November Pinterest Challenge: Preschool Edition

When I accepted the Pinterest challenge from Anna Hartman from In The Next 30 Days and Wendy Nielsen from Wendy Nielsen - Writing A New Story, I couldn't leave well enough alone with just doing a recipe challenge. 

All those preschool ideas I've been pinning? Yep, did a few of those, too. 

I needed a bulletin board idea for November for my primary class, which is composed of 11 three year olds who are turning four over the course of the school year. This is the idea I got from Pinterest:

http://tippytoecrafts.blogspot.com/search/label/fall

My version, using the little hands in my class:

I LOVE this! I will say it was challenging to make handprints (let's remember we are painting hands on 3 year old kiddos - loose cannons at best) in the middle of the tree. I literally picked up a couple of them and held them by the waist with one arm while guiding their painty hand with the other. (Never EVER inwardly scoff again when you hear someone is a preschool teacher, thinking they've got it E-A-S-Y.)

Next, we made Indian corn. This is what I saw on Pinterest:

http://www.fantasticfunandlearning.com/
indian-corn-craft-and-five-kernels-of-corn-
legend.html

And this is what we made:

Look at her sweet finger!
The Pinterest link showed a child using
the end of a pencil to do this, but I
say go big or go home.

TA DAHHHH!

ANOTHER PINTEREST WIN! 

Time for a pre-k project. This class meets three mornings a week and is made up of 16 four year olds. Our Pinterest project was chosen to replace the same old, tired, turkey handprint project we've been doing for years and using for a placemat for our Thanksgiving feast.

This is what I found on Pinterest:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/260575528413395938/
Pinterest won't take me to the site, saying it
looks spammy, so, there you go.
Consider yourself warned.

And this is our finished product:

HOW CUTE IS THAT?!

And now, for a little Pinterest Challenge of my own, I am posting a picture the primary class made of the Mayflower. I got the idea from a Mailbox magazine, but instead of cutting out a handprint for the hull of the ship, I continued my theme of torturing my assistant teacher and, yes, painted their hands, because that's the way I roll:

Now to see how many re-pins I get....

November Pinterest Challenge: Recipe Edition

I have always been a collector of recipes like some people collect things like snow globes. 

Wait, I collect those, too.

Like some people collect Precious Moments figurines (that is DEFINITELY not me).

I collected recipes long before the internet came along. I bought magazines and clipped recipes. I bought cookbooks. I checked them out from the library. And I got recipes from friends and family. I had overflowing shelves and recipe boxes.

 Aaaand, I continued to use the same handful of recipes I had always used. 

A few years ago, this magical thing called Pinterest came along, and my collection became neatly organized on my boards, but I still wasn't doing much more than continuing my hobby as a recipe collector.

Then one of my favorite bloggers, Wendy Nielsen, posted about a monthly challenge by Anna Hartman from In The Next 30 Days to "execute one of the eleventy-billion recipes or projects we're always pinning over on Pinterest." I'm always up for a challenge. Color me IN!

I started my Pinterest Challenge, Recipe Edition, with what I THOUGHT was going to be Crockpot Chicken and Noodles and which turned out to be Incredibly Easy Chicken and Noodles. A little bait and switch, if you ask me, but I made it anyway.

Their version:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/incredibly-
easy-chicken-and-noodles/detail.aspx

My version:

My verdict: Fine, but nothing to write home about. I don't really need a recipe to throw together some chicken, noodles and cream soups and call it dinner. Perhaps the fact that I didn't READ the recipe until I started making it served me right, because had I read it, I don't think I would have made this and instead, would have allowed it to languish on my board.

My next recipe for the Challenge was Crunchy Black Bean Tacos.  I have been drooling over these for, apparently, a year (nice of Pinterest to log when you pinned something, so you know just how very long you have ignored it). 

Their version:

http://www.endlesssimmer.com/2012/04/04/
cornerstone-cooking-crunchy-black-
bean-tacos/#more-33746

My version:

Holy cow, these things were DELISH! Frying them in olive oil was silly, though, as it's (a) expensive and (b) has a low smoke point (both things pointed out by my husband when he came in the kitchen to see how the tacos were turning out). I ended up doubling the recipe and switching halfway through from olive oil to canola oil without changing the taste of the tacos.  I also didn't put the cilantro in because, as I confessed above, I have a wee bit of a habit of not reading the entire recipe before I begin, and I didn't notice cilantro on the ingredients list. My husband, who is a huge cilantro fan, said he didn't miss it at all in these. So there you go.

Chicken Tamale Bake was next. We had mixed reviews about this at my house. The problem with it was the cornbread base. The recipe calls for a box of Jiffy cornbread mix, to which milk, egg, chopped green chilies, shredded cheese, pepper, cumin, and a can of creamed corn was added. Jiffy mixes make a slightly sweet cornbread. Creamed corn is very sweet. Put those together, and it doesn't matter HOW much cumin you add (just an observation, but cumin smells like B.O.), that cornbread base is going to taste very, very sweet. Which was the complaint my family had. I was the least put off by it and ended up eating all the leftovers. I would make this again, but I would make the cornbread from scratch, using very little sugar, and substitute whole kernel corn for the creamed corn. Which would mean I would have to adjust the liquid in the recipe and which negates it being any kind of "quick" meal. 

Their version:

http://www.emilybites.com/2012/01/
chicken-tamale-bake.html

My version:

My last recipe in the Pinterest Challenge was Crispy Quinoa Bake. First of all, it was not crispy, but it might have been if the oven temperature had been 400 instead of 375. And quinoa is an acquired taste. Or texture, anyway, because it really doesn't taste like anything much. My daughter and I were not in love with the finished product, but my husband was. He already had a love affair going with quinoa, and he did nothing but rave about this dish. He thought it had a meaty texture that made him not miss that there was no meat in it. He loved the flavors, the texture, yada yada yada, and wants to see it become part of the regular menu rotation. Yay. 

Their version:

http://www.theliveinkitchen.com/2012/12/11/
crispy-quinoa-bake/

My version:

She's not loving it.

There you have it. I do regularly make quite a few of the other recipes I have pinned. Like lasagna cups. And mini chicken pot pie cupcakes. And slow cooker cream cheese chicken chili, which I don't make in a slow cooker. And cranberry feta pinwheels. Oh, just follow me on Pinterest and see for yourself!