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I made this for dinner tonight.  It’s based on a recipe from a source you might recognize but that I won’t mention here.  From what I hear they’ll come heavy if they hear you’ve made one of their recipes and, god forbid, told anybody about it.  

We really enjoyed this and thought it was as satisfying as a traditionally baked lasagne but really quick and simple to throw together.  The only tricky part is in the simmering.  You must stir it occasionally and keep it over a low flame to prevent the noodles from sticking and scorching.  

Here’s how it goes.  

• 1lb lean ground beef
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes drained, plus enough water to make 2 1/2 cups.
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 lb lasagne noodles broken into 1″ pieces
• 1 1/2 c shredded fresh mozzarella
• 8 oz ricotta cheese

Brown the beef in a deep skillet, seasoned with salt and pepper to taste over high heat.  You can season the meat any way you’d like, however you would season it for making spaghetti sauce etc. (I added a little garlic powder for good measure).  Remove from pan and set aside.  You’ll need about a tablespoon of drippings in the pan to cook the onions and garlic, if you have any more than that you can discard it.  

Turn the heat down to medium high and add the onion, garlic and a pinch of salt.  Stir, scraping up any loosened bits for 3-5 minutes until the onions soften slightly.  

Add the tomatoes, reserving their juices in a measuring cup and adding enough water to make 2 1/2 cups and add that too.  Add a hefty pinch of salt for the pasta, the oregano and stir in the broken noodles.  Brink the pot to a simmer, cover and turn heat to low.  Continue to simmer the mixture of 20 minutes or until noodles are cooked.   

When the noodles are cooked through turn off the heat, adjust the seasoning, add the cooked beef and stir in the mozzarella cheese.  Dollop the ricotta over top by heaping tablespoonful, cover and let sit for 3 minutes.  

Serve and enjoy!  We ate this with a salad of baby spinach on the side.  I’ll be eating it for lunch tomorrow, I’m sure it will make good leftovers.  It makes at least enough for 4, but maybe 6 smallish portions served with a good salad and bread.  

Well I totally blew it already.  I was so wrapped up in the election returns that I alternately remembered and forgot and then ultimately went to bed without posting.  So much for everyday for the month of November.  In any event, things are good around these parts.  Ben was out of bed yesterday at 6am to make sure he was first in line to cast his vote.  I didn’t get to the polls until 12 hours later but I did my part too.  We were glued to our tv (and sadly the computer too) the whole night.  So much excitement and now anticipation oh what’s to come.  

I’ve just got word from a friend that used to live in the neighborhood that she’s opened a shop on etsy.  I’ve checked it out and her stuff is super cute.  I want to introduce you to her soon… like just in time for Christmas.  I can’t do it now though because I’m stupid tired and have to be at work again tomorrow at the crack of dawn.  I should really be in bed right now.  Work is good too.  I’m doing lots of stuff that sounds important, is new to me, but specially reserved for those of us waaaay at the bottom of the totem pole.  When I get home I throw around words like oral exam, confessed judgment and stipulation.  Ben likes it.  

About those anti foodie patty melts.  Another planless dinner.  I had ground turkey in the fridge as well as some fresh mozzarella.  I ran into Trader Joe’s and picked up some of the ricotta that Erin recommended (although I now realize that I forgot the frickin prosciutto.)  I was thinking I would make a quick skillet lasagne from cook’s illustrated but remembered that we had pasta last night.  Plan b?  Burgers!  But why oh why hadn’t I just thought of that in the first place and bought buns when I was at the market?  Plan c, patty melts, because I have toast bread (that’s what we call sandwich bread at our house).  I seasoned the meat simply and made large flatish patties.  When the patties were cooked through I removed them from the pan.  Then I buttered several slices of bread and put a slice of provolone on one half and a slice of cheddar on the other.  Then, and this is the real anti foodie part, I put a squirt of ketchup on the provolone and put the patty back in the middle.  Then I toasted the whole mess like a grilled cheese.  I served it with steamed broccoli (sans tiny green worms thank you very much) and french fries from the freezer.  Chase ate exactly one bite of turkey burger but the grown folks cleaned their plates.  

