100 Days of Pinterest: Days 15 & 16 - Sour Cream Noodle Bake and Oven Vent Cleaning

I noticed I've been doing a lot of recipes I have found on Pinterest. It makes for an interesting menu in our home. We went from having tacos way too many times every month, to having lots of different meals to add to our menu book. I guess that's a plus!


Okay, now lets get to the challenges I've completed.  On Wednesday, Day 15, I decided to give my oven a good cleaning using vinegar, Dawn, baking soda, and of course some time. As you can see from the pictures to the left, my oven was a hot mess. I sprinkled some baking soda on the door and inside the oven. Then I mixed a little Dawn and vinegar in a spray bottle and proceeded to squirt it onto the baking soda coated mess inside my oven. I used my hand to smear the mixture around and then I closed the oven door for six hours and let it set. After the six hour wait, I grabbed some steel wool I had and went to work scrubbing the mess. I used a bucket of hot water and a microfiber cloth to remove the mixture and mess. After fifteen minutes, voila! Clean oven using no harsh chemicals.

While I was waiting for my oven to soak I noticed my oven hood filter was nasty. I remembered Pinning a remedy for this. So, I pulled up the instructions and went to work. The images from this challenge are sure to gross you out. As you can see from the pictures, my filter was disgusting. I simply dipped it into a boiling pot of baking soda water and it was cleaned. You have to be careful when dipping the filter in, because the minute the dirty filter hits the water it begins to boil and fizz...my first dip in the pot boiled over. Lesson learned! You literally have to dip it in for a few second and pull the filter out slowly and repeat this a few times until the filter looks clean. I didn't have a pot that could handle the entire filter, so I used tongs to grab the filter, flip it over and then dipped the other side. As you can see from the pictures, the results were great and the water afterwards was as dark as apple cider. Yuck! After I was finished dipping the filter, I ran it under some clean hot tap water and wiped it down to get the rest of the greasy yuckiness off of it. Then I set it aside to air dry for a few hours. Easy peasy!

 For today's challenge I decided to go with the Pioneer Woman's Sour Cream Noodle Bake.  Let me tell you, this stuff is good. It was a quick meal to put together and had a really nice flavor to it. I think next time I make this, I am going to make a double batch and put some in the freezer for a later time. If you need a casserole dish to make for a large get together, this would be a good, affordable option.  I served it with some rolls and cherry butter. The cherry butter was just some softened butter with some cherry preserves mixed in with it. I had to incorporate a fruit in there somehow!

 Sour Cream Noodle Bake
(thepioneerwoman.com)
Serves 8
Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 pound ground beef turkey
• 15 ounces tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 8 ounces No-Yolk Egg Noodles
• 1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
• 1 1/4 cup 1% cottage cheese, small curd
• 1/4 cup scallions, diced
• 1 cup low-fat cheddar cheese, shredded

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350°.
Prepare the egg noodles al dente according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
Brown the ground beef in a large skillet. Drain the fat and add the tomato sauce, 1/4 tsp salt, and black pepper. Stir and simmer while you prepare the other ingredients.
In a medium bowl, combine sour cream and cottage cheese. Add black pepper to taste. Add noodles and stir to coat. Add green onions to taste. The green onions can overpower the dish, so add a small amount at a time.
To assemble, add half of the noodles to a sprayed baking dish. Top with half of the meat mixture, and sprinkle half of the cheese on top. Repeat with noodles, meat, then cheese.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until all cheese is melted.
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I'm not sure what I'm doing tomorrow. This weekend is my husband's 40th birthday, so time will be limited. I'm sure I'll find something on Pinterest to do. Who knows, maybe I'll find some birthday Pins to try!

Don't forget to follow along with me on Pinterest. Visit Woman in the Man Cave's Pinterest boards and follow along with my challenges and suggest things I should try.

Take care!
NB