Pan-Roasted Chicken With Lemon-Garlic Green Beans

Like the majority of my posts, this one is about food! Surprise, surprise, that I found this pin appealing for its short list of ingredients of ease of cooking :) It just looked yummy too!


LINK

 After reading thought the laundry lists of comments on this post, I followed most folks suggestions and skipped the first step altogether, arranging sliced lemons across the bottom of the dish. This was a good call, because 1 lemon's worth of juice gave plenty of flavor to this dish!!! It'd be overkill with the slices!

I also decided to use a shake and bake method for coating my ingredients, this was a good call. The recipe says use a bowl, this would be messy. I used a gallon zip lock and some tongs and it was quick, easy and no mess!

I used 2 large bone-in chicken breasts since it was only feeding two adults and a toddler, this also worked out great. My only change would be to use 4 or maybe 5 TBSP of oil, 6 was a tad much.

Overall, awesome dish, SUPER easy and I will absolutely make this again.

Happy Pinning! ~ Val

ABC Learning Board

Just like all good moms, I do try and create activities around the house that foster learning for my kiddo. I've seen a couple different alphabet learning posts on Pinterest that have sparked my interest, however this one more so because I already had the Fridge Phonics®: Magnetic Alphabet Set from Leap Frog.


LINK

Being the anal retentive parent that I am, I dismissed the idea of hand writing the letters on a random piece of paper and wanted a more uniform look. I decided to check out my local Wal-Mart to see what I could put together.

I found an ABC Flash Card set and a poster board, perfect!! I went home, grabbed a letter from the Leap Frog phonics and double checked to make sure the magnet was strong enough to go through the poster board AND the flash card. It worked!! And I was thrilled. I glued each card around the edges and neatly stuck them to the poster board.

Once dry, I hung the board and got to putting each letter in its respective spot. Guess what...they don't stick! Apparently the FRONT of my fridge (where I tested it, but is a side-by-side therefore poster board was planned for the side of the fridge) is more magnetic than the SIDE of my fridge...

SO, overall, project semi-fail. The objective of the "game" is the same, just minus the magnets. I put the board on the floor and my son enjoys trying to match the letters. He then also enjoys picking up the entire board, dumping the letters on the floor, and running away with said board...boys!

Happy Pinning! ~ Val

Mess Free Finger Painting

I am primarily a stay at home mom, so I am always looking for fun new ways to pass the hours especially on those dreadful "rainy days". Well it turned out this was one of those and I had found just the pin for it!

Find the pin here 

I had recently bought and stored away the 2 main components of the pin: paint and gallon size ziploc baggies. I bought washable finger paint...just incase the bags did not stay sealed and the Ziploc brand bags with the actual zipper so I knew that they were indeed sealed.

After that it was simple. I taped down 2 sheets of white paper. Put a generous squeeze of two colors in each bag. Pressed out as much air as possible and zipped them closed. Then I taped over the zipper for extra precaution. I taped the bags down to the table with blue painters tape and that was it! They were SUPER easy and it says in the blog where I found them that you can peel them up and just store the bags for reuse! 

All the materials I used :)

Little Miss 

She really liked pressing puzzle pieces into make imprints :)

Happy Rainy Day Pinning!
Tiffany

Valentine’s Cookies

So I may be a working mom (and I love it) but I also love being a good daycare mom. Juggling those two things can be hectic but I am getting the hang of it! Lucky for me, I have my pinning partner in crime/ex-teacher who laid down the “good school mom rules” for me last year.  I learned that holiday parties at school are an important time for me to step up and pitch in. So now, I always try and send something for the teacher, something for the class and when appropriate, something for each little kiddo.

The most recent holiday festivity at daycare was Valentine’s day. I saw this pin and loved the idea!!



LINK



I was telling friends at work how I was going to make cookies and put heart shaped chocolate in the center instead of Hershey kisses. Well I have a friend who had one of “those” mom’s, the BEST school mom out of everyone. He insisted I make heart shaped cookies with heart shaped chocolates if I REALLY wanted to be a good mom (and that’s what his mom would do). So of course, I had to step up to the plate!

