Pinteresting Pins: Magic Eraser & a Baking Soda Trial

Time to test out more fun things I found over on Pinterest.

Shockingly enough, Pinterest is good for more than just finding yummy food.  Did you know that?
There are all sorts of great time-saving and sanity-saving tips on there.  I created a great little board called "Frugal Household Ideas."  Go, check it out.  There are lots of great (cheap) household tips that should make your life easier.

I looked over what I had pinned to see what would be most useful to me right now and this pin stuck out at me: All the uses for Magic Erasers that you didn't know about.  I always keep Magic Erasers on hand, but, I have to admit, I pretty much only use them to clean walls and trim.  I guess I never knew there were other things to clean with them (hence the pin title "all the uses for Magic Erasers that you didn't know about").

When you visit the website, you will see an incredibly long list of uses in the post, as well as 240 comments that include more uses (and a very detailed conversation about what the Magic Eraser is actually made of, in case you are interested).  Obviously, I couldn't try out every use on the list, so I picked out a few that intrigued me and went to work.

Here's my list and the results:

• Inside the oven door - On the actual metal, it cleaned great. On the Glass? Not so much. I tried Windex Multi-Surface Cleaner and a regular sponge on the glass and it was so much better.

• Dried paint on door hinges - The Magic Eraser did not clean this at all, not even one little smudge came off.
• Agitator in washing machine - It's crazy that this was on the list because mine has been dirty forever and it never even crossed my mind that you could clean it!  Maybe I'm really the one who's crazy.  Anyway...this was a score!  It cleaned that agitator beautifully and so quick and easy.

• Stained caulking around sink - It really didn't do anything for my stained caulking, but maybe it depends on the type of stain?
• Bathtub floor - The thought behind this is that the sponge cleans with micro-abrasion (kind of like the micro-dermabrasion you can use for your skin).  It actually gets the dirt clean by taking off a tiny layer of whatever surface you are cleaning.  So those little micro thingies are supposed to get into the spaces on the rough bathtub floor and get them all clean.  Guess what?  It didn't work. AT. ALL.  But since I was in the bathtub cleaning anyway, I decided to try it out on the stubborn ring around the tub.  It worked very well.  Just scraped that sucker right off.

My last experiment was with the grout on the kitchen floor.  The Magic Eraser article claimed that it could clean grout and mine really need cleaning. So I did a little experiment.  It just so happened that I had pinned another tip about how to make your own grout cleaner. (Direct link if you don't have Pinterest.)  I decided to clean some of my floor with the homemade baking soda and water grout cleaner from that pin and some of it with the Magic Eraser to see which cleaned better.

Definitely the baking soda and water cleaned better than the Magic Eraser.  The Magic Eraser did get the grout cleaner than it was before, but not shockingly clean.

While the baking soda paste got the grout clean, it was a complete mess to use.  The directions said to "let it dwell for 10 minutes" then to "rinse clean."  I'm not really sure what it means to "let it dwell for 10 minutes" so I just let it sit there.  But the hard part?  "Rinse clean." How do you get a bunch of wet baking soda off of your kitchen floor without making a huge mess?  You just don't, that's how.  I cleaned it all with a sponge...twice.  Then I mopped...three times.  Guess what?  The floor is still gritty with baking soda.

The moral of the story is: I still haven't found a grout cleaner that I like, but, hey, if you want to clean your washing machine's agitator...the Magic Eraser is the way to go!

Have you found any great uses for the Magic Eraser?  How about grout cleaner?  Know any good ways to clean that?

Pinteresting Pins: Apple Oatmeal Muffins & Whole Wheat Bread

Time for more Pinerest trials.  You can follow me on Pinterest here.

This week, I'm trying out some new recipes in the grain family. - Apple Oatmeal Muffins, a mostly healthy snack and Whole Wheat Bread, a bread machine recipe.

We'll start with the success, the Apple Oatmeal Muffins.

These muffins were super simple to make.  I only had one little hitch.  I was all set to mix everything up and I noticed the recipe called for non-instant steel cut oatmeal.  I looked down at my can of oatmeal and it said..."instant."  Oops.  But, at that point, I decided to go for it anyway.  And, thankfully, the instant oats worked just fine.  Just know, if you try this recipe out, you have to soak the oatmeal in milk for an hour, so plan ahead for that extra time needed.

Muffins - all ready to put in the oven

These were a huge hit, even with the picky crowd.  The kids didn't know they were healthy.  They just gobbled them up as if they were candy.  The recipe says these muffins are great to freeze and pop in the microwave for breakfast.  I'm sure they are, but they didn't last long enough at our house to find out.  We are definitely going to make these muffins again.

Now for the not-so-successful Pinterest story.

