Rate the Recipe: Squash Casserole

A week or so ago, after I made the most disgusting ravioli ever, I started thinking about rating some of the recipes I have used or found on Pinterest, so other people will know if they are worth the time or effort. Sure, the pictures always look awesome and everyone comments about how fabulous the recipes are, but I have found on more than one occasion, that the pictures do not accurately represent the end product and the comments HAVE to be about another recipe. That is how Rate the Recipe was born.

I am going to try and post 2 or 3 (or more!) Rate the Recipes each week. If you have a recipe that you have tried that you would like to share and rate, let me know and we'll get it on here!

Without further ado, the first, Rate the Recipe!

This weekend I tried A LOT of new recipes, so I'll try to get to them all this week (not to mention the other new recipes I am trying this week!), if not, we will eventually get through all of them.

This weekend I tried the following new recipes:

Crack Bread

Pumpkin Fluff

Paula Deen's Squash Casserole

some Pinterest Ribs

First up, the Squash Casserole. All in all, I'd give this recipe a 2 out of 5, simply because it was not popular with the fam.

I thought this was actually a good recipe, but I was alone. The hubs and AJ both said it was not very good. While the casserole was not a hit, I was stumped by one of the steps in the recipe. Soak a piece of white bread in ice water, wring it out and then chop it up. What the what? Even a google search returned no answers to my question. If you know why you would soak bread in ice water and then chop it up for the casserole, PLEASE let me know!

I think adding some cheese would have given the squash casserole a little more flavor, but in an effort to try and cut some cheese out (because we eat a LOT of cheese at our house), I found a recipe that did not call for any! I will try this recipe, however, next time I will add cheese - maybe some cream cheese and some shredded cheese. Cheese makes everything taste better, so this should be no exception!

 If you try this recipe let me know what you think!

Epic FAIL

For tonight's crockpot dinner, I made ravioli from a recipe I found on Pinterest.

What I ended up with was a block of ravioli in which most of the cheese had cooked out and Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses that had the texture of overcooked stringy pork. Blech.

I will not even post a link to the recipe because it was a waste of time and money.

Hopefully, tomorrow's dinner will turn out better.

Now off to finish watching the NC Gubernatorial debate and get ready to watch the Presidential debate.

The most wonderful time of the year.....

No. It is not Christmas, although Christmas is a close second for me.

It is fall! As I mentioned yesterday, I love fall. I love pumpkin. I love apples. I love cinnamon. I think you get the picture.

I love pumpkin so much that I physically needed something pumpkin yesterday. So I made some pumpkin "cakies".

Actually, what I did was "freestyle" some pumpkin cakies. (And a cakie [term I am now using in every possible way] is a cookie that is more cake-like in the center because you didn't put enough of something in (maybe sugar), or you put too much of something in (in this case, perhaps it was the whole wheat flour) or you didn't let the fat come to room temp. But according to some of the information I have read on the web, pumpkin cookies are supposed to be cakier, so my cakies may be ok!)

What, do you ask, is freestyling? For me, freestyling is making something without a recipe, just throwing a little of this in, a lot of that, and so on. I tend to freestyle a lot when I cook. The whole measuring ingredients doesn't really work for me. It is strange, but I cook based on how things smell. I can remember how things smelled the last time I cooked them and this helps me determine if I am missing something and what that might be.

So, without further ado, here is a list of stuff that I put together last night to create Pumpkin Cakies. I can't call it a recipe because I don't have amounts for any of the ingredients.

Pumpkin Cakies

1 roll of pre-made sugar cookies dough
about 1/3 can of pureed pumpkin
brown sugar
pumpkin pie spice
cinnamon
whole wheat flour

As you can see, 

I just mixed the dough and all of the other ingredients together. I kept adding more of this and that based on the texture of the dough/batter and the smell (did it smell fall-y enough?). Here is the dough/batter before I popped the cakies into the oven:

I spooned the dough/batter on the cookie sheet, let them cook about 14 minutes per batch and cool about 5 minutes per batch before taking them off of the cookies sheet. 

I thought they were super yummy. The hubs (not nearly as much a fan of pumpkin and all things fall) said they were pretty good. 

What do you think of my cakies? Have you done any "freestyling" lately that you care to share???