Pinterest-tested recipes...

Y'all...how is it already October?  I feel like this year is just absolutely FLYING by.  My little peanut just turned TEN months old, which makes me want to both cheer and weep at the same time.

I promise I will be back to regular blogging this week, but I wanted to share with you a few Pinterest recipes that I have tested and LOVED!

If your family eats chicken as often as ours does, you MUST try this Butter Chicken recipe by Maple Leaves & Sycamore Trees! I have made it twice in the last 2 weeks and everyone has loved it.



I made these cheesy potatoes to go along with the Butter Chicken one night...they are delish!



Feeling like baking for fall? This Starbucks Pumpkin Pound Cake recipe is good! I made it in mini-loaf form (I bought a 9-count mini loaf pan at Joann's and LOVE it!) and they were seriously good.



Have you tried any great Pinterest recipes lately? Leave me a comment with the pins!

Pinterest Test Kitchen: M&M Giant Cookie Cake

I was browsing Pinterest for a dessert to bring to a Superbowl party with a little 5-year-old peeking over my shoulder.  Of course, when the cookie cake pin came across my little iPhone screen, Grayson immediately decided THAT was the dessert we needed to bring.  And I'm so glad he picked it!   This recipe is DELICIOUS and easy-to-make.  I should have taken a picture of it as soon as it came out of the oven, because there is one little, tiny piece left to photograph...and then after quickly snapping an instagram pic I ate that little, tiny piece.

The only change I made was the advice of the author and using 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of butter-flavored shortening.

This Cookie Cake was SO much better and more flavorful than those super expensive ones you can buy at the mall.

Check out the recipe here at Cookie Madness: http://www.cookiemadness.net/2008/08/mm-chocolate-chip-cookie-cake/

pinterest test kitchen: pecan pie bars

 A few months ago, I posted about a series called "Pinterest Test Kitchen"...and then I slept for 15 weeks.  Not really, but I would have liked to!  This pregnancy wore me out for the first trimester and part of the second!

Anyway, I'm back with another recipe from Pinterest that I tried out in my own kitchen to see if it was a success or a big, old fail.  The recipe up for testing this time was Pecan Pie Bars.

Source: justataste.com via Mary Jo on Pinterest

We were headed to a birthday dinner and I needed to bring a dessert...preferably something with pecans as they are a favorite in that household.  It was too hot (for me) to bake a pecan pie, so I went in search of something similar.  These pecan pie bars did not disappoint!  The recipe is pretty simple and straight-forward using mostly ingredients that you'll have in your pantry and is done in less than an hour!

The Pecan Pie Bar recipe bakes an entire sheet pan of bars and the photo above shows what was left - only a few bars!  They were delicious, and rich...I should have cut them into smaller bars.  But, it gets 5 stars in my recipe book!

Do you have any recipes that you've put through your own Pinterest Test Kitchen?

**On a side note, my beloved camera was stolen out of my husband's office at church a few weeks ago during a break in.  Enter sobbing, crying face here.  So, you'll be overloaded with lovely iPhone pictures while we work out all of the details of getting my sweet camera replaced.**

pinterest test kitchen: chubby hubby truffles

Do you pin recipes?  I have a confession to make…I have 185 pins on my Recipe board on Pinterest.  Some of these have made it into our dinner rotation and others have been just okay.  I haven’t had any Pinterest recipe “fails” yet but several of my friends (and a few bloggers) have.  I thought it would be fun to start a series called Pinterest Test Kitchen…actual recipes from Pinterest that I try out in my own kitchen to see if they are a success or a big, old fail.

The first recipe was this:

Source: sixsistersstuff.blogspot.com via Mary Jo on Pinterest

 

We had a little Bachelor Finale Party last night so I thought these would be the perfect snack to bring…and let me tell you, they were DELICIOUS!  One of the college girls described them as Take 5 Truffles.  Have you ever had a Take 5 bar?  They are deliciously similar!

My sweet little kitchen helper crushed up the pretzels for me and helped mix the “filling” ingredients in the Kitchen Aid mixer.  The recipe suggests you mix the ingredients in a bowl, but use your mixer…so much easier!



Anytime I make a recipe using peanut butter this is what I see…our dog LOVES peanut butter and has supersonic hearing.  When the peanut butter jar opens, Raleigh comes running!  Does this happen in your house??


A few more suggestions:

• The original recipe makes 18 truffles…I doubled it for our party (and to have some extra for a dinner we’re hosting tonight) and the recipe doubled beautifully.
• I used a cookie scoop to form the truffles rather than rolling them into balls.  This gave them a flat bottom to sit on and went a lot faster than rolling!
• Instead of melting chocolate chips (and mixing them with shortening), I happened to have some chocolate almond bark in my pantry.  This worked great to dip the truffles in and dried fast!
• To drizzle the peanut butter over the tops of the finished truffles, I melted 3 tablespoons of peanut butter in a Wilton squeeze bottle.  It made it EASY to drizzle!   

This recipe gets 5 stars in my Pinterest Test Kitchen…it’s easy, delicious, and great for a group!

Pin It

 
Have you had any Pinterest recipe fails?  Do you have a tried-and-true Pinterest recipe that I should try?