Pinvestigation: Lemon Poke Cake

NOTE: This recipe is for lemon lovers only!

I found this recipe on Pinterest, which linked back to this recipe on Something Swanky. I won't put the recipe on my blog so you can get it from her, but you MUST try it! It's called Better Than Lemons Poke Cake. I knew I had to do a Pinvestigation on it (that's when I see whether the picture is all talk, no taste).

Here is what the original pin looked like:

Here is how mine came out:

This cake was really yummy! It was super lemony. But best of all, it was easy! I'd never made lemon curd before but her microwavable recipe was easy to follow and make. Here's a little play by play of my journey through the recipe. The pictures on the top right are the lemon curd before and after microwaving. I expected it to look different after microwaving but it didn't - it was just a little thicker (I did mine for 8 minutes).

The bottom left two pictures are the pokes pre- and after lemon curd filling. I definitely think the pecans and white chocolate chips are necessary to this recipe. They add the perfect texture and crunch to the cake.

Overall, this pinvestigation was a success!

Painted Pots

I have been loving all the different ways people have been transforming terracotta pots. With Mother's Day last week, I decided to make some for my mom (and me as well!).

First I wanted to share the little card I made for my mom. We've got two themes going on for this. The first is stencils. I used some flower stencils and colored them in with puff paint/glitter glue. Then I hand painted from clouds, stems and leaves, and grass. Here's how it came out. Nice and home made.

I used my Silhouette Cameo sketch pens for the inside of the card. It says "Thanks for helping me grow. Happy Mother's Day!" That leads me into the second theme: growing and flowers. To go with my card, I gave my mom some plants in her painted pots.

I started off with these terracotta pots from  Michaels. I believe the pricing was something like $2.99 each for the larger and $1.99 for the smaller. I sealed them (2 coats) with some Plaid Clay Pot Sealer. It's supposed to help protect the pots from moisture when you water the plants so it won't seep through and hurt your paint.

You had to let each coat sit for 24 hours. I then painted one large and one small each in Bluegrass Green (aka teal) and Pistachio Mint in the Americana brand of acrylic paint.

Here is the teal:

 Here is the mint:

I didn't bother painting all the way inside because you wouldn't see it once I added the soil. I did go down a few inches so you wouldn't see any red.

I had planned on stenciling all four of my pots. I did the green first with some stencils and white acrylic paint.

As much as I tried to prevent it, they smeared. Luckily, I was able to just touch them up with mint paint. The stencils I was planning to use for the teal pots were even more intricate and detailed so I decided not to use stencils. On the small teal pot, I did a paint splatter effect in silver and on the big one, I used painters tape to create an effect that I really ended up liking.

Here are the two larger pots:

Here are the two smaller pots:

After I was done painting, I sprayed the pots with Krylon UV-Resistant Clear Acrylic Coating in gloss. I thought it would be a good extra step and help protect the paint from fading in the sun. It also is moisture-resistant.

I decided to keep this for myself. It was mainly because I really liked the plant in it.

I also really liked this plant. If you look closely, they look like little screaming purple mouths with teeth.

I gave these two to my mom.

I'm kind of jealous she got this one. I really like it. I've got an extra plant so I think I'm going to have to go buy another terracotta pot and do something similar.

I love being able to put your personality on these. Which is your favorite?

I'm linking up here!

Sherry and Tarragon Carrots

I got this recipe from my aunt who brought these carrots to Thanksgiving last year. They are the perfect way to add a little bit of flavor to your carrots.

Unfortunately, there are no numbered ingredients for this. I'll just tell you, approximately, how much I used.
-carrots (I used an entire bag and after serving 3, still had 2 servings left over, at least)
-sherry cooking wine (I used about half a bottle)
-water
-dried tarragon (I used maybe 1-2 TBS)

1. Peel the carrots and chop into approximately two inch pieces. If the carrots are very thick, cut in half or even quarters to make all the pieces roughly the same size.

