Lasagna!

Tonight we'll be having lasagna. It's a recipe that I've adapted to my own tastes from a Reader's Digest cookbook. (It really only has faint traces of the original...as in the lemon juice!)I love it, and I always make a huge pan so that we can eat it for the rest of the week.

This is my recipe (I modify almost everything I make!)
sauce:
2 cans tomato sauce
1 small can tomato paste
lemon juice(2 Tbsps or so...)
1 container cottage cheese
1 egg (for binder)
1 c ricotta
1/2 c parmesan (Sometimes I don't bother with the ricotta or parmesan...I tend to save those for company!)

Saute:
garlic (at least 3 cloves)
1 large spanish onion

Add:
2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms, saute until release juices
1 cup pepper (any colour!)
1 med zucchini (chopped)
carrots
green beans
squash.....basically chop any veggies that you like and add them!

Top with 3(at least) cups fresh spinach, cover and simmer until wilted (couple of minutes at most)-can use frozen though, and then just heat through!

Then, just layer! I add grated cheese to the top of every layer of sauce. Bake @ 350 for 1 hour.

pancakes

While I was surfing for zucchini recipes I stumbled across recipezaar.com. I got caught up in delicious-sounding pumpkin pancake recipes, and I finally decided to try Kree's recipe. It looks delicious, and I think I'll make them tomorrow. I just have to convince dh that it's worth a trip to the store to get the pumpkin!
We haven't carved our pumpkin yet, or else it wouldn't be a problem.

Meatloaf

Tonight was meatloaf night. Not vastly exciting to most, but my dc love it. Tonight I decided to
try something new, and made an apple-ground chicken meatloaf. It turned out great, so I thought I'd share my recipe.

1 pkg. ground chicken
3 slices of bread, cubed
1 egg
1 grated apple
1/2 small onion
1/4 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Mix well, put in pan and bake for 45 min. at 350.

Now I need to surf and find a good recipe for the zucchini I bought today. I'll only need half of it for my veggie lasagna, so I'm thinking muffins or cookies....

Link

I've been sooo unproductive! But, this is fun!

learned something new!

Well, I've been spending a lot of time at this site, checking out all of the great recipes. The CM author had a great idea for candycorn pizza that I'll be trying out tomorrow at our gym meeting. It's cute, easy, and something that the kids will love. It's pizza!
This is the week that our halloween costumes have to be done, so of course my sewing machine broke last night. I've been working at dd's dress by hand. Ds might have to buy a costume this year....poor kid. Hopefully he takes it well- it was hard for him to make up his mind what to be this year, and now it might have to be something different.
As you may have noticed, I've learned how to link. (Well, hopefully this works!) It took me a while just to find the page that explains it, so I don't really want to start all over again.
Off to bake a cake!

longer days

Well, I've been getting up earlier for the past couple of months. I'm usualy ready for the day by 7:30. So, why can't I get more free time? It seems the earlier I get up, the more I have to do! Not that I'm over-working or anything, that's not likely. But between housework, school work, play time for the kids, cooking and baking, outings and exercising, I don't have that much time for other things. Such as reading. Never has it taken me so long to read a book! I believe that I've been reading the same book for three weeks now!
Of course, there are also Halloween costumes to make, and quilts that I have yet to finish, and so on and on and on.....so why am I not getting anything new worked on? I have a couple of extra hours every day, and yet there it all sits.
Of course, I do still spend an hour or so online every day, catching up on e-mails and checking out hsing boards. But I have always done those things! Somehow I seem to have lost time by trying to gain it.
Ah well, the house is cleaner, the kids are progressing through the school year, and dh is well fed. I guess now that I have the time, I just need to work on time-management!

Pictures

Well, I've been hanging around other blogger's sites, and I guess that I need pictures on here! I only have the camera on my computer or my cell phone, so it may be an awkward process! Of course, playing with the settings on the computer is fun...like the image above. Not the best photo, but I had fun putting the picture through all sorts of contortions before I chose this one. Hmmm...I look sort of sad or frightened in this pic! Huh. Oh well, at least it worked! Now to figure out the whole HTML part of this thing!

caffeine free

Today I found myself near tears while trying to teach my dd to read. Not that she was doing badly or anything, I was just sooo emotional and frustrated! Then I realised that this is my second day caffeine free (almost).
It's painful! Yesterday my head ached and I felt nauseas, and I was in a terrible mood! Today, although I feel fine and I haven't had a head ache yet, my mood hasn't improved much. This when I'm still having one caffeinated drink a day! Maybe next week, when I drop it all, I'll just sleep for a week. That way I don't have to worry about traumatizing the children! As it is, I went to bed at 7:30 last night. So sad!

New day, new stuff!

I'm really just writing a quick note here to try out our new computer. I no longer have the itallics choice- hmmm...have to look into that! It's funny how quickly things change. A month ago, I never would have thought about replacing our old computer, but there it is, on the floor. Most things seem to go that way for us- we just go along, and suddenly something changes; sometimes so quickly that we don't even see it coming.
Dh had thought that his trip to Pakistan was kaput, and then this week he met a man who's working on another dig there, who just offered to take dh along! So, now we may not get home for Christmas (which will save a lot of money). Plus, dh will be gone for three or four months. We'll roll with whatever comes, but sometimes change takes me by surprise!
Probably everyone deals with this at times, but tonight it seems pretty huge to me!

too late!

I am awake, and it is far too late. It's now 3:55am! Oh well. Sitting here at the computer is way better than laying in bed wishing I wasn't awake.
Tomorrow (today?) is Thanksgiving- well, maybe that's Monday, but today we will be celebrating it. I am not making much from scratch. That's just not like me! I tend to not take the 'easy' way out when it comes to cooking....
Oh well! Maybe I'll stay in bed until lunch to make up for tonight.(As if!)LOL!