Recently I have been seeing tons of recipes in the blogging world for bread machines.  Way back when we first got married we owned a bread machine.  Why?  Because it was cool to put lots of neat gadgets on my wedding registry and because people bought me those neat gadgets.  I made bread a few times, but never really got a lot of use out of the machine.  Several years ago, I heard someone mention how they were saving up to buy a bread machine.  Since mine was just sitting in my cabinet and I figured they would get more use out of it then I would, I decided to give my bread machine away.

Fast forward to now.

I see bread machine recipes online...everywhere...I want a bread machine again.  But I don't want to shell out a couple hundred bucks to get something that I've already had once and didn't use.  Then, as if from God, I see a bread machine listed on our local Facebook yard sale site for $8.  Yay!  I'll take it!

OK, that's the back story.  So last week I decided to make my very first loaf of bread in that machine.  I got out my Pinterest recipe for Whole Wheat Bread, put the ingredients in the pan in the order specified, then let the machine do its thing.  The manual for the bread maker specifically says to take the loaf out of the pan immediately.  I tried.  And this is what I got.

 And it tasted even worse.

Frustrated, I tried to figure out what went wrong.  The recipe online says it's for a sandwich loaf but it doesn't say how big of a loaf.  My bread maker makes 1 lb and 1.5 lb loaves.  So I thought maybe the Pinterest recipe was really for a 2 lb loaf and it couldn't rise in my 1.5 lb max machine.

So I tried again, this time using the recipe in the manual that came with the bread maker.  I made sure to put everything in the machine in the order listed in the book.  And this is what the second try got me.

Doesn't look much better.  Although this time it tasted OK, it still wasn't great.  It just seemed so dense, like it didn't rise enough and it definitely did not come out of the pan easily.  The manual doesn't say anything about greasing the pan before use.  I assumed it is a non-stick pan, but my "loaves" (if you can call them that) are certainly sticking.

So, the Whole Wheat Bread recipe was a fail for me...times two.  I still haven't decided if it's the bread maker, or if it's just me.

What about you?  Have you had any success with a bread machine?  Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?  What are your favorite Pinterest finds?

Want to see some hilarious Pinterest fails by other people?  Check out this site.

Pinteresting Pins: Breakfast Ring & Crispy Chicken Wraps

Once again, Pinterest is busy giving me new ideas for dinner.  Thank you, Pinterest!

We tried out two new recipes last week - Crispy Southwest Chicken Wraps and a Bacon, Egg & Cheese Breakfast Ring

First up...the Chicken Wraps

I have to admit, I changed the recipe quite a bit on this one.  It called for a bunch of spices, a bunch of veggies and black beans, all of which I omitted when I made it.  My wraps consisted of chicken, rice and cheese (with the addition of sour cream for the ones Tim and I ate).  While Tim and I would eat all the other items included in the recipe, the kids would not.  In fact, they wouldn't have even touched them or taken a single bite of them.  Sometimes we are sticklers and make the kids eat stuff they don't want to eat and sometimes we just don't want the battle.

I think the brilliance of this recipe is in how you cook the wraps.  You spray them with cooking spray first - that's the secret - then you brown them on both sides in the frying pan.  I loved the crispy outside.

While they were good, everyone felt like they needed less rice and more of everything else - more chicken, and more cheese.

We'd definitely try this one again with a little tweaking to the filling. (For those of you without Pinterest, you can find the recipe here.)

Recipe #2 - Bacon, Egg and Cheese Breakfast Ring

Oh my, this was so good and so easy.  You cook up the bacon and eggs.  Combine them with cheese and put it in crescent rolls shaped like a ring.  Cook it all together and you get a great filling dinner or breakfast.

Shape the crescent rolls like a star, add your filling,
then pull the ends to the middle to make a ring.

We made 2 of them and ate one right away for dinner.  The other we saved and ate on all week for breakfast.  I'm a big proponent of eating lots of protein at breakfast.  It keeps you feeling full until lunch and keeps little tummies from having to visit the nurse at school just because they are hungry.  This recipe is a great, yummy way to get that protein at breakfast.

Both of these recipes were winners.  I was a little bit more partial to the breakfast ring because I love anything with bacon, eggs and cheese.  (If you don't have Pinterest, you can find the recipes here.)

Planning to try these out?  Leave a comment and let me know which one you think looks the best to eat.

Pinteresting Pins: Pizza & Broccoli/Rice Casserole

Do you pin?  Are you on Pinterest?  If I don't already follow you, leave me a comment with your Pinterest name and I'll come find you.

Time for more Pinterest trials.  This week it was 2-ingredient pizza dough and broccoli/chicken/rice casserole.

When I was a little kid, we lived so far out in the country that the pizza delivery man was not an option.  My mom's solution was to make pizza ourselves from scratch.  My sister, my mom and I would measure out all the ingredients for the dough. We'd mix it up, knead it, and roll it out.  Then we would add sauce, cheese and any toppings.  It was all great fun back then.  We got dirty.  We got the floors dirty.  We loved it.

