Healthy-ish Oatmeal Pancakes with a Twist!

I first saw a recipe for healthy oatmeal pancakes through Pinterest which linked me to this blog called Sally's Baking Addiction.

Looks scrumptious.

I have now made this recipe (kind of) several times since first seeing it. Honestly, not once did I follow the recipe exactly.

This recipe has all your staples when you try to think of a healthy pancake recipe - whole wheat flour, oats, egg whites, greek yogurt, etc.

I made simple changes to make the recipe my own. For example, not once did I use Greek yogurt. Not because I didn't want to or didn't like it, I didn't have it on hand. So, that's out. Also, I enjoy adding different flavors. Since there is a wonderful presence of cinnamon and brown sugar, I took Gerbers toddler apple fruit pickups (yes, that's right, I said toddler food), and mixed that into the batter. You may be thinking to yourself, "why in the world is that lady adding baby/toddler food to her pancakes?" Well, in all honesty, okay, yes, TECHNICALLY it's food for young tykes. However, it's not apple puree, it's chunks of apple. Even if it were apple puree, it's all natural apple. Anyone can eat it.  I have it on hand always for my 13 month old. These apple chunks are the perfect consistency of cooked apples, without the work of cutting and cooking. They are soaked in a grape juice and have a wonderful tang to their flavor. Let me tell you, these pancakes tasted like apple pie. My family loves it. Plus, it's different. The recipe is great on it's own, and yes, it takes like oatmeal just as described. But adding the apple sure did turn this recipe into something else for sure!

Just so you know, I have made this recipe without putting in the Greek Yogurt at all or even substituting for it and the consistency came out just fine for cooking. It wasn't too thick - it's a naturally thick batter anyway due to the oats. As another option if you don't have the Greek yogurt, you can supplement with the apple chunks that I described. If you have more time than I do, feel free to cook up your own apples. I am now thinking of what other fun yummies I can add to the mix. Delicious I tell you!

Here is the original recipe via Sally's Baking Addiction:

Ingredients:
1 cup (123g) whole wheat flour (or white whole-wheat)1/2 cup (40g) quick oats1/4 teaspoon salt2 teaspoons baking powder1 teaspoon ground cinnamon1 large egg (or 2 egg whites)1 cup (240ml) milk*2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar (or light brown)1/4 cup (63g) Greek yogurt*1 teaspoon vanilla extract1/2 cup add-ins like chocolate chips or fruit, optional

Directions:
Toss the flour, oats, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon together in a large bowl. Set aside. In a separate medium bowl, whisk the egg and milk together. Whisk in the brown sugar and yogurt until no lumps remain. Whisk in the vanilla until combined.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients in. Stir gently until just combined. Do not overmix the batter or your pancakes will be tough and very dense. Add any mix-ins you prefer, but again - do not overmix the batter.
Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat. Coat generously with cooking spray, oil, or butter.  Once hot, drop about 1/4 cup of batter on the griddle. Cook until the edges look dry and bubbles begin to form on the center or sides, about 1 minute. Flip and cook on the other side until cooked through, about 2 more minutes. Coat griddle/skillet again with nonstick spray for each pancake or batch of pancakes.

Creamy Spinach Tomato Tortellini

Another day, another Pinterest recipe find.

Find the original post HERE

This pin originated from this site which like it has some other scrumptious recipes as well.
Honestly, this might be the shortest recipe blog ever. Here's the deal - It's easy, and it's delicious. 'Nuff said. If there was one thing that I would change, it would be that I would add a hair more spinach. We are a spinach loving family; even the 13 month old.
It came out looking EXACTLY like the picture above. Ugh, one of my pet peeves is making something that it looks nothing like the original picture.

We served this wonderful pasta dish with a spinach salad (shouldn't be a surprise there) and corn muffins. Yeah, corn muffins don't really scream Italy to us either. But hey, we were in the mood for some, and that's all that matters! :)

Do yourself a favor and make this recipe.

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Mongolian Beef with Broccoli

So excited to make this tonight - it will only be the second time I've ever made it!

Courtesy of Cravings of a Lunatic Blog - link below

I am not much of a chef as you will probably soon learn throughout my posts. Cooking is super hard for me. My husband however, rocks my socks. Seriously, how can anyone be so naturally awesome at cooking?! Anyway, I am trying to get better at it. Most of my inspiration for recipes comes from Pinterest. Shocking. I know.

Anyway, I found this pin which is originally from the blog Cravings of a Lunatic. There are a couple things I changed to the recipe - Firstly, the recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of sesame oil. Quite frankly I didn't have it, and didn't feel like running out to get it..so I just kinda, ya know, left it out. Secondly, I didn't have Canadian Beef. Like the sesame oil, I didn't plan on running out and getting that either. For convenience sake, I bought steak tenderloin strips, cut it into bite size pieces, and boom. Delicious. I'm sure that someone who has a keen taste or is super familiar with this recipe would notice the lack of sesame oil, to me and my family however, it tasted better than the locally acclaimed Chinese restaurant in town. I don't think we missed it too much.

I have more great Pinterest recipes. Be sure to follow me!

DIY Crib Protector Review

As I was strolling Pinterest one day I came across this pin:

At first I thought, "Oh what a cute way to decorate a crib!" As a new mom I was/am still quite stupid naive to all the wonderful and not so wonderful things you discover your children will do. This projects purpose is to help eliminate a teething baby from leaving this:

This is not my son's crib, just an example.

When I first saw this pin, Canden wasn't teething too seriously yet, so there were no battle marks on his crib yet. I kept my eye on his crib because this won't just be Canden's crib, it will belong to future babes too. Not only that, I like to sell just about everything we don't use anymore, so I know that years down the line, I will hope to resell this crib. 

