Aggies Do It Better

This is yet another recipe that suffers from "MQS". I decided early on to divide it into 2 lasagnas, partly because I started with slightly more beef than the recipe calls for, and partly to make the portions smaller and more calorie-conscious (for lasagna, really). I've made lasagna many times before, I've never really used a recipe. But I'll give hers a go! Here she is, my trusty smallish stockpot. How many times have I been in this situation? LOL! I used a ton of ground beef AND sausage (new to lasagna for me). And then 2 HUGE cans of tomatoes. And paste. Who wants to bet how much of this will wind up on the stovetop when I'm stirring it together? Not too shabby. Now it has to cook for a while. Here we go, got everything all set out for assembly. Meat/tomato mixture, lasagna noodles, egg/cheese mixture, and shredded cheese. No, I didn't shred my own this time. Forgive me, PW. With 2 dishes...one's going straight into the freezer. Here they are as...

Okay. Yall. This is gonna change your life :) Anyone addicted to Pumpkin Spice Latte's? (those of us who are refer to them as PSL's. we're hip like that.) Who's addicted to paying $4.50 for a small PSL? Not me! Often times if I get a little free time it is usually spent perusing the internets for recipes. I love me some Google! On a whim I googled "Pumpkin spice syrup recipes". I only came across a couple, and they seemed endlessly complicated. So many ingredients! Tiny bit of this, tiny bit of that. I thought, surely there's an easier way! Also, turns out, the PSL syrup uses pumpkin "flavoring", not actual pumpkin. And they don't sell it, so no chance for direct comparison. I figured, I could get pretty close to the real thing, no? Here we go: This only requires 4 ingredients: Water, sugar, canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix), and pumpkin pie spice . Well, maybe that's 3, some people don't really count water as an ingredient. ...

Cupcakes for the husbands work...These are chocolate cupcakes with caramel filling and vanilla buttercream with a salted caramel drizzle. Actually, the drizzle is caramel and they have sea salt sprinkled on top. If you've never had anything that falls into the "salted caramel" category, go find some now. Run, don't walk! Here they are after the toppers I made.....these are sayings they have at work I gather.

Since today is the official "First Day of Fall", and therefore summer is officially over (booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo) I wanted to get these I made earlier in the summer up here to remind us all just how awesome summer is. Root Beer Float Cupcakes! Root Beer/Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla cream filling and Triple-Vanilla Buttercream frosting. These were really good, despite not being able to taste the root beer in the cupcake much!

Remember my neighbor that I made this cake for last year? Well, they moved a few months ago, far far away :( BUT, they were in town for her daughter to see Taylor Swift for her birthday, and she asked me to make her a surprise cake for her 14th! YAY! I love surprises! This was a 4 layer vanilla cake with 2 layers of vanilla buttercream and raspberry filling in the middle. Apparently it was a hit!! I even have 2 more orders for more girly cakes ***yay*** that came out of it....and they want the same filling. I guess I have a new top seller! I admit, it is pretty darn good. I also just have to say...I LOVE the look of multiple shades of the same color. It's modern without being deco, and very pleasing to the eye I think!

Time to start branching out! Time for: Sunflower Seed Butter. I started out with a 1 pound bag of roasted, unsalted seeds. Here they go. They had me concerned because it got to the pasty "pastry ball" phase quickly and stayed there much longer than the peanuts. Finally you can see a teeeny bit of paste forming at the bottom, but that's it. FINALLY! This took about 7 minutes, more than the 3 for the peanuts. This is pretty good! I may have added a teensy bit too much salt, I intended to add 1 teaspoon but think I added 1 1/4? Just that much difference matters. It is a little salty. But paired with super sweet jam, you can't tell. The hubs is not a fan, even though he likes sunflower seeds. His review? "Ew. No. It tastes like sunflower seeds." But the boys like it and I do to....I don't think it's that much different than regular PB. This bag made the same amount as the peanuts, about 16oz. A full jar!

This post should be titled, "Things I've been waiting for my Mom to come and visit so I can make because nobody in this house will eat, including me". Except for the cake. OBVIOUSLY. The mushrooms take like 9 hours to make. I did 1/4th this recipe because I was making them only for my mom and her hubs. I should have 1/8th'd it, but it's already tricky dividing the recipe! You basically simmer white mushrooms in red wine, chicken and beef bouillon, and some other stuff like all........daaaaay............ I don't eat fungi, so these aren't for me. This was later in the day, starting on the cake, you can see the mushrooms STILL cooking. Luckily they didn't kill too much of my cake-scent mojo in the kitchen. The cake starts with melting butter (shockingly) in the cast iron, then sprinkling brown sugar. You wait until the brown sugar dissolves, then add the batter. Be sure to add the pineapple rings and batter BEFORE the sugar starts to burn, even if all th...

Finally. Enough putting it off. I've been pretty intimidated to make these, for many reasons, among them being the MASS quantity they make. I almost halved the recipe, but I figured, we had company coming anyway, and, well, go big or go home, right? Let's get to it. First up....melt ONE POUND of butter. I've gotten on quite the good terms with real, actual butter over the past couple years, but mainly just for making frosting. This is, without a doubt, the largest amount of butter I've ever used at one time for something non-frosting related. I just put this bad boy in the microwave. Down he melts into 2 cups of melted butter. WOW. On we go with the dough (which was made earlier in the day). I did feel that it was pretty sticky...that proved to be quite the problem. It's entirely possible I miscounted the cups of flour...but I don't think I did. I took out half the amt of dough and attempted to roll it into a 30inch by 10inch rectangle. I don't actually hav...