2. Put the carrots in a skillet and pour sherry cooking wine on top until carrots are almost completely covered. Dilute sherry with some water by adding water until the carrots are completely covered. Bring to a boil.

Here it is before the water:

 

And after:

3. Reduce temperature and simmer until carrots are fork tender. Sprinkle tarragon on top while simmering (I sprinkled some around until the top was covered). When done, scoop carrots out with a slotted spoon and serve.

These are nice and yummy! The flavor boost is very subtle which I like. It seems like a lot of times carrots are coated in too much stuff to add flavor.

Do you like my pretty dish? I found it at my parents' house when I was packing up some other china and fell in love. Luckily, my mom let me have it. I served these at Mother's Day dinner and my mom was really happy to see it in use.

I'm linking up here!

Pinvestigation: Baked Parmesan Paprika Chicken

It's been a while since I've done a Pinvestigation. This is when I find a pin on Pinterest (usually a recipe) and then I make it to see if the pin is all just about the picture or if it actually tastes good. I decided to make a button for my series. What do you think?

I found this pin for baked parmesan paprika chicken. It led me to this website which was just a blog collection of recipes. The recipe actually came from here at allrecipes.com, one of my favorite websites for finding recipes. I decided to make it for dinner for Mother's Day on Sunday. Here is what the original pin looked like:

 

Here is how mine came out:

Pretty similar, I think! The only thing I noticed was that an hour and fifteen minutes seemed like an awfully long time to cook chicken. I always read the allrecipes.com reviews. A few people said it was too long. I knew it would be especially too long for me because I decided to cut my chicken up into smaller pieces (as opposed to using breasts). I did this so the flavor would coat more sides of the chicken. I cooked my chicken for 30 minutes and it was perfect!

This recipe was DELICIOUS (click the above link for it)! It's definitely going into my meal rotation. My mom and dad both loved it and it's going in their meal rotation too. I was sad there weren't left overs but it was so easy to make, I could easily whip it up again!

I'm linking up here!

Dresser Makeover

One piece of furniture that I knew I needed for my new apartment was a dresser. I have a decent sized closet but it won't hold much more than the clothes I want to hang up. I don't exactly plan on putting my t-shirts and jeans on hangers. We've got lots of dressers in our house so it was just a matter of choosing which one I wanted. I chose a taller dresser versus a wider one so it would take up a little less floor space. I decided on this one:

You'll notice one leg is a full orb, the other a half. Not sure what happened there. Let's call it character.

Do you follow those furniture refinishing blogs and wonder how they can forget to take a before picture? I was always like psh. How can you forget?? It's so important! And then I did it. I brought my dresser downstairs and had to run some errands. My dad was super nice since I was stressed for time and offered to sand it for me (he even glued the bottom back together since it was falling apart a bit) and I realized when I got home that I forgot to take a before picture. Shame on me! I'm sorry furniture refinishing bloggers for judging you in the past. Never again.

I managed to find a picture of the dresser before it was sanded from when I redid my bedroom last year. It's a really nice quality dresser but when my mom was younger, she and her sister decided to "antique" it. They made some interesting choices.

As you can see, the bones were still great. It had amazing, wonderful little details. It just needed a little TLC. Here it is lying outside, mid-sanding and gluing when I panicked and realized I hadn't taken the picture.

The top especially needed some love. It had some weird, thick circular mark on it.

Here is what I did to it:

-Primer: Kilz
-Color: Glidden White on White (2 coats)
-Hardware: Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze

After my dad did a wonderful job sanding it, I primed it with Kilz primer and then put two coats of Glidden White on White on it. Because I'm not planning on using it for anything besides being a dresser, I didn't think it needed the polyurethane to protect it. I'm tying all of my pieces together with the Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze hardware. Here they are before I sprayed them. The dresser handles are the pointy ones (the others are for my desk).

Here is the after. I think it looks amazing - so clean and crisp.

Here it is from another view.

A close up of the lovely oil rubbed bronze hardware.

And here it is with a little decoration.

Did you forget what it looked like before? Don't worry; it's okay. I want to forget it too.

I'm linking up here!