That’s my motto most of the time.  I’m on a big campaign to curb the amount of food that gets wasted around here.  It most often happens because I prefer to have a hot lunch of leftovers at work rather than a sandwich or other typical lunch foods.  Which is fine except I only work part time which means that more than half of the week I have to make enough leftovers for a second meal or suffer the consequences of the food going potentially uneaten.  The whole thing is complicated by the fact that Ben’s views on lunch are the exact opposite of mine (although lately his view is shifting).

As a side note, my other big problem is my failure to plan meals ahead.  I just can’t seem to get it done reliably.  It’s a big problem because it means that if I’m feeling too tired or harried that we end up eating out (like we did on Monday) or ordering in.  I like going out as much as the next person but it’s a treat I don’t like using it as a crutch.  

Which all leads me to tonight’s dinner.  Around 3 I started complaining to Erin that I had again forgotten to plan our dinner in advance.  I complained a little more and then I thought and thought and thought about it.  I ended up having to stop at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some reinforcements but I did manage to turn one and a half leftover pork chops into three servings and have it on the table in 20(ok, maybe 25) minutes.  A quick stroganoff is one of my go tos for using  up leftover meat.  It makes for a quick and satisfying meal.  Maybe one day I’ll write down a recipe but for now I’ll just tell you how it goes.  Maybe you’ll try it one day when you’re scrambling for dinner ideas.  

First I sliced a medium onion into half moons and browned them in a little olive oil over medium or medium high heat.  Next I cranked the heat to high and added a package of button mushrooms sliced and seasoned with salt and pepper.  While the mushrooms and onions were cooking I sliced the meat and tossed it into the pan to heat through.  Then I added a few dashes of worcestershire and a good tablespoonful of dijon mustard and stirred that in.  Next goes in about 1/4 cup of chicken broth.  I let the mixture bubble for a minute or two until I’m happy with the amount of sauce that’s left in the pan.  Turn of the heat, stir in a good dollop of sour cream and serve over egg noodles or rice.  

I defy you to take a picture of this dish that leaves your mouth watering but all the same it was hot and homemade and pretty dang tasty if I do say so myself.  What do you do with your leftovers?

So I had my computer back for exactly 24 hours before I had to turn it over for repair AGAIN.  There’s nothing wrong with the computer itself but it seems that when they replaced the RAM they destroyed the optical drive.  I’ve never heard a disk drive sound so sad.  Although this time I got smart and took it to a local authorized repair shop so I can avoid dealing with the dudes at store in Towson, now that’s genius.  So, I’m feeling so discouraged about it that I don’t really feel like writing a post.  I had lots of things that I wanted to write about and kept pushing them off until I got my computer back.  Now that it looks like it will be another week before that happens I’m taking advantage of the fact that Ben is out at some event thing or other and I can use his machine.  

I’ve been using the crockpot a lot lately although when Erin asked me what I’d made recently I could only think of two things.  I have turkey mole up there right now waiting for me to decide whether or not I’m hungry and I made a Cook’s Country recipe for sunday gravy that I caught on television last weekend.  I was pretty happy with the sauce.  I didn’t have sausage on hand so I made meatballs and cooked them before adding them to the pot.  They held up just fine over the long cooking time and I felt good that I hadn’t needed to buy any extra meat (you know, on top of the 75 lbs we brought home two weeks ago).  I’ve never actually seen the recipe itself so I can’t say this is it exactly as printed but it seemed to approximate what I saw on the show.  I subbed in some shoulder chops for the country style ribs too.  Oh, and yeah I only had skirt steak so I subbed that too.  But aside from changing all of the meats… 

I served pasta on the night I prepared the sauce and used the leftovers to make a yummy lasagne that served for two more dinners.  That was the center of my meal plan for the week I guess.  I also brined, spatchcocked and roasted a chicken that we had for dinner one night with… the name escapes me now for that orange colored cauliflower.  I prepared the turkey mole tonight but didn’t serve it for dinner because I ran away from the office early which through me off my game plan for starting dinner and I put it on an hour late.   

