Project Four: Million Dollar Spaghetti

Let me start by saying that I do not cook. But you just posted a recipe about S'mores Cookie Bars. That is baking. I will bake, but I do not cook. The hubby goes to the grocery store, plans the meals and cooks dinners.

Unfortunately, the hubby went to the BMW Golf Championship which meant I HAD to cook. My goal was to make spaghetti. Quick, easy and no one complains about spaghetti. I realized though that to truly become a Pinterest pin up, I must cook. Sigh.

While looking through Pinterest early this morning, I saw a recipe called Million Dollar Spaghetti pinned from the blog, "Being Grown Up." I read the recipe and thought it was a no brainer. I was already planning to make spaghetti, so why not try this spaghetti on steroids recipe. The recipe:

1 lb of ground beef
1 can of spaghetti sauce
8 oz of cream cheese
1/4 cup of sour cream
1/2 lb of cottage cheese
Whole stick of butter
8 oz spaghetti noodles
Bag of shredded mozzarella cheese

Boil your spaghetti noodles just like you would for regular spaghetti. I am not going to detail how to make noodles. If I can do this part, so can a monkey. Besides, I checked the box today and the directions are on the box. Who knew?

Mix the cottage cheese, cream cheese and sour cream. You can see my lovely mixture below.

Brown the ground beef in the pan. Drain the grease and then add the spaghetti sauce. Totally not complicated.

The recipe calls for pats of butter at the bottom of the pan. This is probably necessary to keep the noodles from sticking while baking. 

The recipe then calls for placing half of the noodles on top of the pats of butter. Now, I think I boo-boo'd. I left the noodles in the water. I recommend draining the noodles to lessen any water going into the pan. It made the mixture a tad bit watery.

The next step is to put the whole bowl of the cheesy mix on top of the noodles. Still a pretty easy recipe.

Place the second half of noodles on top of the cheesy mix. Now, as you can see the recipe calls for MORE butter. The next time around, I am skipping this step. I could feel my arteries hardening as I was cooking.

The last step in putting the dish together is to pour the spaghetti meat sauce on top of the noodles. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Here's where I deviated from the recipe a bit. The online recipe said to bake for 30 minutes, then sprinkle a bag of sharp cheddar and bake again for 15 minutes. I had a bag of mozzarella and substituted that instead. Below is a picture of the full 45 minute bake process.

I think it's funny the recipe is called "Million Dollar Spaghetti." Honestly, a better name is "Poor Man's Lasagna." No matter what you call it, it was very good. A bit runny, but that could be remedied in the noodle step. The kids loved it, especially my little guy. He was all smiles for this meal!

Project Three: S'more Cookie Bars

How do you make a S'more? Now pay attention. First you take the graham. You stick the chocolate on the graham. Then, you roast the mallow. When the mallow's flaming, you stick it on the chocolate. Then you cover it with the other end. Then, you stuff. Kind of messy, but good! 

That is the Ham Porter explanation of making a S'more (highly recommend "The Sandlot"). In our house, we make S'mores in the microwave. Yes, when my girls discovered that good ol' mom here could make S'mores in the microwave, well I moved to a new level of cool.

While looking at Pinterest, I cannot resist pinning any recipe with S'mores. I decided to try the S'mores Cookie Bars pinned from the blog, "Baked Perfection." The recipe:

1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 super sized Hershey's chocolate bars
1 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 inch square baking pan.

The first part of the directions say to mix together the butter and sugars. Then beat in egg and vanilla. This was super easy. I was moving right along!

Please see my mess below. I usually use my kitchen island when baking. I feel much more organized. Why oh why did I change up my strategy? This is chaos! And add in the 1 year old who is at my feet trying to help. He is super cute but not much of a baker yet. 

The next part of the recipe states to mix together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. I put the graham cracker crumbs in first. Without looking, I dumped the flour into the bowl. The wrong bowl. Yep. It went into the butter/sugar bowl. Super, super unhappy about this. But, lesson learned. At the same time, I was trying to clean my dishwasher (see Project Two) and cook dinner (see Project Four). Being a Pinterest pinup still means prioritizing and not trying to do too much at once. Lesson learned, right?

