Pinterest Pin Review - Mini Meatloaves and Sweet potato fries

My little girl is a carnivore....plain and simple. She likes her meat. So I figured that mini meatloaf would be one of her favs, and it was! I found the pin here: http://www.makeandtakes.com/mini-meatloaves-in-a-muffin-tin

It basically lets you use your own recipe, and gives you cooking instructions. I'm a pretty basic meatloaf cook, so here is what I used:

2 pounds of extra lean ground beef
1 pkg. of lipton onion soup mix
2 eggs
2-3 pieces of bread, made into bread crumbs
...and I squirted in a bunch of ketchup (I am not always a recipe follower!)

Spray your muffin tins with Pam, and put in mixture. After making it, I would suggest not having the meat come up past the top of the pan - probably about 1/2 inch below it would be perfect. The pin also suggested making a little hole, or crater, and putting something in it. I of course used a little dallop of ketchup :) then bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

I also made sweet potato fries, using this pin: http://www.wikihow.com/Roast-Sweet-Potatoes
Again, a simple recipe - I just used one sweet potato cut up, and some oil. I have made these twice now, and they turn out much better if you watch that you don't use too much oil, and if you cook them by themselves (without something else in the oven)...or they will be soggy! I have discovered that I LoVE sweet potato fries! My family...they don't like them so much. The mini meatloaves on the other hand were a hit.....carnivores.....

Dining Room Colour

This was our little project over Easter weekend. When we bought the house, the dining room paneling was painted a dark grey-brown, and there was a white border painted around the top of both the dining and living room. We painted the paneling white within the first couple months of being in Sydney. Last weekend we tackled painting the walls (Benjamin Moore - Northampton Putty) and putting up new shelves and curtains (my post on DIY no-sew lined curtains will happen at another time).

We're plugging away at it and getting it done!

A Little Kitchen Update...

I realized that I hadn't published the results of our ripping out the kitchen and trying to rebuild it in a day....or five....

It definitely was an adventure.

The idea came because we had my husband's family coming for Thanksgiving - 6 adults and 4 kids (plus us) in our little house. We realized that we didn't have a lot of usable kitchen space to make a big dinner, so why not rip out the kitchen, throw it on the back deck, and put up new cabinets, countertop, and a new sink. Yes....why not....

When we finally ripped everything out, we realized that the entire wall behind the sink had serious water damage, and it moved...the whole wall, with the window. Thanks to a friend (who is also a carpenter), we were able to fix the wall, and install the cabinets (which were a great deal from Home Depot - but they don't come with bases or the top part for the countertop to rest on, so you have to know what you are doing!), and get the sink and faucet in.

Ah yes, the sink....two sinks later and numerous trips to hardware stores to speak with people who probably shouldn't be working in plumbing sections, we finally had a sink that fit (we had to go with a sink and a half), and the kitchen was usable again. Much thanks for all the hard work my husband put into it! There is still a lot left to do in there, but at least it is usable space now :)

And Thanksgiving was wonderful!


Kitchen before pics:

Kitchen after pics: