A "Pin"teresting Year: 27 Days In...

Well, it's 27 days into 2013. I was doing pretty well keeping up with completing my "pins", then the family got sick this week. Knock on wood, I am the only one who stayed healthy. So the majority of this week was spent cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Very few recipes were made and my "day of indoor fun" with my son was postponed due to his recovery from the stomach bug.

These are the very few things I have accomplished in the last 11 days...

I had some bananas that were going bad but I was tired of making banana bread/muffins. I used this recipe for making banana cookies. I omitted the orange zest and did not put icing on them. When my son and I started to make the cookies, we went to add the egg and realized, oops!, no egg. I happened to see something that I pinned! Use a banana in place of an egg when baking! So my cookies ended up with 3 bananas instead of 2 but they tasted just fine! Bam! 2 pins in one recipe!

That same night for dinner we made pizza. I made it using a dough recipe that I had pinned and used last year. (So I can't count it for 2013!) Pizza dough recipe here. It uses Greek yogurt and self-rising flour. That's it! I added some seasoning to it as well. It is very sticky and you need to put down quite a bit of flour when rolling it out. I was able to make 3 batches of dough out of one large container of yogurt. I wrapped 2 batches in plastic wrap then put them in zipper storage bags with the directions written on them. In the freezer they went! Tonight's pizza was made with frozen dough!

We made individual pizzas using cookie cutters. We chose to make stars. The tiny stars only have cheese on them, they are for the baby. Derek helped "decorate" the pizzas. A fun dinner for the whole family!

Sticking with the food theme, I rarely make pork for dinner. I am just not a fan. Bryan likes pork so I have been trying to find some new recipes. This week I tried 6-spice pork tenderloin. Not bad. I would make it again. I found the Chinese 5 spice blend at my grocery store. It was a little pricey but I have a few recipes that call for it.

I managed to try one more recipe before the craziness started. I made these oven chicken packs. They were good and easy. Also, it would be easy to personalize them for each family member. I put more food in our packs than in our son's pack.

all of the ingredients in the pack

wrapped up and ready to cook...each pack is labeled so I know who they belong to

finished product yum!

Breakfast is a difficult meal for me. I am usually not hungry until a few hours after I wake up. And then it's too late to make something. I also do not like to eat "breakfast food" on a daily basis. For a while I just made protein shakes because they were fast and I could drink them on the go. I'm trying to get back to that, when I remember ;) I could not link this idea but here is a picture of the shake I made. It was pretty good!

Recipe: Chocolate banana protein shake: 1 scoop chocolate protein, 1 medium banana, 1 cup light soy milk (or unsweetened almond milk), 1 tbsp natural peanut butter. Add a few ice cubes for a smoothie texture.

I was only able to do one craft project. I made an infinity scarf out of old tee-shirts. It definitely took longer than the directions said it would though.