Pinterest

I decided at the beginning of the year that I needed to actually try some of the recipes I had pinned on Pinterest.

Profound thought, yes?

I had all these yummy pictures of food, but all I did was stare at them longingly. I needed to see if they tasted as good as they looked.

And so began my quest to try all my pins.

Every week this year, we've tried at least one Pinterest recipe. Some have been good, some not so much.

When I encounter a bad one, or even a just ok one, I delete it. I'm not bothering with a file for Pinterest fails. I'm just not letting it clutter up my space.

The winners are commented on so I know what we liked about them or if they needed a bit of a tweak.

The kids are even helping with menu planning now that they can just look at pictures.  They go through the pins to decide what looks good, help me shop for groceries, and help make 'their' meal.

One nice side effect of all this experimenting is that I'm becoming a decent cook. We're also eating a lot less processed foods. Yesterday I made a cake for Mr. Ravioli's birthday instead of buying one. Granted, it was from a box, because I wasn't sure I could tackle making one from scratch. But I seriously considered it. Six months ago- heck, last month- I wouldn't have even considered making a cake myself.

One bad side effect though: tasty, good food may equal weight gain. A few weeks ago we had bacon green beans. Yum- veggies cooked in bacon grease:) Last week it was roasted parmesan broccoli. I had three helpings. I don't like broccoli. But roasted in olive oil and mixed with cheese and pine nuts- tis quite tasty! This weekend I discovered the most savory soup I've ever tasted. It has approximately five thousand calories per bite. Ok, maybe not quite that much. But lots. And lots.

And I still would be content to eat it for almost every meal for the rest of my life.

It will probably take me until the end of the year to get through all my recipes. And I haven't even started with my breakfast and dessert pins.  And I sort of want to figure out a way to put all my other favorite recipes on Pinterest so I don't have recipes in cookbooks, a recipe box, files on my computer, etc. 

By the time the year is up, I should have a well-weeded-though set of favorite recipes that will provide two months of easy meal planning so that I don't groan when someone says, "what's for dinner", and I don't have to listen to the complaints of small people every evening at dinnertime.