A week of Pinterest projects

Yay! Thank you, Pinterest for all the ideas, creativity, and for putting it in the voices of real people who have tried real projects. I will happily add mine to the din.

I fell in love with the idea of painting/decorating the inside of a bookshelf, and decided that the bookshelf made pantry in our kitchen was ripe for a make over. I removed all the shelves, shored up some nails in the back, then laid in face up on the dinning room floor. Then I mod-podged some craft paper onto the inside of the shelf- it took about 13 pages that were 12 inch squares. There was some piecing together to do, but not much.

It took two rounds and several hours in between for the mod-podge to dry to my satisfaction, but once I put the shelves back in it was totally worth it. 

I think it looks best without food in it, but we have to keep our pantry supplies somewhere- so it might as well be pretty!

I also made some recipes this week that were super easy, healthy, and very tasty. I always like to know which things work best for other people, so I thought I would throw these out here with my endorsement.

1. Lentil Soup from 101 cookbooks.com. She encourages us to "think of this soup is broad strokes," and I second that. I accidentally made a variation on the recipe here, and it was very good, easy, healthy, and really tasty. Dani and Betsy can attest to that. :)

I made mine with a poached egg, which I highly recommend- poaching instructions courtesy of Smitten Kitchen.com. If you have not gone there and fallen in love with it, please do so at once.

2. Gimmesomeoven no bake energy bites. I can't believe that these are not far worse for you than they are. Oatmeal, honey, peanut butter, and grains. These are the perfect snack- I am always eating one just as I start cooking because I inevitably wait until I am overly hungry to start the cooking process and don't want to wait 30-45 minutes to eat. These are perfect.

3. Finally quinoa mac n cheese by Around the Table. Belive it or not, this only has a cup and a half of cheese, several eggs, and vegetables! It is SO good for you, and really, really tasty. Anyone who knows me knows that I love cheese and this is an amazing dish. Thank you, Dani and Jon, for introducing me- it could very well be a life-long relationship.

This is all- happy pinteresting. :)