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Pinterest, recipes and failures : Crispy Cheddar Chicken


I am a Pinterest lover.   I think it is a marvelous tool to garner inspiration and let your creativity run wild.  It’s like a virtual idea/inspiration board.   Back in the day, we clipped pics from magazines and newspapers, took photographs and pinned them to our walls, bulletin boards and even ceilings, so we could become inspired.   When I started using Pinterest a few years back, shortly after it’s inception, it was still just that….a space where designers and artists shared.  Now, it’s just crazy!   As a foodie, its been a good spot to see what people are making or interested in making.  I cant complain, it has increased traffic to our little blog here exponentially, so I will forever be grateful and adore the Pinterest community. 

Now for the HOWEVER….  Please foodies and friends of Plucky, take a look at the photos of what you have pinned and then check out the recipes…make sure they match and above all, make sure it makes sense!  It’s driving me crazy!

So every now and then, on our little Plucky Housewives blog, we are going to examine a few of the Pinterest Fails….yes folks, there are fails.   We wont be calling out anyone in particular, because most of these are posts of posts of posts and the original pinner or recipe owner is not around.  Many contain the “recipe” in the comment box of the pin (another oh my word moment for me).  

Why am I doing this?  Because I think folks out there tend to think that if they make a recipe that someone has posted online (myself included) and they followed the directions to the best of their ability and it failed, it reflects on them.  That is NOT the case with these recipes.  Somewhere in these recipes is an inherent FAIL and by pointing out what the problem is, we help to make you a better home cook and that really is what this blog is about, right? 

So here we go…

Pinterest Fail #1

Crispy Cheddar Chicken
 
The recipe has you dipping boneless chicken breasts into milk, then cheese, then cracker crumbs.  Then baking in the oven for 35 minutes until brown.

I can assure you, that dipping into shredded cheese, then into bread crumbs DOES NOT WORK!  It’s a fruitless effort.   Cheese falls off, breadcrumbs do not adhere to chicken dipped in milk, then shredded cheese.  Then try baking it?  It’s a colossal mess!

I researched the recipe and it was an ADAPTATION from an original recipe from What’s Cooking Chicago, which was an ADAPTION from RealSimple.   Search on Pinterest for Crispy Cheddar Chicken.  You will find a gazillion blogs who all post this recipe, using the same original pinners pictures, with the same recipes.  I wondered, did people actually try and make this?   By the way, what's the sauce on the chicken?  I checked at least 15 different versions of this recipe (only 1 paid hommage to where they got the recipe) and NONE mentioned anything about the sauce?  

Real Simple Cheddar Chicken Recipe

 So I trailed back to the original recipe, which came from Real Simple.  This recipe made sense!

Here we have an example of someone changing up a recipe that works, so they can publish it on their site and changed it to where it just doesn’t work.  

That’s all I will say.  I would like to pay homage to the original recipe, which really is a great recipe and deserves the credit it should get!  Pinners take notice!


Enjoy the real one.   

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