A Pinterest Frenzy

I love, love Pinterest.  Like everything, it took me a while to sign up, check it out, and really get into it, but now I'm pretty much addicted.  It's still a time sucker like Facebook, but there are so many more benefits, which is the whole reason for this post.  Here are a whole bunch of things I've been making and doing which all came from Pinterest:

Sausage and Lentil Stew:

It was really delicious (Mike said one of his all time favorite crock pot recipes!) but I have no idea where it came from.  I was on pinterest reading crock pot recipes and clicking from one link to the next and all of a sudden I was like "where am I??"  So here's the recipe if you're interested, super easy and tasty:  

1 c washed lentils
2 c Beef broth
1 (12oz) package sausage, sliced
1 c chopped carrots (I used baby carrots)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 package (6 oz or so) spinach
Place lentils in crock pot. Add broth and sausage.  Add tomatoes with juice and carrots.
Cover and cook on low 5 hours then stir in spinach.  Cover and let cook 15 more minutes.  Serve with your favorite bread (see below!).  I do remember the recipe says that no other spices or flavors were needed since the flavor of the sausage and the beef broth were enough.  Definitely right, don't think it needed anything else!

Something else I've been wanting to tackle is pretzel rolls.  Mike and I both love pretzel rolls and I found this recipe, of course on Pinterest, and decided to give it a shot.  And since I am lucky enough to own a bread machine, I just let my machine to the whole first part!  But since this was my first time making these, I had to document the process.  So above is step one: making the dough and letting it rise once.

Step two: making the rolls and letting them rise again (Love my new counter tops for this!!)

Step three: boiling them in a special solution (it's in the recipe)

Step four: sprinkling them with salt and baking them up!

They were delicious with that stew!  (A lot of work for 12 rolls, but I never turn down a good bread product, so these will probably be made again, maybe bigger next time for hamburger buns!)

Then I made this dessert recipe.  Anything with Oreo's in it peaks my interest so these were definitely on my to-make list.  They are a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough, a layer of oreos (or Joe Joe's!) and then a layer of brownie batter.  

To die for!

Since we would have eaten the whole pan, we took some over to our next door neighbors on this cute paper plate idea I saw here.

And I've been pretty sick of spending five dollars a box for granola bars that are sans-high fructose corn syrup, etc. so I saw this recipe for granola bars and had just about everything to make them already on hand.  They are even better than store bought and next time I make them I'll probably add some nuts as well.

I wrapped them in plastic wrap and they store great in the pantry.  We even got in a little counting practice!

I saw this post on fine motor skill development so on a trip to Michael's we picked up a two dollar bag of pom poms and Wes went to town.  This game wasn't difficult for Wes at all, but he loves playing with the tongs and now asks for them anytime we pick up toys. (Not much in this post for Cora, but she had fun watching the pom pom action.)

And this idea I kind of stole from my friend Nadine after being at her house over the holidays.  So I searched Pinterest for ways to save my Christmas cards (which I have been saving since 2007 in hopes of one day doing something with them) and found this template!  

Check out Pinterest if you're not already on it, so much fun stuff!