Pinned some Kebobs thinking a quick easy meal for our Easter BBQ @ my brothers. The Kebobs include corn, sausage, shrimp, and potato. First off cutting a corn cob in multiple pieces is quite eventful. I used a meat mallet an a steel knife to cut threw them. Thinner the slice the easier it was to get the skewer through. After doing these, it gave me even more reason to blog about my experience because although something looks great in photos you never know how much of a pain it will be. So after hacking at the cob, I had to separately boil the potatoes then cut up to put a skewer through.(since the potatoes wont cook as fast on the grill) Then I sliced my sausage, and I used a mushroom instead of shrimp cause I forgot my shrimp @ home. Once I had everything ready to stab my skewers through we started with the corn and it was immpossible to get a skewer through the cob. Luckily my soon to be stepbrother Dillon stepped in and used a meat themomter with a pointy tip to stab through it. My dad almost went and got a drill it was so hard to poke. Looking back I would say start with a drill. Everything was stabbed on my skewer and we decided to place them in the oven first cause corn takes a while to cook. Good thing we did cause the sausage and mushroom cooked pretty fast on the grill.  I was really unhappy with these =[ I dont even want to write about them cause it was A LOT of work and overall wasnt what I expected. In the future I would probably do them all in the oven... what am I saying. I WONT be doing these again. Way too much work when kebobs are sometimes the most simple thing.

                                   Here is something that turned out great!!!
Strawberry Cream Cheese Vanilla Cake!! This is the picture that lured me in on Pintrest.

I have never made a cake from scratch and my first one turned out pretty dang good!!
The recipe is from perrysplate.com all directions and ingredients are on the site or on my food pinboard you can follow the link through there.
I am a batter freak, I can eat raw batter like mashed potatoes, gross I know. once I mixed this batter and had a few tastes I knew it was going to be good. I followed the directions and didnt change anything and once it was all baked I was super excited to have everyone try it. Difficulty I would say a 5 on a 1-10 scale. Just lots of layers and stuff like that but so worth it. The ONLY thing was that the cake itself was really heavy if that makes any sense. A small piece will deffinately satisfy you. And my cake turned out a little thick and chewy. I might have cooked it too long and I used all purpose flour instead of cake flour. I honestly dont even know if there is a difference but that could be why? So I took half to my brothers party and half i left for my mom. I couldnt really take the time and get a good picture of my final product because it was completely gone in minutes! But this is what I got and I would deffinately make this again =]
Anyone else make cake from scratch have suggestions? Im a first timer with the from scratch and would love to hear your feedback!

 And lastly I made a Skinny Red Potato Salad                                               
              Here is the recipe:
From skinnytaste.com


4 cups baby red potaoes boiled and cut

1/2 cup green bell pepper, finely diced

1/4 cup red onion, finely diced

3 scallions, diced ( i didnt use these)

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp reduced fat mayonnaise
salt and fresh pepper
Boil potatoes in salted water until soft, approx 10 minutes. Drain and let cool.

While the potatoes are boiling, combine red onion, green pepper, mustard, olive oil, vinegar and mayonnaise and season with salt and pepper. Mix well and let the flavors marinade while the potatoes cook. Once the potatoes are done and cool, mix into the bowl and add scallions and additional salt and pepper to taste. Serve room temperature or refrigerate until ready to serve. ( serve cold, so much better!)

     All in all it was pretty good, for skinny potato salad. But I know that where I was taking this salad people werent watching their figures and so my mom suggested adding bacon crumbles. AND WAAAHHHLAAAAA!!! It was perfect!!! I am not a fan of bacon in my salads or baked potato,I will just take bacon by itself. BUT, I really thought this salad was great! And I wont lie, I added a little more mayo cause it was pretty dry. I would deffinately try this one again also =]



Goodbye raw edge mirror

I am pretty fortunate to have a smart and handy husband. We moved in our house over 3 years ago and the house had no up grades and pretty basic stuff and only one color to work with.... WHITE! You name it the counters the floors the bathrooms, everything. Our bathroom is pretty plain so I found a pin that placed tiles around the edge of the mirror to make it more decorative. I found everything I needed at home depot which is starting to be my favorite place to go!
 

Things you will need:

 1. Tiles of your choice enough to cover your mirror. I used 3 sheets costing about $11 each. I have larger mirrors

2.liquid nails and calking gun $4.00.

3.scissors

Total Cost $37

The tiles I bought come on a sheet and have a netting behind it and you cut around the netting to get your tile. Liquid nails means PERMANENT my husband couldn't have stressed that to me enough. I started in one corner and went for it which led me to an issue at the next corner. I needed a smaller piece to fit in the corner.( its in my first picture below) If I would have started by putting a tile in all 4 corners to start I could have worked with the spacing of my tiles to make them fit perfectly. Thank goodness for the husband again. He cut the tiles for me and measured them, which if you dont have the right tools its really a pain. So why not make it easier on  yourself and just avoid what I did.
When you apply the liquid nails you only need a dot the size of a marble. If you get to much it spreads too much and you can see the adhesive in the mirror reflection or it seaps out the sides and makes for messy clean up and its some pretty tough stuff.
It was pretty simple all in all and I am pretty satisfied with it, but I do think there is a way to make it more rustic. I think with our bathroom being white had a lot to do with the outcome. Hope this explains =] If anyone has any suggestions or had something work great for you please let me know =] I am considering doing additional mirrors.

 

Cleaning with ammonia

So I am going to try something new on here. I spend a lot of free time on Pinterest, sometimes I am on the Pinterest app on my phone @ night and my wheels are just turning all night I cant go to sleep.While my wheels were turning I was thinking, there should be a place where people actully have done these specific projects,ideas or recipes and went through trial & error and shared.So this could either be helpfull to some or could be a shot in the dark. Dont just be a pinner& forget about these great ideas, do them & create great things!!I have seen multiple repins on CLEANING YOUR STOVE TOP WITH AMMONIA.

I have scrubbed and scrubbed my grates and literally spent hours doing it. I told my husband I am going to quit cooking just so I dont have to clean my cooktop. So i tried it and here is what I got =]
 

Things you will need
1.Ammonia only $1.27 @ Walmart

2. trashbags or zip locks for smaller grates
3. duct tape/ or twist ties if you have them  (dust tape was allready in our house so use what you have to seal the bags.
4. rubber gloves (protect your hands) wish I would have, mine a super dry right now
5. green scrubby
6. plastic scrapper

7. Measuring cup

First take amonia, bags, duct tape, measuring cup and grate outside. The smell is STRONG. I had to use trash bags because my grates are larger, I placed each grate in their own individual bag and I used 1/3 cup ammonia in each. Dont worry about saturating the grate in ammonia, apparently the fumes are what breaks down the crud. I had issues with my bags tearing and leaking so I had to double bag them. I twisted the bags shut and used the duct tape to hold it shut. I set them outside overnight about 12 hours. In the morning I opened the bags outside and took the grates to my sink. I took the used bags to our trash so the dog or baby couldnt get it. Use your green scrubbie and plastic scrapper if needed and watch it literally fall off!! I read somewhere all you needed was to spray it off with water, not true, I still had to scrub a little and get in there to get the nooks and crannys. I needed to use my scarpper to get of the really stuck on stuff but didnt use half the elbow grease on scrubbing like I used to. Here is the before and after!! Seriously amasing and so worth it. I guess I will continue to cook, probably gonna try another pinterest recipe I pinned. Good luck!