What to do, what to do... I dumped the mix out and started making a bowl of just the dry ingredients. When it was finished I moved it ALL the way to the other side of the kitchen. See below and just trust me that both bowls are far, far away from each other.

Want to hear the big kicker? Eventually, you mix it all together anyway. I dumped the bowl for nothing. I guess next time I'll read the entire recipe more carefully. In my defense, I was trying to use my phone to read the recipe. There are times in life where things should be on paper. Recipes are definitely one of them.

Once everything was mixed together, I placed half of the dough mix at the bottom of the greased pan. Next, both ginormous candy bars sit on top of the mix like in the picture below.

The next layer is the fluff. I apologize that I do not have a picture of this, but I was swearing too much and my fingers were too sticky. This layer was my LEAST favorite to put together. For the top and final layer, place the other half of the dough on top of the fluff. See my S'mores bars in the oven below? Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. I set the timer for 30, but ended up cooking them for 35.After tasting them, I would maybe shoot for 32 to 33 minutes. I think 35 is just a smidge too long.

Here is the finished product! It looks pretty good, but the big test of course is the taste. My kids have already volunteered to be the official taste testers.Though I guess I should taste it too, you know, for the blog.

The taste test went pretty well, for my kids. They loved them, me? Not so much. They were better warmed up for a few seconds in the microwave. After all, a S'more is warm, right? And they are really rich, more so even than a S'more over the open flame. My honest opinion, I would only go through this effort again if my daughters asked for them as a special treat. But I'm going to try and convince them to just stick with the microwave version. 

Project Two: Dishwasher

There are a million things to clean in my house. Who knew that cleaning my dishwasher was another chore to add to the list? But when I saw this on Pinterest, I thought what an easy post to fulfill! The pin was from a site called, "One Good Thing By Jillee." A big thanks to Jillee for posting this on her blog!

Here is a picture of my dishwasher. Now, my dishwasher isn't awful. But my dishes could be much cleaner. No matter what detergent I use, my glasses always look foggy.

Here is a close-up shot of my dishwasher. There is a lot white deposits on the different pieces of the dishwasher. And while I was down here, I completed Jillee's first step: Make sure there is no debris around the drain area. Everything was all clear!

The next step is to place a dishwasher safe cup filled with vinegar on the top rack. The vinegar cleans the dishwasher and can remove any smells. To make it sparkle, set your dishwasher to a normal cycle length, but use the hottest cycle possible.

Here is a close-up shot of after the wash cycle. The dishwasher definitely smelled like vinegar and as you can (maybe) see, the bottom looks a lot cleaner.

Time for the next step! Take a cup of baking soda and sprinkle it on the very bottom of the dishwasher. Run another short cycle, still with hot water. This step is supposed to brighten the dishwasher and remove any stains. Honestly, I did not notice a difference after this cycle.

The most important part of this whole process is how the dishes look. Or how they feel... I did NOT like how my dishes felt when I pulled them out of the dishwasher. I really expected this magical transformation and the beautiful, clear glasses like on the commercials. I'd be the happy woman holding a water spot free wine glass. That isn't exactly what happened. My clear glasses were still foggy and they had a weird feel.

In Jillee's defense, her dishwasher was having major issues when she tried this process. I just wanted my dishes a little cleaner and less filmy. The type of water you have could make a difference too. I will not call this a complete fail, but it will be awhile before I try this again. 

Project One: Linen Closet!

Ready for Project One? I know I am! I have been excited all week to start my first project. Since it was a busy week, I had to wait until the weekend to adequately tackle this project. Since I dangled my linen closet in my first post, I thought it would be a perfect place to start.

When I opened my linen closet door, I have to shove pillows and blankets back in to shut the door. Classy, eh? Yep. That is my linen closet. Nothing like showing the world the disgusting lack of organization hiding behind closed doors.  

To prepare, I of course looked through Pinterest to see if I could gain any amazing insight. The closets looked great, but there were a few issues. 1. I was not willing to spend a lot of money on containers. 2. My linen closet is just for linens. Lots of the examples were multi-purpose, having bathroom supplies included. Those of course were the most organized looking because it was more interesting than just textiles.