Let me start with…I’ve never made cut out cookies before. I’m sure I did plenty as a kid, but I can’t remember what I wore yesterday let alone what I did 25 years ago. So I got everything I needed to make the cookies and one night while my kiddo was eating his dinner, I started the debacle of me and the cookies. Betty Crocker has it down for dummies, the instructions on my sugar cookie packet had separate instructions for cut out cookies versus regular round ones! Thanks for that Betty. So I followed the instructions and still learned a valuable lesson: You need A LOT of flour! I am sure seasoned bakers can do with less, but me, I went through a few a cups trying to keep it all from sticking.

To sum up the debacle, I started with dough sticking to the rolling pin. Then dough sticking to the cutting board. Then more dough sticking to both (around the edges where I clearly didn’t flour enough). Finally, I got the hang of it and cut out some heart shaped cookies!

After the baking was done, I learned another valuable lesson: DO NOT move the cookies from the sheet pan to a cooling rack!!! After moving this cookie, I cleared some fridge space, put down hot pads, and put both sheet pans directly in the fridge to cool, worked like a charm.

This is what happens when you try and move the cookies to cool:

Melted the chocolate instantly :(

All in all, by the end, I got the hang of it, made some cute and yummy cookies and everyone was happy! I even packaged them in cute white and red polka dot boxes to send to school!



My Final Product



Happy Pinning! ~ Val

Toddler Foods List

So while scrolling through Pinterest yesterday, I happen to stumble upon a pin for a Toddler Foods List (LINK). Obviously the list itself wasn’t overly helpful since I already have a toddler and feed him for that matter! However I LOVED the original poster’s idea of storing the list. I find myself instructing grandparents of what foods in the house are okay for my son on a regular basis. Whelp, problem solved!

I wrote and printed off my list, found a sheet protector and voila! Best part is, you can write on the sheet protector with a dry erase marker, so if something from the list isn’t in the kitchen, I can simply cross it off the list of possibilities.

I also added my son’s daily schedule. This is another thing I end up reiterating to everyone.

The List

The List Posted in the Cabinet

Happy Pinning! ~ Val

Love Map Art

My husband and I have been together for 12 years. And although HE says we no longer have to celebrate our "dating" anniversary....I say we DO. Its at the end of February so I have been trying to come up with something personal but not pricey as my gift to him. Then I remembered this pin!

 http://minimozblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/love-map-tutorial.html

This is so perfect for us :) We met in college (Salisbury University) and then moved back home to Baltimore County and got married there. Now we live in PA. So three hearts from three different place and times in our relationship.

I checked out the tutorial (click on link above) and it pretty simple. However, I was NOT going to search around forever for a frame to redo. So I bought one at Target for $24.99. It's a nice frame. Basic black with 2 glass panes you put pictures in between. Simple, clean, done.

Now I needed maps to cut out. I thought about printing maps off the internet but they wouldn't have that "map" feel so I needed real maps. I looked up the prices for maps on Amazon.com not as cheap as I wanted. Then I remembered the roadside welcome center 5 minutes from my house! Free Maps! Tons and Tons of them. This was the PA Welcome Center but they also had MD roadmaps and gave me 2 of each state for free! Score :)

Next I had to decide how to do the heart shape. They needed to be uniform and I didn't want to free hand them like the tutorial. So I used a large heart cookie cutter as my template. So easy. I actually got a set of 4 heart shaped cookie cutters on clearance for a $1 at Walmart after Valentines day. The large one worked perfectly. Traced and cut them out..took 5 minutes.

Then I chose a simple font and printed out the captions on regular printer paper. Used a glue dot to secure each heart and cut them to the same size squares. Another glue dot to stick them to the glass pane and I was done! 

Here is the finished product :)

before it was hung

up on the wall :)

Happy Pinning!

Tiffany

Press & Seal Fridge FAIL

Ok I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this one. But we said we would share the good, bad and ugly. This one would fall under "bad".

I am always looking for easy cleaning tips. So I saw this pin about putting Press & Seal paper on your fridge shelves and thought thats simple and seems like it would be affective.

Buying the Press & Seal was easy and cheap so I figured why not? Well then I tried to "press and seal" it to my fridge shelves. I washed and dried them thoroughly. Tried to press. No luck. Tried to seal. No dice. My shelves look just like the ones in the picture. But it DID NOT WORK. 

Oh well, I have come to love Press & Seal for left overs. So at least I have that. 

Happy Pinning!

Tiffany