Aggies Do It Better

Hope everyone had a great 4th! I'm including our spread here because I made another Holiday recipe from my Paula Deen Celebrates book---I love that thing! This isn't that just yet...this is just a "cheesecake" (It's not a real cheesecake...it's basically half cream cheese and half cool whip whipped together. I've had this recipe from a cool whip add from a magazine for YEARS! I make it almost every year because it's so light and fluffy and yum!) this is what I made from PD...Low Country Boil. Or low country bowwwwl...depending on how you want to pronounce it :) Corn, potatoes, sausage, shrimp boiled in Old Bay seasoning. I've never made it or had it before, but it's been on my "to-eat" list forever! Our whole spread...with hot dogs for the boys (all of them) and baked beans. These are just plain old Bush's baked beans out of the can. YUM. My plate. The first one, anyway. I ate enough corn to sustain a small village. YUM.

Hope everyone had a great Mardi Gras! Here is my first King cake I've ever made, it's from my Paula Deen Celebrates Book. It turned out huge, and took all day long to make-easily the most complicated bread recipe I've ever made. Next time I will make 2 cakes out of this. And, not forget to add the melted butter on the inside before adding the cinnamon sugar and rolling it up. doh! It still turned out ok, even though I don't have anything to compare it to. Here is the Shrimp Etouffee I made, also from the Paula Deen book. (the Mardi Gras chapter! I love it...it's all holiday menus.) I've never made anything like this before either, and I did have to alter the recipe at the beginning a little bit because the flour:butter ratio for the roux you start with left it a little runny so I had to add more flour. And I added a whole lot more Tabasco than it said...and I could have added more!

Tonite I made Red Beans and Rice, yall! I started out with dry beans, and I started soaking them yesterday, just like the book says, and damned if it still didn't take twice as long as the recipe said to cook until the beans were soft. This is why I never use dry beans!!! ugh. What a beating. But in the end? Still pretty good! Along with them I made the PW Buttermilk Biscuits. I kind of had to make do a little, because I am still lacking some necessary kitchen equipment. You start out with the flour/baking soda etc. mixture, and then are supposed to "cut in" the butter and shortening with a pastry cutter (which I don't have) or 2 knives (um, yeah, not happening..) Anyhoo...I usually use my trusty food processor for this part. Except, it has gone to meet it's maker. And by maker, I mean the dumpster. It was a cheapo-brand that I was lucky enough to get 7 years out of, and now I'm saving up for the BIG DADDY that I really want. Still waiting. So, I just used my ...