Pinterest IRL

I've brought Pinterest to life in my home this past week. Crock pots, quinoa, mason jars, a series of leg exercises, hair. I decided that I should actually do some of the stuff, just to see if any of it is good. One Pinterest fail: that "beachy waves" pin where you twist your hair and run the flat iron over it. No dice for me.

Tonight's menu was honey apple pork loin. I put it in the crock pot this morning and by dinner time it was falling apart beautifully (though slightly unexpectedly...not sure what I thought it would do after 9 hours in the pot). The recipe could probably have used a little more salt than I put in. I did the poke-holes-marinate-overnight-thing and added 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar to it in the hopes of getting more flavor in there. Not sure I did, but whatever. Here's the before:

And the plated after. On the upper right was my other new adventure, quinoa. I made quinoa with dried cherries, substituting white wine vinegar for the white wine and craisins for the cherries (a bottle of white would have been welcome to finish this Monday evening, but alas, the funds did not permit).

Last night I made these apple-pie substitutes, and while they were not as delicious as apple pie, they were much easier to make. I might do a phylo dough roll-up. I think the flakier crust would be better.

One project I pulled together a few weeks ago was making a sort of flip book from our wedding cards. I had them in a bag just waiting for something clever to do with them, and thought this idea sounded low-key and neat enough.

My final Pinterest attempt of the evening, and I'll have to let you know if it actually works, is making a quinoa salad ahead of time for tomorrow in a mason jar, putting the dressing on the bottom, quinoa, and then the lettuce. Supposedly it will stay fresh. We shall see.