Been away for awhile, but gotten a lot done

So 3rd Trimester pregnancy has been kicking my butt. I hate complaining because I have been very lucky this pregnancy and haven't had any issues major or minor. That being said, insomnia has taken hold and I'm only getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night (and I know it's only gonna get worse). I haven't had the energy to blog, although I have completed a lot of Pinterest projects in the last few weeks. I'll put a few up here on this post and then try to do a few more this week. Once the little man shows up, I know there will be another blogging lull and I don't want all these perfectly good pins to go to waste.

1st Pin of the Post- Simple Crockpot French Dip Sandwiches

I had this one pinned for awhile and was waiting to see some chuck roast on sale to try it. The recipe is pretty straight forward and all you need is 3-5 pounds of chuck roast, beef broth, french onion soup, and a can or bottle of beer.

Put the roast in the crockpot, pour in 1 can (or half a box) of beef broth, 1 can of french onion soup, and 1 can/bottle of beer (BL was all that was in the house, feel free to use what you have). Turn the crockpot to low, and cook for 7-8 hours.

After 7 hours on low

 

The smell was amazing and gave me (and my husband) pretty high expectations for how the roast would taste. The meat was tender when it came out of the crockpot and taste wise was very good. There was a tiny hint of the beer, but honestly if I hadn't known there was beer in the broth, I wouldn't have known that's what I was tasting.

The downside was that this meat was intended to go on hoagie buns with provolone cheese and dipped in the aus jus. Although the meat tasted great and the broth made a great aus ju, the meat was still fairly tough and more along the consistency of pot roast. This made it hard to eat on the bun and you ended up with big  bites of meat or of bun but not a lot of bites of the two together. I would most definitely make this recipe again, but with the intention of eating it like a traditional roast with vegetables, not as a sandwich filler.

 

 

2nd Pin of the Post- Banana Oat Cookies or aka Not as Good as You Think They Might Be

I had seen the pin of making "Banana Oat Cookies" (in parenthesis because I don't think they really classify as cookie) with just bananas and oats (and chocolate chips if you want). I figured if these were good I could make them in a weak moment when I wanted cookies but didn't want to consume all the calories. The concept seemed simple enough, mash up some bananas with some oats, mix in a little chocolate, bake it for a little bit and BAM you have a healthy dessert.

 

I didn't have chocolate chip so I though a little cocoa powder might give it a little extra flavor without adding calories.

Two bananas (medium sized), 1 cup of oats, and 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder into the food processor for about 30 seconds.

The consistency reminded me a lot of my Grandma's no bake cookies and I spooned the batter onto a cookie sheet and into the oven at 350 for 10 minutes.

They came out looking like a drier version of my Grandma's No Bake Cookies, unfortunately that is where the similarities ended. They tasted terrible. You could taste the banana but they were dry, bland, and the consistency was weird. Now I know I didn't use chocolate chips, but I doubt those could have saved these impostor cookies. I had a friend over and even she said they were pretty abysmal. I do have friends who have made these and said they really liked them, so I will only say that they may be an acquired taste. I might try this one more time, when I do have chocolate chips and I might throw in just a bit of peanut butter (or Nutella) for a little extra flavor. This recipe is a "try at your own risk" but I would love to hear from anyone who gives it a try and lets me know about their experience.