Good news though, I had those mini meatloaves in the freezer so dinnertime was saved.  It was something of a success I suppose.  She scraped off the mashed potatoes and ate the meat.  I just went upstairs and turned the pot off.  I tasted the turkey and the texture is right on.  I think the meat might do well to have a little added seasoning but I’m not to worried about it.  I see this recipe like the sunday gravy.  It was good over pasta but great in lasagne.  This will probably make an ok supper of turkey with rice and beans and a salad but I think it will make great tacos or burritos, among others, shredded and mixed with the sauce.  So I’m done with cooking for the week.  I can enjoy a whole day of not thinking about what to make for dinner before the cycle starts all over again.  Now, what I could really go for is a cookie.  A nice, fresh chocolate chip cookie.  That sounds so much better right now that turkey mole for one.  

Oh, and my fabric arrived today from Crafty Planet for making the book sample.  It has a directional print!  I’m a little psyched and a lot freaked out.

PS Ben just called from Ignite Baltimore and said it’s awesome.  I want to take part in informal festivity and merriment, this is total BS!

Really, I am.  I just got an email today informing me that the jumper I made for Chase a while back was selected for publication in this book!  I can hardly believe it and I’m so totally thrilled.  Law school really got me thinking about getting published somewhere.  I always thought it would be something accademic but this is much cooler.  So now I’m waiting for the fabric that’s been selected for the book sample.  I have to finalize the instructions and remake the jumper using that fabric.     

Oh, and I can post again because Ben hooked me up with a loaner computer until mine is back from the shop.  This thing is a beast!  We use it as a print server and… wait, I shouldn’t say anything bad about it lest it konk out on me too.  The point is I can check my email again and that makes me happy.

On the work front things are pretty good.  I’ve been tasked with a lot of lawyer type things to do lately.  I think I crossed that invisible threshhold that moves you from the new kid to co-worker.  Not a single thing changed between this week and last but all of a sudden I have lots of work to do, email to write calls to return.  A little down time is nice but it’s also good to feel like there’s a purpose behind schlepping your butt to work everyday.

I posted a while back about this quick little headband project I found on someone’s blog.  I can’t give credit where credit is due because I have no clue without my bookmarks where I found it.  It’s a cute project though and I’m going to make more.  It’s not the best picture but it takes about 100 years to upload a single photo so it’s abotu as good as it’s going to get for now.

From Project

I was also tagged by Kayris here, so without furtrher ado… Six Random Things

1) I have a bionic nose.  I can smell anything… anything from far, far away.  I used to have bionic ears too.

2) I don’t like candy and ice cream and I don’t like chocolate.  It’s not so much that I don’t like it.  I can eat a nice piece of dark chocolate or a scoop of vanilla every now and then but I’m a fruit desserts kind of a girl.  I’ll always pick lemon bars, apple pie or strawberry shortcake over any of the above mentioned items. 

3) I am so addicted to my morning coffee that if I don’t have it by 9 I’ll either a) kill you b) be too weak to kill you but really say really bitchy things c) be so weak that I can only yell bitchy things at you from a horizontal position.

4) After 8 years of higher education I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up and I secretly love being a student.

5) I have a lot of Indigo Girls CD’s… a lot.

6) I know the lyrics to almost every song on the radio.

I have a few more things to write about but there’s a bottle of Coke upstairs that’s calling me.  We can’t buy soda for this very reason.  If it’s here no one can rest until it’s gone.  Hopefully I’ll get to writing about this past week’s menu plan tomorrow and start thinking about one for next week.  MommyK, I’ve got some turkey on deck too… we need to brainstorm.

You’ve seen the new ad campaign right?  I think I take the position on HFCS that a lot of home cooks take which is simply that if I can’t procure HFCS to use an an ingredient as a home cook I’m going to be highly suspicious… highly.  But this isn’t really a post about HFCS, this is a post about snacks.  HFCS comes into play because the ones that ben likes to eat unfortunately contain it and Chase loves to have bites whenever she sees him eating one.  All of my feeble attempts to offer her a store bought substitute also failed so as a last resort I decided to try my own.  Not to mention that dad agreed to give up his faves if the experiment was any good. 

