I Think I Hate Pinterest!

For those that don't know what Pinterest is----it's a place to store ideas and information on bulletin boards that you create yourself. You can get lost there for hours looking at all of the recipes, decorating ideas, fashion, gifts, crafts---you name it, you can find it there. I don't spend nearly as much time as most people do---exploring. Still, after just a little over a year, I have 35 boards and 1970 pins (OMG! That's the year I graduated from high school---fun coincidence). Here's the problem. People will pin things with labels like---"the BEST cookies you'll ever eat" or "the most delicious biscuits ever" therefore, tempting you to "pin" it for future use.

Weeellll, today was family baking day. It's 5 p.m. and I'm exhausted. My back hurts from standing on hardwood all day---today and 6 hrs. yesterday getting ready for family baking day. I decided to add a couple of new recipes---compliments of Pinterest. I was excited because, I also planned to share those recipes here. Instead, it was a lot of work for mediocre cookies. I threw the recipes away.

Starting yesterday, I made 4 cheese balls, a gigantic pot of vegetable soup (for our lunch today) and "the most delicious biscuits ever" (also for today). I made the two new cookie recipes because today we would be focusing on the family favorites. The cookies were Lemon Krinkles and  Cherry Walnut Icebox Cookies. Both were time consuming. They are "okay," but not worth the work.

Every year, I always think I'm so organized and every year, the process turns chaotic. We never have enough cookie sheets or cooling racks. I have 5 cookie sheets and 2 cooling racks. Two years ago, I asked Stephanie to bring her cookie sheets and she brought one 9x13 cake pan. She said that's what she uses for cookies. Last year, I bought her two cookie sheets. She showed up today with one. She said that she didn't know she had two---it must be stored in the wrong place. She did have a set of cooling racks, so that really helped.

Luckily, I have double ovens. The only problem is that I use two timers, but forget which goes for which oven. I ended up burning the Snickerdoodles. That was really the only mishap. We made 7 varieties of cookies (counting the ones I made yesterday),  Iced Sugar Cookies, Pecan Butter Balls, Peppermint Candy Canes, and Chocolate Chip. 

We took a break for lunch before icing the sugar cookies. The soup was delicious and so were the Angel Biscuits. I will share that recipe. I won't be making them very often because not only are they a bit time consuming, but they really require pre-planning.

Overnight Angel Biscuits

1 pkg. active dry yeast

5 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup butter, cut in small cubes

2 cups buttermilk

Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup warm water. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Using pasty blender, cut in butter until the mixture resembles small peas. Mix in buttermilk and yeast just until the dough comes together.

Sprinkle counter with flour and roll or pat dough into a large square (about 18x18). Fold two sides in to make a triple layer of dough (6x18). Cut into 12 square biscuits with a sharp knife or use a 3-inch biscuit cutter. 

Place on lightly greased nonstick cookie sheet. Cover and refrigerate overnight. An hour before baking, remove from refrigerator and set in a warm place.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Brush melted butter over the tops. Bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

I ended up with 15 biscuits and they were HUGE!!

 Here are the teens after we finished the decorating. You can't tell from this picture, but the entire kitchen is a total disaster. It took me well over an hour to clean it all up.

 Carson is always such a good sport. When everyone else got tired of rolling out sugar cookies, he was still working away. Morgan warned me that he didn't like soup. Not only did he like my vegetable soup, he asked if he could take some home!

 I put together a little tin for Margarita. You can see all 7 varieties---the candy canes are a little hidden. They didn't look very pretty.

But they are delicious!! 

Mindy used Pinterest as her inspiration for these little goodies she made for Steph's party on Saturday night.

She loves the Peanut Butter Kisses. Certainly simple enough for her to make. I thought her little santa hat chocolate dipped pretzels turned out really cute. She said that they were a bit of a pain to make. You know how fast that bark hardens? 

On a happy note for Stephanie---it's widely known that she is not a cook. She called me for my recipe to make stuffed artichokes. They were a huge hit. The only bad thing was that she didn't know to cut up the heart when the leaves were gone. Kind of a waste. 

I've hired this little cutie to do a Christmas project for me. Her name is Maddie. She is the granddaughter of my friend, Linda. I'll share the project when she delivers them to me.

One final thing. In my last post, I forgot to put that the "for your entertainment" line was clickable. The explanation doesn't make sense if you don't watch the little video. Sorry about that.

So tell me what successes you've had with Pinterest!