Pinterest

Hi, my name is Lesley and I'm a pinaholic. It's been 1 day since my last pin.

Seriously, pinterest is a great place for inspiration and recipe ideas. I have 125 recipes pinned to my food board right now. When am I going to find the time to make all those? Sometimes it's hard to make a recipe because, although the picture looks great, the dish might not be so good.

I think it would be awesome if there was a recipe reviews part of pinterest. Something to where if you pinned something and made it and wanted to leave a comment, that everyone could see it. I think that would be helpful. I know you can leave comments on pins but I think only your followers or people that repinned your pin can see it.

Since no place like that exists (that I know of) I'll leave comments on the pins for recipes I make and leave reviews here.



I'm going to start with two recipes I made this weekend.

First up, Gooey Cake.

Source: pauladeen.com via Lesley on Pinterest

I pinned Paula Dean's Gooey Cake recipe a while back and finally made it Saturday. When I initially saw the recipe, it make me think of a dessert my husband and I devoured at a little Italian restaurant. When the waitress brought us our check she made sure to tell us that she'd never seen two people finish the entire thing. Yikes. It was so good though.

Although it has been years since we ate that Italian Butter Cake, Paula Dean's recipe seemed the same and was just as delicious. The Gooey cake was super easy to make and called for very few ingredients - thus, making this a go-to dessert any occasion.



The only thing I varied was adding some powdered sugar to the top after it cooled. I think it makes it look extra fancy!



The other recipe I tried, and have made 3 times in 2 days, was an Orange Julius recipe. Here's a link to the recipe from Sweet Treats and More.

It tastes just like an Orange Julius from the mall! That's a great thing in my book. If you have milk, water, sugar, vanilla, ice and orange juice concentrate, you are ready to make your own!

Source: sweettreatsmore.com via Lesley on Pinterest

I thought her recipe was great but a tad too orange-y for my taste so I tweaked the recipe to my liking.

1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon sugar (I've also tried it with raw sugar and it's great that way too)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1/4 frozen orange juice concentrate

First I blended the water, sugar and vanilla in my magic bullet and then I added the milk and blended a little more to get it good and frothy. Next I added the on concentrate and enough crushed ice to fill the cup and blended until the ice didn't make any noise. I divided it between two cups but seriously could have drank the whole thing myself.



Perfection. Even the husband agreed it tasted just like a real Orange Julius! I see myself trying this recipe with all kinds of different concentrates! I'll let you know how that goes.

So, long post but there you have it. Two pinterest recipes crossed off the list and reviewed.

Chicken Broccoli Cheese Soup

I have posted this recipe before, here's the original post.

This is one of my favorite cold weather soups. MMM. Cheesy goodness.



It's also a great way to use your homemade broth from this post, and the chicken too!

Ingredients:
2 T vegetable oil
1 onion - chopped
2 tsp minced garlic
4 1/2 cups chicken broth
3 heads broccoli, florets cut in big chunks, stems chopped
Shredded chicken meat from 1/2 chicken - or you can just use white meat only
3 3/4 cups milk
2/3 cup flour
1/2 t pepper
8 oz. velveeta cheese - cubed
extra shredded, cheddar cheese to top it - completely optional but who doesn't love more cheese?

Heat oil in a large pot, add onion and cook until tender then add garlic and saute about 5 minutes. Add chicken broth, chicken and broccoli. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium and cook 10 minutes.

In a separate bowl, combine milk and flour and whisk until well blended. Add milk mixture to pot and cook 5 minutes - stirring constantly until slightly thickened. Stir in pepper and cheese. Continue stirring until cheese is melted, about another 5 minutes.

Pour into bowls and enjoy.

Whatever you don't eat you can freeze.

* If you like it really cheesy, just add more velveeta cubes or some shredded cheese.*


Did I mention how easy, fast and delicious it is???

Have a great weekend!

All About My Sweet P

As my due date approaches, less than 11 weeks to go, I'm trying to take in every moment with my little Sweet P that I can.

We shop, picnic, meet daddy to feed the ducks and just enjoy our time together.





She's a lot like her momma, in many ways.

She has been inherited my inability to sit still when music comes on, love of laughter and a serious love for donuts.



She's also a lot like her daddy.

She thrives in the cold, she has the most gorgeous eyes and isn't afraid to get a little dirty.



She loves to be outside and she recently got to walk our little dog for the first time. The kid oozes joy!




She oozes joy a lot and is getting big so fast. We tried piggie-tails for the first time, she insists on doing most things by herself, she can rock massive headbands, neon and sunglasses - at the same time, she loves to color and she's getting more and more independent every day.

All of a sudden, my little sweet P turned into a full-out child.



She's a riot to be around and although I will miss our time together just the 3 of us, I'm pretty excited to watch her continue to grow and become an awesome big sister.

We love you little Sweet P.

Human Trafficking Awareness Day

Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. This is an issue that breaks my heart and I want to do my part to abolish modern day slavery and the first step is awareness.

