31 Pins: Day 11

One of my few coffee-drinking friends was visiting with her littles today, and she helped me to pick today's pin... Pumpkin Spice Lattes!

Original Pin

Who wants to pay $3-5 (or more) for one of these babies?  Not me....  Well, I guess if it is in a quaint cafe free of children, it might be worth it. ;)  

Anyway, if you can't get out of the house, you can set up your own little bistro and enjoy a home made version of this fall favorite.

The results:

Ingredients: milk, vanilla, canned pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, espresso/strong coffee, sugar (click the original pin above for the specific amounts)

While brewing the coffee, place all other ingredients in a saucepan and do not quite bring to a boil.

Pour into a blender and and blend for about 2 minutes.  This is how the froth forms.  (Make sure to hold the lid down so you don't make a mess, lol).

Pour the milk mixture into your favorite mug first (this makes two 10 ounce servings, so it will need to be a bigger one).  Then, on the side, pour in the coffee so as not to disturb the froth.

I think she liked it!

Difficult rating: EASY

Expense rating: CHEAP

Taste rating: Delicious!!!

Tie Dye Alternative

Like tie dying, but don't want the mess?  This is just for you!

What you need:

Sharpies, shirts, rubber bands, rubbing alcohol, iron, clothes dryer

Kid friendly craft (if you don't mind some ink on the hands).

Pull the shirt out at different points, twist, and rubber band a few times.  Color each segment with a different color of sharpie marker. Make sure you press it down and use lots of ink if you want your colors to be vibrant.

Then drop on some rubbing alcohol.  Liberally.

Let it sink in/spread for a few minutes.

Un-band and voila! (At this point you can also embellish by writing names or other designs that you do not want to spread out with alcohol.  I ended up going over some lighter areas with more marker (lines) and more alcohol.

Place a piece of cardboard inside the shirt and iron to set in the color (I would use a high temp).

Dry for at least 20 minutes in the dryer.

Also try fireworks!

Thanks, Buba, for finding and sharing. :)

Pierogi

Teresa and I decided to tackle home made pierogi (which is the plural form in Polish, I believe). :) She loves the browneyedbaker .  So that's where we headed for a recipe.  Here's the link we used:

http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2008/10/03/homemade-pierogi/

First of all, we LOVED the dough!  It was so easy to use, didn't tear, didn't stick, soft, etc., etc.  A bakers dream!

For the filling, we added about 1/3-1/2 block of cream cheese for extra richness.

You could put anything you want in these things, and they would be great!

Don't forget to soak your potatoes to eliminate excess starch...

Roll and fill...

Fold and press closed - we used a fork, but I saw another blog with a cool pinch pattern that looked nice.

We boiled until they were floating, then sauteed in butter an onions.  DELICIOUS period

The hubby was out west helping with forest fires at the time, so I saved him some by par-boiling and freezing.  This evening, I revived by completing the boiling (until floating) and then sauteed in butter and onions.  They fell apart a bit but tasted just the same.

All Dressed-up!

A few weeks ago, I found out that Olive Garden was selling their dressing in stores.  I was going to buy some, but then a friend (who gave me yummy garden lettuce) encouraged me to try making it myself.

http://www.copykat.com/2009/03/29/olive-garden-salad-dressing/ 

This is the recipe I used.  However, I did not have Romano cheese or corn syrup.  I doubled up on freshly grated parmesan and used honey instead.  I recently got a fancy dressing mixer-upper from Pampered Chef, but used a mason jar instead (because the Pioneer Woman told me to). :)

We really liked this tangy dressing on lettuce with croutons and extra parmesan!