I used a lot of different sources for inspiration including this, this and this.  I used a little big of each of the recipes and the result was a success.  I think that next time I would mix a double batch because 2c of oats comes out looking kinda puny but the taste and texture was right on.  They kept perfectly well stored on the counter in a tupperware container.  

They flipped out nicely and in one piece.  I meant to take a picture of them cut… but I forgot.  It was almost too late but I got a shot of Chase nibbling on one. 

So they were good, the thing is now I have to make them… like all the time.  

I’ve been really thinking about menu planning.  Well, thinking about thinking about it.  It’s not something I do or something that I’ve ever done before but I can definitely see how putting in the time could really be beneficial.  I tried this week, I scrawled out some notes on a scrap of paper and called it a menu plan, if you can even call it a menu plan.

Here’s where I started.  We picked up some supplies at Costco this weekend and they had nice wild caught salmon so I bought some.  I also picked up a container of fresh buffalo mozzarella for no particular reason.  So really, this whole week was built around those two items.

On monday, I cut the filet into smaller steaks and prepared them with simple boiled potatoes and blanched peas.  There was a little of everything leftover so that’s where I started.  My plan looks something like this:

Tuesday: creamy pasta with salmon and peas.

Wednesday: pizza (theoretically using the mozzarella)

Thursday: chicken soup (from a frozen carcass tossed in the freezer before leaving for the wedding and whatever veg is on hand)

Friday: ?

Pretty good no?  I thought I would use the last of the bread dough in the fridge for the pizza but when they say use within 2 weeks they don’t mean 2 weeks and 3 days.  Oh, and I didn’t have any tomatoes or tomato sauce.  So, I had to improvise I superheated the oven with the pizza stone inside and spread some sun-dried tomato tapenade onto huge flour tortillas, topped with the cheese and popped them onto the pizza stone until the tortilla was crispy and the cheese was melted.  I made a nice little salad with some boston lettuce and  lemony vinaigrette and put it right on top of the crisp pizza.  Eat with fork and knife… and done.  I thought it was extremely tasty for 10 minutes of effort.  

The creamy salmon pasta was really good too and really easy.  I just sweated some onions in a little olive oil, tossed in a crushed clove of garlic and then added plenty of half and half with a splash of skim for good measure.  I simmered the cream while the pasta cooked, pulled the noodles out a minute or two early and finished them in the cream with the peas and salmon.  I cut the noodles up for Chase and she loved it, even ate the peas.  

Friday is still up in the air, maybe a certain someone will treat me to dinner out.. if I’m lucky.  Tomorrow: the unauthorized report of the day before Chelsea’s wedding (with pictures!). 

I hate writing posts without pictures so I’m recycling one from last week or the week before.  Don’t mind the smears ALL over the glass.  Chase and Ben both think that putting your hands and face on the glass is a fun and worthwhile way to pass time.  Right now I’m trying not to freak out about our decision to drive to Ottawa this week rather than to fly.  We have never, ever taken such a long road trip with Chase.  Just driving to Target has become hit or miss so I’m really not looking forward to it.  I tried to drown my fears at Amazon.com but I’m still feeling really uneasy about the whole thing.  We’ve got a portable dvd player and leappad that I didn’t really want on the way.  Instead of playing with them she’ll probably use them to hurl at my head in an attempt to express her displeasure while I ask a gazillion questions about what’s wrong and what she might be needing.  Any advice?

This weekend was pretty busy.  I spent a lot of time in the kitchen in spite of the fact that I had some kind of whacky back injury.  I made a batch of apple sauce for freezing straight away after our trip to the farmer’s market on Saturday.  Today I made a batch of hot pepper jelly with the jalapenos from my crazy prolific plant out back.  I picked almost a pound of peppers off the single plant.  It takes a lot of jalapenos to make a pound.  Most of the had turned red already and the recipe calls for two red bell peppers so it has a really nice red-orange color to it.  I’ve never tried it before but it’s supposed to be good with cream cheese on crackers.  