Here are some facts copied directly from StopChildTraffickingNow.com

• Child/Human Trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world. Child/ human trafficking is the world’s second largest criminal enterprise, after drugs. U.S. State Department
• The global market of child trafficking at over $12 billion a year with over 1.2 million child victims. UNICEF
• 300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk every year for commercial sexual exploitation. U.S. Department of Justice
• 600,000 – 800,000 people are bought and sold across international borders each year; 50% are children, most are female. The majority of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade.  U.S. Department of State, 2004, Trafficking in Persons Report, Washington, D.C.
• An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States each year. The number of U.S. citizens trafficked within the country is even higher, with an estimated 200,000 American children at risk for trafficking into the sex industry. U.S. Department of Justice Report to Congress from Attorney General John Ashcroft on U.S. Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons

Pretty jaw-dropping. You can get more statistics here.

I really want to encourage you to learn more about this issue today and increase your awareness. FreeTheSlaves.net has some really good educational resources. If anything, check out Slavery in the 21st Century.

"whoever you are
whatever you do
you have something to offer"
- not for sale website

Thanks for you time!

crazy joy, instagram and Love146

How's that for a title!? I decided the topics all kind of relate so I'll just pull it all together in one post and get on with it.

First things first: the crazyjoy challenge. You may (or may not) have noticed the lack of posts regarding the crazyjoy challenge. Over Christmas break and then New Year's, Anna and I decided to take a little break from it. She was good and let her readers know about the break where I just didn't even mention it! Anyway, we both enjoyed the weekly challenge but also enjoyed the time off so with a lot of thought, we have decided to end the challenge.

I struggled with ending it because we committed ourselves to doing it for 52 weeks and had only made it about 30 so that would mean we failed. But to be honest, that's not a very good reason to keep doing something. Sure, it's not great to be a quitter but if you have the right reasons, I think it's just fine. I want to be more intentional about my time this year, including my blog and the challenge was just not a high priority. I don't feel bad about giving up on it but I have also replaced it with a new challenge.

Which brings me to the second topic: instagram. I love having a phone on my camera. I usually have my camera on me at all times and take random pictures of just about anything. I found instagram quite a while ago and love it. Although I have tried doing project365 twice before and failed, I'm giving it another attempt this year.

I think this time around will be more successful because I'm only using instagram photos for the challenge. That means I don't have to worry about uploading them to my computer, editing, or anything else. All I have to do is snap a picture with my phone each day (no problem there) and add it to instagram. I'm 8 days in and doing good.




Oh, and if you're on instagram, let me know, you can find me by searching recipeforcrazy.

Sorry, this post is super long, but I'm almost done.

If you haven't read any of this post yet, start now!

So, back to being intentional.

One of the more personal posts I've shared was this one on Love146. Just to remind you, Love146 is an organization with this mission:

"Abolition and Restoration! We combat child sex slavery & exploitation with the unexpected and restore survivors with excellence."

So, in an effort to raise awareness, did you know that the month of January is Human Trafficking Awareness month and January 11 is Human Trafficking Awareness Day?

You can click here to view a PDF with quick facts on child trafficking.

Want to learn more? Here are some great links:
HumanTrafficking.org
Love146
Love146 blog
Not For Sale
Oklahomans Against Trafficking of Humans
Stop Child Trafficking Now

Those are just a few but I hope you take some time this week to learn more about this issue.

Alright. That's all for today! Thanks for taking the time to read this today.

Oh, also, thank you for all the comments regarding the Star Wars poster! You guys made my day!

Ok, have a great week!

Blog address change

Just a quick FYI, I changed my address today from http://lesleyraes.blogspot.com/ to http://www.recipeforcrazy.com/. Blogger said it would redirect traffic after the switch, which may take 3 days or so, but I don't know what that will do with bookmarks. If you currently subscribe to my blog with reader or bloglovin', you may need to subscribe to my new feed.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Lesley

Hand Drawn Lego Star Wars Alphabet Poster

One of the fun things about working in design is doing random projects for the fun of it. This is one of those projects.

If you know much about my nephews, you are well aware of their obsession with Star Wars. They know the movies, the characters, the games, the books and I think they own nearly every single Lego Star Wars set that's been made.

I thought it would be fun to make them an alphabet poster of the characters for Christmas. I took on the challenge of finding and drawing 26 different characters for the poster. You'd be surprised how many sources there are on the internet full of Star Wars info for such a project as this.

I started off with a basic google search for "alphabetical list of Star Wars characters." Then I wrote out a list to make sure I had a character for each letter. Once I had my list ready, I did an google image search for each name, made a contact sheet to use as a reference, then sketched out some dimensions so each would be proportionate.



Then it was time to sketch. Each little character was hand drawn with pencil then I inked the lines in with my Sharpie.



Once I had all the line art ready, I took a photo of each character (because I don't have a scanner) and then added the color to each in photoshop.



I should correct myself here, I only did 25 characters. I asked my sister to get a picture of the boys doing some sort of Star Wars light saber battle scene to use for the "F" for the FORCE. The photo was perfect!