Knowing that I wanted an organized closet, I took a chance on 5 different containers at the dollar store. I liked the color, they seem sturdy and the size was nice. Honestly, I was not sure what to do with them, but knew I would find something. The cost for all five was just $5.

My first course of action was to take EVERYTHING out of the closet. Needless to say, there were items in the closet I had forgotten about or didn't realize lived in there - like four curtain rods.

It felt so good to pull all things out of the closet. It looked so nice. So much potential... Until I looked behind me. The picture below shows all of the items that were in my closet. (Now, I thought about this picture after I started placing a few items back in the closet, but you definitely get the idea.) This is where I sat on a mound of blankets thinking, "What did I do? I have no idea where to go from here." So I just started sorting, folding the items to keep and slowly the project started to take shape. I obviously had to do something because this mess was not going to work.

To pull everything out and start organizing and refolding took about an hour. Seriously! I was amazed too. Then, we took a brief break get rid of some items. The pile below is everything that was far better suited at the local, friendly Goodwill store. We took three huge garbage bags stuffed with pillows, towels, blankets and sheets. Hopefully they find a good home because they can't stay here! 

While we were out, I wanted to head to the store again. Why you ask? Well, there were a few ideas I had. In the closet were three sleeping bags. Amazingly, one of the sleeping bags had a really nice storage sack (not on the bag). Both were living in the closet, just not together. Once I put the sleeping bag in the sack, it looked so nice and would stay looking nice. I wanted the other two sleeping bags in a sack too. I really wanted a few more of the large containers from the dollar store, but it wasn't an absolute must.

First store was Wal-mart. I found the mesh laundry sacks for $1.87. I purchased two for my sleeping bags. I also found a really nice brown laundry basket in the same aisle. My thought was to place the less used blankets in the basket up high in the closet. The basket was $7.97. I purchased two hoping both would fit, but I only used one.

Second store was The Dollar Tree. And they had a ton of the big containers in the same color. Yay! I purchased three more to make a total of five big containers. Now I felt like I could finish my project! 

And the big reveal! How much better does that look? It's ok, you can tell me it's fabulous! Once we returned from the store, there were a few more things to do. The hubby and I refolded the sheets and made sets. He also refolded the down comforter... I had tried, but failed miserably. All of this only took about 45 minutes.

My thought process: The sleeping bags and basket of blankets are on the top shelf because they are the least used items in the closet. Next shelf is my bins each filled with a set of sheets. I did try the idea on Pinterest of putting each set into a pillow case. Honestly, I hated it. I really liked them folded nicely better. All the towels are nicely folded. There are two small bins holding hand towels and wash cloths. The next shelf is extra blankets, another set of sheets and extra pillow cases. I placed the beach towels, extra pillows and extra blanket on the bottom because these are the items my kids need. Now, they can easily pull these items out of the closet without help.

Time: 1 hour 45 minutes + Shopping time
Cost: $8 dollar store containers, $11.71 for mesh bags and laundry basket

Welcome!

Not a day goes by where I do not hear the word "Pinterest". It has now become a part of everyday language. Just like google has become an accepted verb, Pinterest has become an accepted way of life. Need an idea for wedding decorations? Go to Pinterest! Throwing a kiddos birthday party? Again, Pinterest! Recipes, quotes, home decor ideas - all can be found on that lovely piece of heaven we call Pinterest.

Thanks to the age of smartphones, I can pore over Pinterest for hours. I look through home decor ideas, holiday ideas and things I can do with my children. Very rarely do I implement these ideas, mind you. No, I look through the categories, voraciously pinning or taking screenshots with my phone. See, if I screenshot the idea and it's on my phone then when I am at the store it should be very easy to fill my cart with the items that will make my home Pinterest pretty! Again, that doesn't happen either.

But I have decided that I am tired of dreaming. I am tired of looking through Pinterest for hours and not accomplishing anything. It is time I become the Pinterest Pin Up girl I aspire to be. It's time I prove (slowly) that I can have an organized linen closet and that I will complete the Halloween footprint and handprint canvas craft with my son before his hands are no longer tiny and cute!

I will try to complete as many Pinterest projects as possible, outlining each one for you. The trials, tribulations - all of these items documented so that others may see that becoming a Pinterest Pin Up is possible.