Pinterest Dinner Week, Day 1

Have you heard of Pinterest? It's a virtual pinboard where you can search by picture, 'pin' that picture to your page, and then when you click on the picture, it takes to to the website where you can learn how to make the recipe, craft, or photography scene. It is totally addicting, but it has made a lot of not-so-crafty people a little craftier. I call it the best of the web. You can google 'best recipe' or 'cute craft' and you'll probably find a good idea, but on Pinterest you can find all the best recipes and cutest crafts, and people are actually making them successfully!

Sometimes I feel like I pin more things than I actually make, so I'll set out to try something new. This week I decided to have Pinterest dinner week, where every dinner I make is something I've 'pinned'. I didn't think of it until I already had Monday's dinner in the crock pot, so we started yesterday.

To be frugal, we try to have at least 1 vegetarian dinner every week. If I can do 2, even better! We supplement the protein with beans, eggs, or Barilla Plus pasta, which is made with bean flours to give each serving 10 grams of protein, and it doesn't taste any different than other pastas.

Yesterday I made crock pot macaroni and cheese adapted from momswithcrockpots.com. You'll have to click the link to see a picture, ours got eaten too fast!

The following recipe varies slightly from the recipe on the website.

Ingredients

• 16 ounces small pasta-elbows, shells, etc
• 1 can evaporated milk
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 cups (16 ounces) shredded sharp Cheddar cheese or a Cheddar blend
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

1. Cook the macaroni following package directions. Drain well.
2. Generously butter the sides and bottom of the crock pot (I actually forgot to do this step and it turned out fine)
3. Combine the macaroni with the remaining ingredients in the slow cooker and blend well. Cover the slow cooker and cook on LOW for 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours, stirring a few times.
4. If desired, spoon the cooked macaroni and cheese mixture into a baking dish, sprinkle with a little more cheese, and put under the broiler for a minute or 2, to get the cheese brown and bubbly. I didn't do this step, we ate it right out of the crock pot and it was delicious!

This is definitely a keeper recipe, super easy and yummy! Makes me want to check out the other crock pot recipes on momswithcrockpots.com, but I'll have to do that after pinterest dinner week!

I had plans of steaming fresh veggies and making a salad to serve on the side, but the weather was so nice yesterday that we ended up playing outside for over an hour, until Eric came home from work, so I microwaved a bag of frozen veggies instead. Priorities, you know ;)

Right now there's a Greek chicken and quinoa recipe in the crock pot that is smelling pretty good, hopefully I'll have another keeper recipe to share tomorrow!