For dinner I made mac and cheese, salad and this bread (with olive oil for dipping, mmm) so that will be dinner for at least one more night.  That only leaves two nights to account for.  One of those will be chicken wings and we’ll probably just do take out on Wednesday night.  I am still really wanting to get into menu planning like here.  I’ve never been able to do it but I took a book out from the library last week that had some good ideas that I think I will try to use, take a few baby steps you know?

Oh, and I picked up a knitting project that I started a year ago  Maybe I’ll finish it before it gets warm again. 

This was a piss-poor recap of the weekend considering that I haven’t posted in ages BUT I’m charging the battery for my camera as we speak.  I’ll do a better job tomorrow.  

This could very well be the single most money-saving post ever for us hairy gals.  I remembered my mother having a friend that made a homemade wax concoction for waxing legs.  This is the information age right?  You bet, everything you need to know about the home hair removal process called sugaring is right there at the tip of your fingers… I mean fingertips, honestly, who writes like that?  

If you Google sugaring you’ll get lots of hits but this page has some good tips.  I had to make it twice before getting it right.  I think that the key, like this person says, is to not let it boil too hard.  I got impatient the first time and cranked the heat and it was hot, like molten hot right up until the time it turned rock hard and unusable.  I didn’t end up using a thermometer so you can do this without it.  The one I have ended up going off way before the mixture even started to color so I knew it was off.  I did use a glass of water to see if the sugar would hold together when dropped in.  If you search sugaring on youtube you’ll find yet more info about it.  It will look about like this:

It totally worked and I am happy to have 42 more bucks in my pocket every month.  I didn’t even wax my eyebrows off.  

My second sugary topic is about jam.  We went back to Shaw’s and picked blueberries and cherries.  You HAVE to make this jam.  This jam is out of this world.  I found it poking around the internet for recipes.  It really delivers.  I increased the lemon juice by a tablespoon and decreased the vinegar accordingly.  Obviously I didn’t use frozen berries and it didn’t make a difference.  Now for all the cherries.  The trees were just dripping with fruit.  They were so easy to pick that even Chase filled a bucket.  You just put your hands up into the leaves and you would come back with a handful of ripe red cherries.  It was my first time picking cherries but by far the easiest of the fruits we’ve tried recently and by far the most fun.. you know, cause you can get dad up on a ladder.    That’s always good for a few laughs.  

I did proper canning this time but I did make one serving for immediate consumption.  I was sitting around last night complaining that my back was sore, that I felt bruised and then later realized that my underwear was too tight.  So tight that it made my back hurt?  You think it’s because I ate almost a whole loaf of bread slathered in jam?  It was worth it!

A belated happy father’s day to all.  What can I say?  I know it’s Tuesday but in in my defense I thought it was Monday all day to the point where I found myself standing in the Red Canoe asking what happened to story time.  The weekend as uneventful and quiet, perfect for us homebodies.  On Saturday we visited Shaw Orchards to to pick your own strawberries.  Doing some quick research I found that there is a pick your own that’s closer but the Shaw website promised a tractor ride and they did not disappoint.  The tractor ride was THE highlight of the day for Chase.  I picked a flat of strawberries which is way too many for the three of us.  I made one batch of freezer jam and since I don’t have any other bright ideas it looks like another batch of freezer jam it is assuming that I can find enough containers.  Somewhere in here a case of canning jars is hiding and laughing at me.  Here are a couple of pics from the day.  

It took us about an hour to get there but it was a straight shot from the city and very scenic once we turned exited off of 83.  We plan on going back to cherries, blackberries and blueberries as soon as they are ready, which they promise will be soon.  

I did some checking in the garden today and everything seems to be in full swing!  There are tiny little veggies on all the plants.  I can’t wait to eat a tomato.  I’m lying, I can’t wait to eat a BLT.  I bought about 10 pounds of bacon on Sunday in preparation.