Meals at Home

January 30, 2013February 4, 2013 / jesyisms / 3 Comments

Not sure if you would call this a resolution, quest for eating healthier or not wanting to spend major bucks on eating out all the time but we have been eating more meals at home lately. OH wait! There is one more reason, PINTEREST!!! Ha, I love that beast of a social media channel. Check out some easy recipes below that are mostly healthy or at least can be altered to add more healthy ingredients (George is on the picky side).

There have been some great Pinterest recipes we have recently tried that I’d love to share with all of you:

{Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings} Woah was this recipe DELISH! I took out the celery and other “green” items but this recipe could easily have vegetables added for extra flavor. I was a bit worried just dumping canned biscuits into the crockpot but that was my favorite part of the consistency and flavor. The house smelled good too.

{Meatball Sub Casserole} I tried this recipe out on my parents when George was not feeling so great and he didn’t get to try it. Both mom and dad were salivating over it and I thought it was pretty great too. I tried it again last Monday on my brother, Matt, George, and my uncle, Scrooge, and they all loved it as well. Matt actually asked me to email him the recipe. I’d highly suggest this one!

{Baked Ravioli} This recipe was tried on just myself and George and I loved this one. I ended up using the “meat” stuffed frozen ravioli instead of the cheese stuffed and George wasn’t too fond. I’ll have to try the cheese version next and see if he likes that one better. This was a source for left over lunches for me and I actually liked it reheated.

{Crockpot Hawaiian Chicken} So what if I have an obsession with easy recipes that include chicken and a crockpot. Just try this one too! Love the mix of bbq sauce and pineapple.

{Crockpot Italian Chicken} ~~A bit of honesty here, we haven’t tried this one YET but it is on the radar for trying and I think we have it in the menu for this Thursday. Stay tuned!~~ I can now say that we HAVE tried this one and it is my new favorite. Served over rotini noodles and topped with a little mozzarella cheese, woah it was good!

Other staple recipes in the Herron household that some of you might already know about but it is worth the second share:

{Taco Pie} Just a little hint with this recipe, DO NOT save your extra tortilla chips for like a year to use in this recipe especially if they are rancid. Yea, we had to order pizza few weeks ago because the pie did not taste that great. Otherwise, this is an easy one to serve dinner style (pie dish) or as suggested by my cousin, Beth, you can also serve in a larger pan and cut into squares to serve a larger group.

{Baked Ziti} This recipe started out as just noodles and sauce and has quickly been morphed to always having the addition of Bob Evans Maple Syrup Sausage, Y-U-M! My brother, Matt, actually bought that sausage once to add and it has stuck. This recipe was also a great way for my company, US Digital Partners, to support and serve lunch for the Ronald McDonald House of Charities, Cincinnati location. We made 10 pans worth of baked ziti for the amazing families who were staying at the house this past December.

If you have any recipes to share, please leave the links or recipe in the comments section so we can ALL take advantage. Don’t forget to follow our Pinterest board; The Herron Nest Loves to keep up with all the Pinterest greats that we have tried and love.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

December 27, 2012December 27, 2012 / jesyisms / Leave a comment

For the past month (clearly I’m a procrastinator) we’ve been gearing up for this one day, December 25th. All the decorating, shopping, cooking, crafting and wrapping has led us to 24 hours of pure Christmas spirit. And this year George and I were able to watch it all unfold through the eyes of toddlers. Mason (2 year old nephew), Henry (1 year old nephew) and Abbey were so much fun to watch tear open presents and be giddy about what was inside but more importantly, they were giddy about the paper! There were so many presents and delicious food and oh so yummy wine but there was also so much laughter and love. I feel amazingly blessed to be surrounded by such a loving and caring family and three adorable little munchkins who brought so much joy to this holiday season. Mushy, mushy, mushy… I’ll move on!

Here are pictures of Abbey and her cousins enjoying Christmas day:

P.S. The ottoman’s in the top right picture (with Mason) and bottom left picture (with Henry) are ones that I made thanks to Pinterest and my mom. Mom and I worked on this all day last Sunday and it was a lot of fun learning to sew from my momma. Abbey also got an ottoman and I promise to post pictures of these beauties and instructions on how to make them very, very soon. And apparently I’m taking orders to make them as presents for my friend’s kids so just message me and I might just make one for you too!

P.P.S. Christmas was NOT ruined thanks to my in-law’s who got Abbey and Henry the Anywhere Chairs from Pottery Barn Kids. Check out my hectic rant from an earlier post when I lost my $100 Pottery Barn gift card.

P.P.P.S. The Pottery Barn gift card is still lost, boo!

The Great Pinterest Pumpkin Project is Complete

October 29, 2012 / jesyisms / 2 Comments

I have this crazy relationship with Pinterest that goes something like this:

From my phone I start pinning all these great crafts, recipes and styles because it makes me think (out loud): “Oh I love that idea” “That would look amazing on my living room wall” “So cute and so easy to do” “Yum, I could make that tonight” “This would be perfect for (fill in the blank)” BUT THEN I DO NOTHING!

I keep thinking all these great crafts and foods I see on Pinterest will come in handy at one point in my life so I pin and pin and pin. This weekend was different, call it the crazy hair up my “@$$” or just me being sick of seeing great ideas go to waste, but I actually finished a Pinterest project (applause).

{I will call this my “The Great Pinterest Pumpkin Project”}

The sole reason I love to carve pumpkins is because I love homemade roasted pumpkin seeds and this year I thought I would get crafty with the design. What do you think? It was pretty fun to make, you can follow my step by step instructions below or you can check on the pin I used to create The Great Pinterest Pumpkin from my “Want to do Crafts” board.

Step 1 – carve the bottom of your pumpkin so you can get your hands up in the guts.

Step 2 – dig out the guts! You will want to scrape pretty good for a later step, trust me on this!

Step 3 – if you want to eat the Pumpkin seeds (recipe below) you will want to separate seeds in a colander for easy rinsing of the pumpkin guts.

Step 4 – I went ahead and worked on getting the seeds roasted at this point so that I could enjoy them when I was done with my project. I just rinsed them, dried them a bit, added spray olive oil to a pan and spread them out evenly. Then added seasoned salt and put in the oven for 20 minutes at 300 degrees. Turned them over and baked for another 20 minutes. YUM!

Step 5 – Back to the Great Pinterest Pumpkin Project! You will want to tape off your pumpkin for even drilling OR you can wing it but I wasn’t brave enough to try that.

Step 6 – Once you have taped, you will want to start drilling holes. Keep in mind that you will be adding string lights so you’ll want to use a small drill bit and size them up with your lights.

Step 7 – Go ahead and put your hand back up the pumpkin and push a string of lights (one light per hole) in each hole. I had to use 100 to fill all the holes in my pumpkin. Be sure to count!