Chocolatey/Peanut Buttery/Marshmallowy Croissant Goodness!

I have seen several pins featuring croissants stuffed with fattening goodies, so last time I went to the grocery store I made sure to pick up a tube of croissants. I wasn't sure which pin I wanted to try, and since I had peanut butter, chocolate, and marshmallows available, I decided to use those. I guess this is really a "mash-up" of different pins, as Glee would say.

These are my "inspiration" pins:

I tried to link this pin to a blog,
but it says the blog is no longer found!

Yum! Too bad I didn't have any Nutella.

via

via

Had all these things!

I lined my cooking sheet with aluminum foil so I wouldn't have to wash it. I sprayed it really well with Pam. I rolled out the croissants, and loaded them up with peanut butter, marshmallows, and chocolate chips. I stuck them in the oven at 375 degrees for 9 minutes...the label says 10 but my oven seems to cook things quickly.

Here they are! My husband looked at them and said, "You cook the weirdest desserts." Whatever! If it were up to him we'd have meat, potatoes, and blueberry pie every night. Anyway, these croissants were delicious (I've already had three)! My favorite part was the bits of marshmallows that came out of the croissant. The oven had toasted them and it reminded me of a Smore. My least favorite part was the peanut butter--I may leave that out next time and just do the chocolate and marshmallow!

I think I'll even try variations of this pin in the future. I would like to try the Nutella ones. I wonder if I can even do banana and Nutella. I'm sure I'll stuff marshmallows in them no matter what. The possibilities are endless!


Final Verdict: Pintastic!

-Betsy

Chinese Style Sweet and Sour Chicken

http://life-as-a-lofthouse.blogspot.ca/2010/09/baked-sweet-and-sour-chicken-with-fried.html

This recipe is called Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken, but I actually did mine in the crockpot, since that's how a similar recipe I've tried for Orange Chicken (and promptly discovered that my husband hates orange combined with other flavors - I knew he hated chocolate orange but didn't realize the hatred extended to other orange flavor combinations) cooks it. It was delicious! Aforementioned husband complained that it wasn't crispy, but it's not supposed to be crispy, as it's meant to be like the Chinese sweet and sour pork/chicken/etc.

Anyways, I followed the recipe fairly exactly, up to the point of putting it in the oven, and put it in my crockpot instead. I can't remember how long I did it or whether it was on high or low - I basically just kept stirring occasionally until the sauce was almost fully absorbed into the chicken. It wasn't very long - an hour or two.

Pot Roast

 

"Best Pot Roast Ever"

A few months ago my husband begged me to find a pot roast recipe so of course I went onto Pinterest to see what I could find. This was one of the first that I came across so I decided to give it a try, it passed with flying colors in our house. My husband begs me to make it at least twice a month now. The only thing that I did different was that I added chopped onions to it, just to give it a little extra flavor.

Fabric Covered Switchplate

I will apologize in advance because I do not have any up close pictures of the switch plates I made. This girl made them look super cute huh? Tutorial here

Well, I didn't have an x-acto knife (or however you spell it), so I improvised and used some old fashioned scissors. Bad idea. I highly recommend using a razor or something that provides a little more accuracy.

I will say, the tutorial on how to make these is spot on. If you follow the instructions, you'll get something that looks relatively close to the picture. I only had a few complaints about the project in general:

1. the outside edges are a little difficult to secure around the back without the raw edges being completely visible.

2. is fabric over a light switch plate really practical? I didn't really think about this until after the fact, but we use our hands (our nasty, disgusting hands) to turn lights on and off, and in the process, our grungy skin inevitably grazes the cover. Fabric (especially those of lighter colors) will quickly reveal this phenomenon.

I fabric covered the light switch plates in Lilyanna's nursery, and for now, they look super cute, but once she gets old enough to turn the lights on and off by herself, I can only imagine the filth that will accumulate on them. I would be interested to see if covering with scrapbook paper, or maybe a few extra coats of modge podge, would provide a more user-friendly outcome?

Oh, and then I came across this little gem. If you're going to cover your light switch plate, please do NOT do what this person did.

Flowerpot + Modge Podge + Pictures + Ribbon

So I've adored these cute flower pots ever since I first saw them.

Of course, I'm sure whoever made this original took the picture from the best possible angle, but from my experience, I was unable to recreate something that looked as neat and organized.

It's not awful, but since the edges are so tapered, I had a hard time getting the pictures to lay flat. Not to mention, when I tried to space the photos similarly to the original, I had a lot of gaps at the top. The ribbon on the top was also a big P.I.T.A. If you can see, it bunches up quite a bit due to the tapering effect of the pot itself.

Verdict: Eh, not really worth the hassle if you ask me. My mom loved it as her Mother's Day present, but it's certainly not a craft project I would choose to do again. BTW: that dry spot is not a result of the glue as it may appear. My mom JUST watered the plant before this picture was taken, so the pot itself was just not wet in this area yet.

Witch Hat Cookies

These are super easy for any Halloween party. I made them for my sons classroom last year and they were a huge hit.

What you need:

Keebler Fudge stripe cookies (I think I found some at the Dollar Store)
Bag of Hershey kisses
Tube of Wilton orange icing

Flip the cookie over, make a large dot with the icing to cover the opening in the cookie, drop on the Hershey kiss and voila - witches hats!

Cheddar Bacon Dip

This dip takes about 30 seconds to make and it always gets great reviews.

You need:

16oz sour cream
1 packet Ranch dressing mix
3oz bacon bits (use ones that come in a bag)
1 cup shredded cheddar

Mix all together and refrigerate. The actual recipe says to refrigerate for 24 hours but you don't really have to. We eat it within hours of making it. It's just better once it thickens up.

We also use cheddar potato chips because it makes the dip taste just like a baked potato. Any chip will do but make sure they have ridges because the dip gets pretty thick.