A Drink to Comfort - Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte

I have the house to myself for a couple of hours and the weather is gloomy and my favorite pinecone candle is burning.  While I gave up coffee on a regular basis a couple of months ago, I still do enjoy myself a cup on occasion.  The great thing about kicking a regular coffee habit is that when you do drink it, when you do need it to work, it does.  So on a morning like today when I'm slow to function, yet when I feel the need for a little comfort, I decided to try out this Pumpkin Spice Latte recipe from Love Veggies & Yoga that Jules found.  Sounds much better than tackling the laundry and the dishes, doesn't it?  It uses pumpkin puree which I think is just pure genius.

I followed her recipe to a T, but instead of warming the milk in the microwave, I first steamed some milk in my lovely Christmas present.  I then had some frothy milk to pile on top of my cup.  I also didn't feel like hauling out the blender, so I just shook up the mixture in a mason jar.  Sort of similar to my chai tea concoction.

While these at home coffee house drink versions are never quite the same, this one is quite good.  I made my coffee extra strong and added plenty of agave to sweeten it up, but it still lacks that certain fake syrupy flavor that sadly, I've grown to love.  When all is said and done though, I can happily give up that fake flavor to save myself almost $4 using ingredients I already have on hand.  Yes, I do have pumpkin puree on hand because I am a pumpkin freak.   

While sadly my house is a mess and there is still plenty of things to do before I have to pick up Syd from preschool, I did plan out my meals for the week and got my grocery shopping done.  This week is all about comfort food and here's what I'm planning to make:

Monday: leftover sliders & sweet potato fries from Saturday's speaker dinner
Tuesday: pork tenderloin medallions with sweet potatoes and apples (a one pot dish that is super easy, maybe I'll share it?)
Wednesday: turkey lasagna
Thursday: leftover turkey lasagna
Friday: turkey chili
(I have a lot of ground turkey in my freezer that I'm trying to use up)

So I know I said just a few hours ago that I was shutting down for a bit, but I wanted to come back and sort of offer a re-do of my last post.  I hope I didn't come across as a downer.  I think I am just so tired and yet so keyed up my mind is racing more than it should.  I'm really hoping that spending time with the kids this afternoon will restore me a bit, I miss them after barely seeing them the last 2 days.  I'm sure that will do the trick.

So come on guys, you're all so quiet out there.  Those that came to Blog Sugar, what did you think?  What would you change for next year and what would you keep the same?  And what was your favorite dessert of the night?!?