Aggies Do It Better

Good morning! (Well, it's morning while I'm typing this!) It's been almost exactly a month since my last blog post. Man! I hate that. Moving has been super crazy, even though its a really local move! 11 years of marriage and 3 kids = A LOT OF STUFF. I feel like I'm pretty good at purging now and again but moving makes you realize how much stuff you have "out of sight, out of mind", right?? So yet again, I'm trying to unpack/thin out/organize as I go. Makes for a long process! I wish I could just work in one room at a time and finish it before I move on but life with a 3 year old at home doesn't allow it. I'm winding up working in several rooms at a time, wherever I can keep him entertained. As a result, I guess I will just wake up one day and it will all be done? We do have a goal date to be done (which is fast approaching-we are having my in-laws from overseas stay with us for a week) and I need to (somehow) pick up the pace yikes! Well, I guess...

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. ...

I have been working on this little project over the last few weeks. Remembering to get a picture is half the battle! My boys have always loved fruit smoothies (and so do I, who are we kidding. Strawberry banana is the best!). This is something we typically do during the summer months, when fresh fruit, esp berries, and cold drinks are the rule. I can't believe I never thought to add veggies before! I have a book of recipes that uses vegetable purees that I cooked almost exclusively for about a year and a half when #1 was 2, but then got a little burned out on it. The breakfast and dessert-y things are pretty good, but the "dinners" weren't. I have recently started it up again, with the mindset that I will just add it to whatever I'm making, not just using the recipes in the book. I still try to offer the boys veggies alot, and sometimes they will eat them. I know "hiding" veggies for kids can be somewhat controversial, but, sometimes you do what you just...

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 ...

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...

The second thing I tried with the mandoline was vegetable chips. I've seen these in a bag, so they can't be that hard, right? WRONG. I'm really trying to avoid frying them. Here's my first attempt: Zucchini. This is all from ONE zucchini, sliced at 1/8 inch. Wowza! I sliced them up and layed them out on parchment. I put some S&P on them. I meant to toss them in EVOO, but forgot. I don't think that made the difference, we'll see next time. Same thing as with the apple chips : 350, 10 minutes on each side. Here's what I was left with. They look pretty good in the pic, but they were actually not crisp at all. I'm not sure why! I was really planning on having those with our dinner, and they didn't turn out. So back to the interwebs I went, and found this recipe for Zucchini chips. Except, they aren't exactly chips, more like a "parm", like chicken or eggplant. Whatevs. It was good. Here's a simple breakdown. Slice up one Zucchini to...

I sense this blog becoming a little bit more food-driven in the coming months, I blame it on new kitchen gadgets and the upcoming food-centric fall/winter months. So if you're not into that sort of thing, bear with me! There will also be alot of pictures, because I think that's the most important thing when you are trying to learn something new!! One of my bday gifts was a Mandoline, which is a fancy name for a slicer. It has a fixed blade and a "runway" that allows you to make uniform slices at a variety of widths. The blade also rotates to expose thick and thin julienne blades too. If you don't have a mandoline, some regular cheese graters have a straight blade on them. I'm not exactly sure how thin it slices, I've never really trusted my self to use it. And it isn't big enough for me. The mandoline I have is pretty fancy, but Bed Bath and Beyond sells a little hand one for like $15. Or, if you have MAD knife skills, you could try with just a butcher...