Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Lasagna

I love anything with sour cream and cream of chicken soup.  This recipe was no different.  I don't like super greasy food, however, so I cut back on the amount of cheese used in the recipe.  Also, I used a rotisserie chicken rather than cooking chicken as in the recipe and instead of a massive amount of cheese on the top, we crumbled tortilla chips after it was cooked.  Delicioso.

Pinmaker's rating: Love it

Level of Difficulty: Easy

Taco Pizza

The original recipe comes from thepioneerwoman.com.  I am not usually a bean person, but this was delicious.  As a kid, I HATED beans of any kind.  Everyone knew it.  My lovely sister, Katie, thought it would be funny one day to trick me.  She was making a pot of refried beans (the absolute worst kind of beans), and just when she put it in the pot when it was still cold, she called to me.  "Alisa, would you like a spoonful of chocolate frosting?"  Of course I did.  I walked over to her and she stuck a huge spoonful of cold refried beans in my mouth, which I then threw up.  It ruined me and my relationship with beans.  Lately, I've been giving black beans a try, and I am definitely opening up to them.  

I followed this recipe almost exactly.  There was no need to change it, we just added avocado to it and I bought the dough at Sprouts in the freezer section.  It was quick and easy and is soon to become a regular at our dinner table.  Here's our version...

Pinmaker's rating: Love it

Level of Difficulty: Easy

DIY Ottoman

After seeing this DIY ottoman on Pinterest, it inspired me to give my worn out ottoman an update.

We started by cutting out four squares for the top and four rectangles for the sides of both the burlap (bought at Joann's for $2.40/yard) and broadcloth (which we lined it with).  Cutting out the four squares rather than having one big square on top saved us a lot of fabric.  We only need 2 1/8 yards of each to complete the project.

To make sure we had enough fabric to work with, we cut everything out bigger than we actually needed.  We sewed the top together first.  In hindsight, we gave ourselves too much extra fabric.  When putting it all together, we (actually Katie) had to take it in several times to get the right fit.  Because of this, we barely had enough fabric lengthwise to staple gun it all to the bottom.  It was a tight squeeze.

Once sewn, we glue gunned a piece of one inch thick batting to the top of the ottoman, placed the slipcover on the ottoman and started stapling.  My daughter Addison, helped with screwing the legs back on.

The finish result...simple and functional.  And the total cost on the project was right around $15.  A steal for a great new look.

Pinmaker's rating: Love it
Level of Difficulty: Medium

Olive Garden Lemon Cream Cake

I first discovered this cake when I was pregnant with my five year old, Addison.  It instantly became one of my favorite desserts.  I will go to Olive Garden to eat and order this for dinner.  It is just that good.  This last month was my birthday.  Naturally, my restaurant of choice to celebrate was Olive Garden, solely based on their Lemon Cream Cake.  After scraping my plate clean, I knew I had to find a knock-off recipe on-line.  And because Pinterest never fails, we baked this this week.

Looks pretty, right?  My sister, Katie, made the mistake of leaving ME alone with the cake to finish assembling it.  And somehow this, turned into this...

Shortly after placing the top cake layer on the thick lemon cream, it broke in half, and then in half again.  The good news is, it tasted AMAZING!  Just like the Olive Garden version, and it was fairly easy, aside from the assembling part of it.  I will be making this again and soon.  Although, I think next time I will make it as cupcakes, or smaller cakes, to avoid it ending in disaster.   Also, the crumbled topping was about double what I actually needed.  So half the recipe if you decide to give this a try.

Pinmaker's rating: Love it

Level of Difficulty: Medium