Sausage Lasagna

Image & Recipe courtesy of Johnsonville.com

12 lasagna noodles, cooked

1 pkg. (16 oz.) Italian Ground Sausage

1 medium onion, chopped

1 Tbsp. garlic, chopped

1 container of chunky pasta sauce

1 container (15. oz.) Ricotta cheese

1 egg

2 cups shredded Italian cheeses

3 cups fresh spinach, chopped and packed

Prepare noodles according to package directions; drain and set aside.

Sauté Italian sausage, onion and garlic in a skillet until sausage is browned; drain.

Add pasta sauce to the sausage mixture and set aside.

In a medium bowl, blend ricotta cheese, egg and 1/2 cup of Italian cheese and set aside.

Coat a 9 x 13 baking dish with non-stick spray and spread 1 cup of the sauce mixture on the bottom.

Top with 3 lasagna noodles.

Spread ¼ cup of the ricotta cheese mixture on the noodles and layer on 1 cup of the sauce mixture.

Sprinkle 1 cup of the spinach and ½ cup mozzarella cheese.

Repeat this whole process 3 more times starting with the noodles; top with remaining shredded cheese to finish.

Bake uncovered in a 350°F oven for 45 minutes until hot and bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

My substitutions:
I use a 9 x 9 inch pan because I don't think there is enough sausage for the larger size. I would get two packages of meat in you need more servings. I use about 8 noodles and half a container of pasta sauce for the smaller size. A 9 x 9 pan yields 6 generous sized portions.

Find the original recipe here.

Kitchen Time Savers

Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches -
Did you know you can freeze peanut butter & jelly sandwiches? I make a big stack on the weekend & freeze them. You can pop them into a lunch box, and they are ready to eat by lunchtime! You can set them out on the counter an hour before lunch and they will be ready. You can do the same thing with meat & cheese sandwiches, but I don't add any vegetables or condiments until after it is defrosted. It makes making school lunches so fast!

Onions -

I hate chopping onion. I dread anything that makes me cry. Instead of chopping them every week, I buy them in bulk, and finely chop them with my food processor. That way I tear up less often, and it makes cooking faster on busy nights. I've tried several different techniques for freezing, and this works the best.

These two containers hold 4 medium sized finely chopped onions.

1 cube = 1 oz.

2 cubes = 1/4 cup

4 cubes = 1/2 cup

7-8 cubes = 1 onion

(these measurements are the same for broth recipes below)

Once frozen, keep them in a ziploc bag in the freezer.

Anytime you need to onion in your cooked recipe, just toss them in! Easy!

Chicken/Vegetable broth:

This is not so much a time saver as a money saver.

Chicken Broth: Reserve your broth from cooking chicken by placing a colander over a glass bowl. Line the colander with a folded napkin. Slowly pour the broth into the colander. (Go slow, or it will pour out the sides of the colander, instead of just the center.) The napkin will strain the broth for you. After it collects & cools in the bowl you can pour it into ice trays and freeze.

Vegetable Broth: Use any of your vegetable peelings and boil with water on the stove top. I made a small 4 cup portion (equivalent to two cans of store bought broth.) I used a lot of I use celery, carrots, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, & parsley flakes vegetable peelings, and just covered them with water. You can use the scraps & peels because they have a lot of nutrients, and they won't be in the final broth. I boiled it for 15 - 20 minutes and then strained in a colander lined with a napkin. You can keep your peelings in a bag in the freezer until you have enough to make a broth.

Click here for some other suggestions.

Double Potato Soup

Double Potato Soup

From Fly Lady

Serves 6

2 sweet potatoes -- peeled and cubed
2 russet potatoes -- peeled and cubed
2 onions -- chopped
3 cloves garlic -- pressed
1 teaspoon thyme
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 cans vegatable broth or chicken broth
2 cups half and half
salt and pepper -- to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil

Peel & chop 2 sweet potatoes & 2 russet potatoes.

(Time Saver: Peel & Chop potatoes. Cover with cold water to prevent

browning, and refrigerate up to 24 hours)

Chop onion. Recipe calls for 2 onions, I usually just do 1.

Heat olive oil, and cook onion until translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add Potato, cayenne pepper, thyme, salt & pepper, & broth and bring to a boil.

(I make my own broth and freeze it in ice cube trays.)

You can use 2 cans of vegetable or chicken broth.

Reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes until potatoes are soft.

Use a potato masher to mash the potatoes.

Add 16 oz. of half and half.

Mix in the half and half. Heat to warm. Do not boil or it will break.

Your soup will be lighter & a thinner consistency than this. I missed the last picture.

Semi-homemade Tartar Sauce

Tartar Sauce

1 cup miracle whip (or your favorite mayo)

1/4 cup sweet relish

1 tsp dill

1 tsp lemon juice

I usually don't measure the ingredients all out, instead I just plop them in a bowl until it looks about right. I add more if it needs. Just to give you a starting point I've added some measurements.

This is best if you can make it earlier in the day as the flavors will mix together better. (Store in fridge in a covered container.) I almost always forget and end up mixing it up while I'm preparing dinner.

One time I added some very finely diced onion to the mix for added flavor. It was tasty, but I only do that if I already have onion ready because usually this is an easier dinner night for me.

