I did:

I started by cooking a pound of chicken breast in the crockpot.
It cooked for about 4 hours on high.
Into the crockpot, with the cooked chicken, went
6 cups of water
6 chicken bouillon cubes
(use 6 cups of chicken stock if you’d rather)
1/2 of an onion, finely diced
1 clove of garlic, finely diced
1 can of diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed
(or chop your own)
1 diced yellow pepper
(corn would be good too, if you are not a fan of peppers)
1 can of white beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
dash of pepper

That sat in the crockpot for 3 more hours on high.
Then came the thickening.

In a pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter.
Add 1/2 cup flour and mix
Slowly add 1 cup of half and half and 1 cup of milk
Add 8 oz of light cream cheese
Add 1 1/2 cup of Monterey Jack Cheese, shredded
This mixture makes kind of a mac and cheese type sauce.

Next, I added some of the chili broth from the crockpot into to cheesy mixture to thin it out a bit.
Finally, I poured everything back into the crockpot and stirred it all together.

It made a thick, yummy, cheesy, chicken chili that everyone loved.

My hubby says this recipe needs to go in our regular rotation. The kids both loved it too!
By the way, those little tortilla strips on top were just cut and tossed with olive oil and a bit of taco seasoning. Then I baked them for about 5 minutes to crisp them up. They were a perfect little topping for the chili.

Happy cooking!

Here are a few linky parties I’m linking to.

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Pumpkin Pie Bars

Becca — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 19:47:00 +0000

Doesn’t this look like the yummiest treat ever? You can practically taste the cinnamon, caramel, pumpkiny goodness, can’t you?

Well, looks can be deceiving.

Sadly, these pumpkin pie bars were HORRIBLE! I found the recipe on Pinterest. (I won’t tell you where, because I don’t want to embarrass the author of the original recipe.) It sounded good. Anything made with brown sugar, sweetened condensed milk, cinnamon, and pumpkin can’t be all that bad, right? Here’s the honest truth; my kids and hubby took a bite and actually spit it out. It was that bad. The whole 9×13 pan went into the garbage.

So, friends, we making ~~lemons into lemonade~~ pumpkins into pumpkin pie. Instead of focusing on the horrible dessert, we’re going to focus on the food photography.

The picture on the left is straight out of the camera. The picture on the right shows what it looks like after a pit of editing.

Here’s what I did:

I increased the fill light, highlights, and shadows. Then (because I still can’t figure out the whole “white balance” thing, when it comes to food photography) I cooled down the photo by taking some of the yellow out. Yellow food never looks appetizing, so by taking out some of the yellow, it gives it a more true color. One of these days I’ll figure out which white balance setting works best for indoor food photography. I also cropped the picture to get a little closer in. When I cropped, I tried to keep the rule of thirds in mind, but by putting it into a photo collage, like the one above, it kind of cropped more off and doesn’t look quite the same.

So, there you have it. It was a pumpkin pie bar fail, but a fun food photo shoot.

Happy Monday!

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Rainbow Birthday Party

Becca — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 03:45:00 +0000

Two weeks of birthday celebrations have finally come to an end for my little girl. Her birthday was in August, but we decided to wait until school started before having a party with her friends. She didn’t really have a strong preference, this year, about decorations or a theme. That was good news for me, because I’ve seen so many cute ideas on Pinterest lately!

We went with a rainbow theme, which thrilled my kids to no end. I’m not a huge fan of dyes and food coloring in my kids’ food, so when my daughter saw the bright colors, her eyes lit up. It was certainly a special birthday treat for her.

We made rainbow cupcakes, with rainbow cupcake toppers.

There were rainbow plates and M&M candies. Boy, I’m glad they sell M&M’s already sorted by color.

My kids were excited to tell everyone that their mom decided to do a plain old white cake this year. The little rainbow bunting was a hint of the surprise to come.

Six layers of rainbow loveliness!

I won’t lie. The cake, cupcakes, and decorations were a lot of work (and dishes), but nothing more than I usually do for my kids’ birthdays. The result and “happy” birthday girl were worth the work!

Happy baking! (And Happy Birthday to my big 8 year old!)

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Card Table Playhouse

Becca — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:48:00 +0000

My daughter has been working on a little project. We have been seeing these card table houses on Pinterest and blogs. They are so adorable! Well, my daughter asked if she could make one. Of course, I said she could. I love to see her sew!

We had most of the felt and the card table was folded up in the garage. She drew a picture of the house she wanted to make and we started working. She drew her pattern onto the felt and cut everything herself. I made the MAIL letters for her, but she did almost everything else. She still wants to add a window and a flower box to the side. I’m so proud of her work! At first, I was thinking it would be tough for me to let go and let her create, imperfections and all. I’ve been really impressed with the quality of her work! I’d claim it for my own, if I wasn’t so proud of her.

I’ll share some pictures when it’s all done. For now, it’s the perfect little playhouse, even if it’s not quite finished!

Happy sewing!

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