Fast forward to now.  I decide it will be great fun to make my own pizza dough just like we did back then.  However, since I'm not a big "make it from scratch" kind of person, I thought trying this 2-ingredient recipe (Greek yogurt and flour) would be the perfect solution.

2-ingredient pizza dough

My first mistake was to try this on a school night when we had to be at Cub Scouts at 6.  Second mistake was to let my Greek yogurt expire then make a last second run to the store with two kids after school to get more.  Should have just postponed the experiment at that point and ordered pizza from a pizza place, after all I don't live way out in the country anymore.

But I'm a glutton for punishment, I guess.  Really, it wasn't that bad.  I mixed up the yogurt and flour, and then more flour, and then more flour.  Until it was finally the right doughy consistency.  I kneaded, and let the kids knead, then kneaded it just a little more.

Sorry it's so blurry.
My 7 year old can't seem to hold my phone still.

Then I let the kids roll it out ... and it was tiny.  So I used the last of the yogurt and more flour and made just a little more dough.

I put it all together and got this weird oblong kind of shape.  Stuck it on a large stone and just went with it.

The final product

So I'm sure you're wondering how it tasted.  It was OK.  It was not as good as the pizza we made growing up.  And despite what everyone on Pinterest says, I could taste the yogurt.  The good news was both kids ate it and seemed to like it.  They weren't over the moon about it but it was OK pizza, they said.  I don't think I would make this again.  It was a lot of work for only having 2 ingredients and I was stressed the whole time.  I'm not giving up Little Caesars or Freshetta just yet.

Broccoli/chicken/rice Casserole

This recipe involved a bit of prep work, but after all the chopping, it was super simple.  Throw it all together in a bowl and mix it up.

I liked the fact that the recipe made me four meals.  I served one that night and put three in the freezer for later.  When I had a friend with the flu this week (and all four of her kids had the flu too!), I could just grab a frozen casserole and send it to her house.  So nice to have enough to keep and enough to share.

  

The bad news?  Making this created a huge mess of dirty dishes in my sink.  Sigh!  No rest for the weary.

The good news?  The kids, including David, both tried it and ate it.  David, who doesn't usually like rice, said it was good.  He didn't eat a lot but he tried it, which is a big deal.  Julie loved it and kept asking for more.  I am excited to add this to our usual menu.  It was great!

Stay tuned for more Pinterest trials.  I might dive into the DIY or organization pins next time, you never know.

Did you try out these recipes?  Let me know what you think in the comments or on my Facebook page.

Pinteresting Pins: Energy Bites & Pull-apart Cinnamon Bread

Are you on Pinterest?  If so, leave me a comment with your Pinterest name and I'd love to follow you.

I tried two new Pinterest recipes this week and they both turned out very well.  Both kids liked both recipes, which is not only amazing in my house, it makes both recipes winners in my book.

No Bake Energy Bites

I have to admit, I did not read this recipe carefully enough before I went to the store.  I thought it only had 4 ingredients: honey, peanut butter, chips and oatmeal.  Apparently, there were really 7 ingredients.  The recipe also included flaxseed, vanilla and coconut flakes.  Didn't get those at the store.  Oops.  We don't like coconut so I wouldn't have added it anyway.  I've never bought flaxseed in my life so I wouldn't even know where to look for that in a store.  Vanilla would have been good, but, oh well.

The moral of the story is: apparently, you can make these with just about anything and without just about anything and they will still taste good.

We made ours using only peanut butter, honey, cinnamon chips (yum!) and oatmeal and they were delish!  Almost like eating cookie dough.  In fact, I called them "cookie dough balls" for the kids benefit and had to limit them to just eating one a day (I may have had 2 a day myself, but who's counting).  I'm not sure if I got extra energy from the "energy bites" or not, but they tasted good.  (Maybe that's what the flaxseed was for?)

Pull-apart Cinnamon Bread

We had this lovely little dish for dessert last night.  Julie and I made it together and it was super easy (super easy is the only way I bake).  In short, you roll pieces of canned biscuit dough in cinnamon and sugar.  Stick them in a pan.  Cover it all with brown sugar mixed with melted butter (that's the glaze stuff you see on top),  then bake for about 30 minutes.

David, my very picky eater, was the first to try this and said "I'm so glad I was brave and tried this." Um, yeah, if only that idea would carry over when vegetables were involved.

I've already decided that this will make a great dish for my next party.  You can eat it "pull apart style" or you can cut it more like a cake, which is what we did.  We had some for breakfast today too and it made a great breakfast bread as well.

These turned out so well, that I'm convinced to try more of the recipes on my Pinterest board.  Maybe something a little bit healthier and more dinner-like next time.  Maybe :).

I'd love to know if you try these recipes as well.  Leave me a comment here or on my new Facebook page and let me know how they work for you.  Happy pinning!