Pinterest Suppers!

Yesterday and today our suppers came from Pinterest.


I am not one who enjoys cooking usually, but it's nice to have a meal that doesn't make me tempted to want to go out for supper.


Yesterday I made "Almost Lasgana"

I left out the pasta sauce because my kids don't like "red sauce" and used cottage cheese instead of ricotta because it was on sale and I couldn't find ricotta.  It turned out to be really good even though the kids were extremely apprehensive to eat it (ds1 didn't eat any of it).  DH and I added pasta sauce after the fact to ours and also enjoyed it.  I put the left overs in freezer bags to eat another time.  When I went to bed last night I wished I ate more of it.


Tonight I am making Crock Pot Chicken Parm

The only change I made for this was I used crushed vegetable thin crackers instead of bread crumbs.

We are also going to try Roasted cauliflower.  I used chili powder and epicure Herb and Garlic sea salt.  I am not a fan of veggies in general.  The cauliflower wasn't horrible (please note that I really dislike veggies!!).  I was able to eat it without pulling any faces.  

Overall verdict of supper: DH and I liked all of it.  DD1 ate 1 piece of chicken (because we made her) and refused to eat anymore because there was 'red sauce', DD1 (once I offered 10 cents) ate all the cauliflower on her plate and then finished off the bowl.  She said there was a little too much sea salt.  DS1 refused to eat the cauliflower but did eat all of his chicken (although initially he also said he wouldn't eat it because of the red sauce), DD2 also refused to eat it, but it's waiting for her when she gets hungry tonight as she didn't even try a bite and she did this yesterday and ended up eating all of it later in the evening.

*pictures are screen shots of the pins as I forgot to take pics!

12 Goals for 2012

I decided to make goals (not resolutions!) for 2012.  Some of these will also be for DH because I can't do them without him.


1) Eat out less & cook more meals at home.


2) Since I have added a new addiction of Pinterest - actually try to do a pin a week (or more than 1 a week) so that this can at least be productive.


3) Once the kids rooms are renovated (dh's job) actually decorate the kids rooms!


4) Allocate a set amount to pay extra to the mortgage each month.


5) Spend less on WANTS.  Use money earned from swagbucks/superpoints etc to pay for wants.


6) Have the house in good order by the beginning of August, so going back to work full time won't be so overwhelming!


7) Try to do something fun/special with the kids once a month (dh & I together with them) - preferable free/frugal things.


8) Lose 1/2 of the amount I need to reach my goal weight (which is a very reasonably and conservative weight loss for a year).


9) Have Christmas 2012 be more minimalistic.


10) I used to be crafty....that has fallen by the wayside - try to be more crafty for things I know how to do (instead of buying).


11) Get our scrapbooks organized again.


12) Date night once a month with dh.

Supper: Tator Tot Casserole Pin

Going to torture my kids with some potatoes again.  Saw this pin for Tator Tot casserole and figured I had most of the ingredients in the house.  I didn't have was an onion so I substituted with 1 tbsp of epicure 3 onion dip mix.  I also buy ground turkey instead of beef, so turkey was used instead.  I really love salt just as much as anyone else, but everything contains so much salt already, so I did not season my meat with extra salt.  I also didn't measure the cheese but sprinkled a couple handfulls on.


The original recipe can be found here, my recipe has some slight alterations to ingredients but that is all.


DH and I liked it.  DD2 ate quite a bit off her plate without any tears.  DD1 lots of tears and bribery - she ended up eating the meat and maybe a little bit of the potatoes (I was feeding the baby by this point), DS1 completely refused to try it.


So what potato dish shall I subject them to next?