Aggies Do It Better

I can't even remember how I stumbled on this on the Internet. Probably browsing Pinterest.... But I saw several posts on making your own coffee cream. I'm a big coffee drinker and I do use creamer. I usually buy the standard non-dairy flavored creamers. They are filled with all kinds of questionable crap, but like most of us I just do the ol' cover-my-ears-and-sing-LALALALALAAA. The recipes suggest using a mixture of sweetened condensed milk (which is FABULOUS In coffee by itself) and milk. I'm not exactly "dairy free", but I tend to not tolerate milk that well (hence the creamer). So I made this with coconut milk, although if you want to just use the same amount of regular milk. I did choose the sweetened coconut milk, which has cane sugar already in it and some other stuff.   Into a large measuring cup (or right into your storage container, you could reuse your creamer bottle. I used a quart size ball jar) pour out 2 cups milk. Add one small can sweetene...

Okay! If you're a chocolate person, this is gonna rock your world. It is exactly like the "restaurant stuff", and is not even comparable to the Hershey's syrup, oddly enough. It's great for chocolate milk, desserts, and coffee. The ingredients for this are crazy simple....the only thing you may have to run and get is some unsweetened cocoa powder. I use Hershey's, but you can use some fancier stuff if you have it (i.e. dutch process or whatever). I like Hershey's, it tastes great, is versatile, and you can get a monster thing of it at Sam's. :) The only other thing you need is sugar, water, and vanilla. Pretty sure everyone has those! I'll give the amounts at the end. Step 1: Combine the sugar and water on the stove and bring to low boil over medium high heat, very much like making the simple syrup we made for the Pumpkin Spice Syrup . Step 2: add the cocoa power and salt and whisk to combine....let it boil for about another minute while ...

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. ...

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 is 28 jars, or 7 batches. Flavors: peach, strawberry, strawberry/blueberry, strawberry/raspberry, plum, and blueberry. I think I've made 8 actually, we've been through 4 jars already! I wonder how long this will last?) Here we go! Everyone have their fruit?? (I'm not going to give the exact amounts of what I used, because I don't want to get in any trouble "copying" the recipe from the current issue of Everyday Food by Martha Stewart . Which I pay for myself.) I started with a large container of blueberries from Sam's. This is slightly less than the amount of berries you are supposed to use, so I imagine it won't quite fill up all 4 of these jars. You can use any combination of blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, or raspberries. I have made pretty much all those. Some I combined, some I didn't. This one will be straight up blueberry. You can also use any combination of "stone fruit", which is peaches, nectarines, plum...

Update: hi pinners!!! This page has gotten a lot of traffic since the invention of Pinterest! I've added a Pin it button by the title for you guys! Thanks! Everyone ready to learn how to make peanut butter??? Get your stuff ready. Ingredients: Peanuts, salt. The end. Well, and something to put it in. I use Ball jars. I started with a 16 oz (1 pound) bag of roasted, UNSALTED, peanuts. This is about 3 cups of peanuts. The general rule I have found is, a 2:1 ratio. However much peanuts you start with, you will have 1/2 as much peanut butter. So this will make about a cup and a half, maybe slightly more, of peanut butter. About 12-16 ounces (1 pint). Okay, ready? Step 1: PUT PEANUTS IN FOOD PROCESSOR. Step 2: BLEND. (I did stop this at several different stages so you can see the different stages and know how long to take it. I stopped to early the very first time I made it.) You can see after about 30 sec, you just have finely chopped peanuts. (this part is loud )...

This Thanksgiving, or before, who are we kidding?, Drink your Dessert! Ok yall. Seriously. Hang on to your hats. This recipe is a compliation of several I found online plus my own tweaks to make it easy to make with every day, inexpensive items. And, I wanted to make sure I brought you the best possible version. It took many tries. I was willing to do that for yall. You're Welcome :) Ok, here we go: Here's a pic of everything you need. It looks like a lot, but it's not really. Also, you will need some Pumpkin Pie Spice, I forgot to put that in the pic! This makes ONE drink. Martini shaker. If you don't have one, you could probably just put this in a large glass and stir it up really well. Also, you don't have to use a Martini glass, but it just looks cooler. 1-ounce measuring glass or shotglass. Or, if you're brave, you can eyeball it. Vanilla vodka (or regular vodka plus vanilla extract, which is what I used, because we are not fancy enough to have the f...