Sure enough, I spotted one morning a couple small gouges along the railing of his crib. I immediately thought of the above pin and was determined to fashion my own guard against the teeth. 

Now, I did some research as well. I know that you can buy some similar, pre-made cloth protector that range in price from anywhere between $25 to upwards of $100. The problem that I saw however is that it cost $25 for a protector to just cover the front (for example). I needed to cover at least three sides of the crib. I could buy 2 pack protectors for the sides as well, but, why bother when I can make my own for all three sides under $20. Regardless, there is another kind of protector out there as well. It is a hard plastic cover that (here) fits on top of the rail. The price isn't too shabby either - only $12.99. After reading some reviews of that product and similar ones, I saw that a common complaint was that they have a strong chemical, plastic-y smell. Besides, they don't look as pretty as the pin above.

So, it was settled then. I was doing this project.

All in all it was pretty darn easy to do. I measured the length of all the sides I would be covering and added 2 inches to allow for any unexpected bumps along the way. As far as measuring the width, I used the most scientific way I knew how to measure: I "wung" it. Ok, so really I did SORT of measure. I measured from the top of the rail down to wear the fabric would have a tie, then added 2 inches to allow for enough fabric to tie with.

With a little help from my husband who is far better with a pair of scissors than I am, we cut the pieces of fabric into the length of strips we needed for each rail. Then, we laid the fabric on top of the rail and again, we "wung" it. Sooooo helpful of me to fully explain, I know. But really, it's not complicated. I cut two strips, tied it off at the end of one of the rails, then cut and tied as I went until I reached the end of the rail. I tucked the loose pieces underneath last. This is the final result --

I think it turned out quite well! Since we used fleece, after we did all the cutting and tying to make sure it fit okay, we ran the fabric through the drier to get rid of any fuzzy shreads that came off in the process. Then we retied it to the crib and it's been there ever since. I think that the fabric adds a nice, warm and cozy feeling to the crib as opposed to that hard plastic alternative.

So far, it seems we haven't had any more issues with teething on the crib. I would definitely recommend to other mommies to take the time to do this little project. You can customize the look anyway you want to by going and picking out your fabric (fleece is what was recommended for this) and matching it to the overall theme of your nursery.

Please make sure to follow me on Pinterest to see all the things I am loving and trying! Have a great Monday!

Updating Knobs Throughout The Home

So, when we moved into our house 2 1/2 years ago, I hardly noticed, or even cared that every knob and hinge thoughout the home was BRIGHT. BRASS. GOLD. Over time, I just felt like I was being blinded by the blazing sun of 1990's home decor.

Time for a change.

Honestly, I didn't think updating every knob and hinge throughout our three story (yes, counting the basement) home was going to happen anytime soon. I mean, it's quite the pricey endeavor to buy all those brand new! A new front door knob system that I was eyeballing at Menards was about $70...not with hinges. Ouch. It was always something I had in my mind to do in the future, but just, let the dream go a bit.

A few weeks later I found this on Pinterest:

"Paint all the shiny brass knobs with Rustoleum Oil Rubbed bronze spray. EASY WAY TO UPDATE YOUR HOME!"

What?! You mean I can paint those?! It's genius, yet so obvious to where I'm surprised that myself, or my super handy husband didn't think of this simple solution. And now, the project was on!

Here is what we bought:

The Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze was the exact suggestion, even down to color, that was on Pinterest. We ended up going through about 2 cans of that Rust-Oleum Primer, and about 3 cans for the paint.

This was definitely a bigger project than I had anticipated. Every knob and hinge set had to be labeled so that they would go back on the doors correctly. My husband pointed out that even though the doors and hinges appear to be the same, it's a bad idea to mix them up as they might not go back together as smoothly. Who knew? Glad he was here for that tid bit of information because I would have just taken all the knobs and hinges off of one floor, paint them all, and attempt to put them all back on. Most likely would have ended in disaster. And trust me, I did mix up a couple hinges....IT MATTERS. So, if you are going to do this project, make sure your organized with keeping everything in order and numbered!

The actual painting of the knobs was the biggest pain in my ass most difficult part. We wanted to be able to spray the whole knob at once, as opposed to spray one side, then turn it over and spray the other side; risking, scuffs and paint lines. So propping those bad boys up was a challenge - a rod of sorts (notice my technical door knob vocabulary is weak), sticks out the bottom of the knob, making it so you can just sit it face up and paint. If you've ever taken a knob off of a door, you know what I mean hopefully. And really, that was probably the worst part of it, but once we got a system down of propping them up on a long screw that was attached to a board, we were doing okay.

It took a couple weeks to complete this project. Mostly because we only really worked on this on the weekends, plus chasing a baby and other things. But here are a couple pictures of our knobs and hinges after we completed the whole house.

Please ignore how badly this door needs painted....

We think it turned out great!

If there is one thing that I am worried about however is that the paint does actually scratch off if given enough resistance. Luckily, we've had our knobs and hinges painted for over a month now and even with a little munchkin and frequent travel through doors, we haven't seen much issue yet. Honestly, I think that what would scratch the paint off would be more of a freak encounter than anything. For example, the scratches we've seen so far was a result of not having some sort of bumper system that kept a door from opening into a banister. What can you expect though in that situation right?

In the end, totally work the work to save all that money!!! We MAYBE spent $20 on the paint and primer. If you remember how much I was almost willing to spend on JUST the door knob to the front door, you can see how worth it all the work really is.

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Have a great weekend!!