This tastes so much better than the store bought stuff that I never buy it anymore. Plus, it's really easy!

What's for Dinner

This week's dinners are a bunch of repeats:

Sunday: Chicken & Dumplings

Monday: Double Potato Soup & Home Made Bread

Tuesday: Kraft Zesty Spaghetti & Salad

Wednesday: Crockpot Black Beans, Krusteaz Honey Cornbread, Rice

Thursday: Fish Sticks, Macaroni & Cheese semi-homemade tartar sauce.

Dessert of the week: Mammaw Dordie's Carrot Cake

Day 4, No school

We are in Texas, with it's characteristically
mild winters, what the heck?!

We are entering day 4 of no school due to icy weather. Noooooooo, say it isn't so!

This may be the end of me.

They don't seem to mind though!

Honey Wheat Bread

I've been wanting to make a loaf of homemade bread for a long time, just because I had never tackled that before. I found this recipe and it's super easy for starters like me. I liked that it wasn't complicated and consisted of things I normally have on hand.

You can find the original recipe here. This recipe bakes up two loafs.

I modified the recipe to be one loaf, in case it tasted like a fart, but it didn't. It was awesome. Here's my modifications.

1 cup warm water (110 degrees F)

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast (about 2/3 a packet)

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 tbsp. honey

2 1/2 tbsp. vegetable oil

2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour.

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl (use your kitchen aid bowl if you have one) dissolve yeast in warm water. Add honey, and stir well. Mix in whole wheat flour, salt, and vegetable oil. Work all-purpose flour in gradually. I stirred by hand until I couldn't get any more flour to mix in, then switched to my mixer with a bread hook. (The dough was a little smelly to me at this stage.)

2. Set to mix, with bread hook, at speed 2. Let it mix for about 10-15 minutes. Do not exceed speed 2. If you don't have a mixer with a bread hook, keep mixing & kneading with your hands for 10-15 minutes.

3. Start checking the dough for the "yeast window' at about 10 minutes. Grab a walnut sized chunk off your dough. Roll dough in a ball and then stretch the dough out like you are stretching a piece of bubble gum. Your dough should not pull apart or make holes easily, and should stretch leaving an almost transparent window. If it tears in the middle, leave it to mix/knead a few more minutes. Mine took 15 minutes to be ready.

4. When dough is smooth & elastic, place it in a well oiled bowl. Turn it several times in the bowl to coat the surface of the dough. Cover it with a warm damp cloth. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 45 minutes. (Some suggestions I read said, heat your oven to 170 degrees, then turn off. Place bowl & towel in oven to rise. Another person suggested running your dryer to heat it up, remove the clothes, and then put your bread in the dryer to rise. Just don't turn the dryer back on!)

5. Stick two fingers, up to your second knuckle in your dough. When you remove your fingers if the holes stay in the dough, it's ready for it's beat down. (My bread got a little bigger, but hadn't really doubled. It seemed ready by this standard, so I moved forward.)

6. Punch down the dough. Shape into loaf, and place into a well greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Allow to rise until dough is 1 to 1 1/2 inches above the pan. (It took my bread 1 1/2 hours to rise in a warm oven, and it never got as tall as the top of the pan. After all that time, I was ready to bake this up.)

7. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.

8. I put butter on the top right out of the oven, while it was still in the pan. Ideally, if you can wait that long, you should cool your bread in the pan, on a rack, for at least 20 minutes so it can continue to finish cooking.

Drawing Pirate Ships

We are on day 3 of a Texas ice day. Schools are closed and we've been indoors for way too long.

I modified this drawing book directions for drawing a pirate ship. For the resource artists out there, I've included a step by step instructions in case you want to do this at home. If you are in Texas, you might just need an activity to do with your kids.

Keep in mind this was geared to my six year old, so if you have older kids you can really go crazy on the details.

step 1: draw a water line near the bottom of the page.

Step 2: draw a short curved line for the front of your ship, and a short

straight line for the back of your ship.

Step 3: Draw a straight line connecting the sides of your ship.

Step 4: Draw lines for the wood of the sides of your ship.

Step 5: Draw some short floating straight lines.

Step 6: Draw some curved lines creating a some what rectangular shape.

Step 7: Draw a 2nd set of curved rectangles on top of the first.

Step 8: Draw a straight line up from the middle of your ship.

Step 9: (not sure how this got turned, but go with it)

Draw two short horizontal lines 1/3 and 2/3 up your center line.

Step 9: Draw in some simple sails on your mast.

Step 10: Add some short curved lines at the top of your sails

to connect them to your poles.

Step 11: Add a crow's nest above your sails.

Step 12: Add some detail to your crow's nest.

Step 13: Draw a flag. Start with a curved rectangle.

Step 14: Continue the flag by drawing a second rectangle shape to the side

& just below the first rectangle. Leave the right side open.

Step 15: Continue the flag by connecting the two rectangles with a slanted line,

and a sideways "V" shape for the edge of the flag.

Step 16: Make the lines of your masts thicker.

Step 17: Color the mast in, if desired.

Step 18: Add a bowsprit with a sail.

Step 19: Add details & designs to the rest of your ship.

Step 20: Add additional masts & sails to your boat.