For the Love of Pinterest

A friend of mind asked why people used Pinterest. What was the purpose? Now, I have wasted many hours looking at pictures and re-pinning fabulous-looking homes and clothes and food, maybe in the misguided attempt to create my perfect fantasy life. But what I use it for most is collecting ideas I see from other blogs and websites so that I can refer back them in one place.  It's really handy, in my opinion.  If anything, I get a little stressed thinking about all the great recipes I pinned that I haven't tried yet, so this weekend, I tried to put a dent in them and made a few recipes off of my "Yum!" board.

The first one I did was the Brown Sugar and Balsamic Glazed Pork Loin from the C+C Marriage Factory Blog. I linked the recipe to the name, so I won't re-post it here (I really hate typing recipes, so the less I need to do, the better).  :-)  It was delicious! The glaze is awesome, even if the pork loin ended up dry (my fault, not the recipe's).  Here's a picture of the finished product, with some roasted brussels sprouts and turnips (the glaze tasted great on those, too!):

The next recipe I attempted was the Pretzel Crusted Peanut Butter Cup Blondie Pie from the Cookies and Cups blog.  Again, this was a really great recipe, although, if I make it again, I might try it in a different pan. A 9x13, say, and increase the recipe accordingly, so I could cut it into squares.  No real reason, except the filling made a lot and almost flowed over my 10 inch tart pan, and taking the ring off the tart pan was really messy.  I'd definitely make sure my pretzels were more finely crushed. And I might try putting brown sugar in the crust, rather than granulated.  But the blondie filling was delicious! I'd bet it would be great on it's own, even without the crust.  Here's photographic evidence of my attempt:

I topped it with maple-walnut ice cream and chocolate syrup, taking a cue from the original post. Loved the combo of the maple-walnut ice cream with the chocolate chip/peanut butter cup filling. My family loved it.  Because I can't leave well-enough alone, next time I might try adding peanut butter to the blondie filling to increase the peanut butter-chocolate intensity (it's one of my favorite flavor combos!).  If anyone out there is inspired to try any of these changes before I get to it, please report back how it turns out!


Finally, the last pinned recipe I tried recently was the Garlicky Baked Shrimp from Real Simple. It was super simple (I just tossed everything around in the baking dish) and delicious!  I served it over red bell pepper rice (steamed some rice, then added butter and some chopped up red pepper right out of the microwave, then covered it back up to steam all together) and a delicious strawberry goat cheese salad that I found on Eating Well. Instead of the greens called for, I just used some mixed greens I already had on hand, and I substituted toasted almonds instead of the pecans, since I had some already toasted up (I'm all about the simple, baby!).  Here's what our dinner looked like:

The picture with the salad really doesn't do it justice. I'm really going to have to work on my photographic skills! With a glass of white wine, it was the perfect meal!