Now that I had 26 graphics for each letter of the alphabet, I downloaded a Lego font and added the letter to each character. I also included the character's name inside the letter, just in case the boys needed it. Ha! Right.

So there's the finished poster - sorry about the large, ugly watermark!



I gave it to them for Christmas and was not surprised when they told me nearly every single name in a matter of seconds. The boys know their stuff.

Check out the Halloween costumes my sister made them last year - here. They're awesome!

I Really Did It This Time

Remember how I told you I would have a post that makes this one obsolete? Here it is.

The perfect iced coffee recipe.

It's not so much a recipe as it is a recommendation for a product you HAVE to have to make the best iced coffee ever, well, that and some really good beans. And no, I was in no way paid for this recommendation but that would be nice Toddy people.

Anyway, when I originally posted about my trials with making an iced coffee, I really wanted something I could make in batches that I could just pull out of the refrigerator as needed. It may sound lazy but I didn't want to brew hot coffee and wait for it to cool in the refrigerator. I wanted it when I needed it.

So I tried some recipes I found online and wrote that post about it. Then a lovely friend (thanks, Krista!) left me a comment about how she uses a Toddy Cold Brew Coffee Maker.

A what?

Yes, a Toddy. Don't worry, I had to google it too.


Several months went by and I found myself in a local coffee shop (with my mom) talking to a very helpful lady about the best coffee to brew for iced coffee concentrate. She directed me to the Toddy as well.

Hmm. I thought. There must really be something to this thing they call Toddy.

I jokingly made the comment to my mom to put it on my Christmas list (I mean hello, do you remember what happens when I make jokes about Christmas gifts - *ahem* alphabet cabinet *thanks dad*). We left the store and months went by.

Then Starbucks comes out with their iced coffee blend. Remember that? Anyway, the VIA was good and all but it was not so cheap. Sure, it's cheaper than forking over the $3 something for a small latte, but not quite was I needed to be spending every day.

Jump forward to Christmas. My mom, with the best memory ever, surprised me with my very own Toddy!

I decided I would try my personal cold brew system with my favorite coffee, Topeca. To be completely honest, my favorite coffee is Blue Mountain, which comes from Jamaica, but $30 a pound is too rich for my family! Anyway, back to Topeca, if you haven't tried it, go get some, you won't be sorry.

Here's how the Toddy works: get your favorite whole coffee beans and grind them on the french press setting - they have to be coarse.



Then follow the directions which basically go, add water, add grounds, add water, add remaining grounds and finish with remaining water and let sit at least 12 hours. After it sits, pull out the plug and let your coffee concentrate drip through the filter into the glass and refrigerate up to two weeks.



That's it. When you are ready, make your favorite concoction.



Mine is 3 oz coffee concentrate, 7 oz. milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla syrup. I could really do whole milk and whipped cream on top but that's a little more calories than this 28 week pregnant lady needs!

The coffee is not acidic and my homemade drink tasted identical to the vanilla latte I get at a local coffee shop!

My search for the best coffee concentrate is officially over!!

So, if you're looking for a Toddy for yourself, or a caffeinated loved one, you can get it off Amazon, hello Prime! P.S. the Amazon link gets you 2 extra filters for free which is awesome.

Reminders for 2012

I know I just said I'm not big on New Year resolutions but I came across something the other day that made me think of them in a different light. If you follow me on pinterest, you saw Woodie Guthrie's resolutions from 1942.

There are so many simple, doable things on his that serve as great daily reminders of how to live. I used his resolutions as inspiration for my own daily reminders for my life in 2012.



Did you make any resolutions, goals or reminders for 2012?

Top Posts in 2011

I have enjoyed other people's posts about their top 5 posts from the previous year so I decided to do that here. I just based it on most page views for posts made in 2011, though, some of the most viewed pages were from 2010 posts.

Anyway, here are the top 5...

5. I Think I Did It



Maybe it's the coffee ice cubes or the fact that a ton of people are looking for a perfect iced coffee recipe, but either way, this post made it to the top five. I feel kind of bad because I am going to share something this week that will make this post obsolete. Seriously, folks, stay tuned.

4. P is for... (part 2)



I would like to think it's my clever "Princess and the Pea" cake that got all the page views but it probably has more to do with the super cute dollhouse, pillow and quilt that were given to my P.

3. P is for... (part 1)




This makes me happy to be in the top five because I'm usually not a crafty gal. I busted out all my secret skills on this party and it seems that people liked it, thank you pinterest.

2. Homemade Pizza Balls

Say hello to my favorite snack recipe for 2011. Those babies were so good. I have made them several times since and have no plans to stop. The Nathan's ball is my fave.

1. Maybe a Tad Biased



Maybe it's the too-cute-for-words pictures my sister took of my P or the subtle announcement at the end that made this the top 2011 post but in all honesty, I'm quite certain it's the fact that my sister linked up to the news. Most page views in one day goes to this post as well. Thanks, sister.

Hope you enjoyed at least one of those!