Pasta, Whiners, Vampires and Jesus

What more could you want from a post? Finally. I am back to doing this. I was afraid it would be another in a long line of half-ass projects I start but never complete. Not yet, at least. I am not ready to add it to my Charleston houses on the Battery cross-stitch, my knitting (bought some stuff, never learned), scrapbooking (have made very slow progress), sewing (not totally my fault, I gave back a borrowed sewing machine, thanks Mom, and have yet to learn on my new one so I guess my fault, damn), and that is all I can think of right now. Give me an hour in my "office" and I'll bet I can come up with more. This time I have good friends giving a heaping dose of "Get off your ass!" so here we are.

Lots to catch up on, but first a simple, yummy recipe for my friend who gave me the "Get off your ass and blog!" nudge today. Mexican Lasagna. This actually came from the best next-door neighbor ever.

1 jar spaghetti sauce (although if you like it saucy, and you know who you are, use 1 1/2 jars)

1 lb ground beef (or you could use ground turkey or ground chicken)

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

4 1/2 tsp chili powder

6 (8 1/2 inch) flour tortillas or the no-need to cook lasagna noodles in a box

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 can black beans

1 can pinto beans (optional, or you totally could just use different beans and leave out the meat for a veggie version. On that note, if you are a huge veggie fan, you could add a can of diced tomatoes or any other veg that strikes your fancy.)

1 can of refried beans (if you use these, then I would recommend adding them as an additional layer between the noodles and sauce mixture.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set aside 1 cup of pasta sauce. Brown meat, then drain. Stir in remaining pasta sauce, corn, chili powder and beans.

Spread 1/2 cup of pasta sauce in the bottom of a 13x9 pan. Put down the tortilla shells or pasta noodles, but not too harsh. Heh. Layer half the sauce/meat/veg mixture then 1/3 of the cheese. More noodles, then the rest of the sauce/meat/veg mixture, another layer of cheese, another of noodles, the remaining 1/2 cup of sauce (or more if you have it). Bake for 30 minutes then top with remaining cheese and bake another 10 minutes or until sauce is bubbly and cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

Ok, since I last posted I have read this:

So I was warned that this was not a feel good book. In fact those who recommended it to me said that pretty much everyone in the book is miserable but it was good so I should read it anyway. SPOILER! Stop reading RIGHT NOW if you do not want to know stuff that happens even though I am not going into too much detail. This book broke both of my rules on books - so something bad happens to a kid and a dog. I begrudgingly admit that both were sort of central to the characters, but c'mon. The best part of this book was the unexpected motivation it gave me to get off my butt and do some stuff. Almost all of the characters in the book were whiny little babies about their situation but no one ever did anything about it. Hate your job? Start looking for another one! Even if it takes a while, at least you can say you are doing something about it! So instead of sitting around bitching and moaning about stuff I want to change, I have made small changes here and there and feel pretty good about it. There is only so much one can do with a toddler and a baby, so small changes are good.

and this:

Ok, I love Meg Cabot. Her adult fiction and young adult fiction. But this one? I am wondering if she had some sort of you-have-to-write-a-vampire-novel clause in her contract. The main character was just meh. And she was a crap dog owner. A couple of the supporting characters were good but overall not her best work. I will keep reading her as long as she does not do a sequel to this one.

and am currently re-reading this:

This is by far one of the funniest books I have ever read. Some may be all "oh no! That is sacrilegious!" and to them I say "Have you read it?" To which most would reply "No." Then I would say "Well, my Momz was raised Baptist and is still very much the Christian and she read it and enjoyed it, so there!" And I would probably stick my tongue out Nellie Olson style. The only bad part about this book, and it is not even bad at all, is that it makes me want to put down the other books I have in line to be read and read his other books. And put aside everything I need to do and become a famous author so I can make lots of people laugh, but I will wait since I have Bill Bryson's "At Home" and am doing my one classic novel a month with "Jane Eyre." So I probably should be off to do that. Maybe something funny will happen to Jane? At least it will in my head.

The Fast and the Furious

I was a little ambitious when it came to cooking today. Ambitious then lazy. I have been wanting to try my hand at homemade butternut squash soup. I bought some cut up squash a couple of days ago with that "buy-me-now-before-I-go-bad-and-save-$2-and-risk-ecoli-poisoning" sticker on it for a little incentive. I started the process around lunch which was probably about 2 1/2 hours before the squash started growing limbs. After a delay of game (I realized I did not have enough chicken broth so made a mad dash to Trader Joe's where I ran in to get chicken broth and came out with two double bagged bags of yummies and drinkies because if you go to Trader Joe's you HAVE to buy wine. Seriously, it is a law) I finally cooked up the soup and ended up puree-ing the very soul out of my blender. Well, not so much the soul as the "coupling." I finished it off with a food processor and it turned out not disgusting. I would not go so far as to say "really good" but "passable" would be a good description. I think I mucked up the squash somehow so I am going to try again. So here's that recipe from foodnetwork.com which I cannot seem to copy and paste and do not feel like retyping at this point so I will link it:

http://http//www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/butternut-squash-soup-recipe/index.html

Then I decided that I cannot possibly decorate the tree without homemade cookies and eggnog. So I ended up making four tons of Drop Sugar Cookies. I love sugar cookies but hate, hate, hate, hate, hate rolling out dough so this recipe seemed like something I should try. Sadly I do not have a link so I will power forward and share:

Drop Sugar Cookies

6 cups all purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 1/4 cups butter softened (4 1/2 sticks)

3 cups of sugar

3 eggs

9 tablespoons of milk

6 tablespoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In medium/large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt until blended.


2. In large bowl with mixer at medium-low speed, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add eggs, milk and vanilla; beat until well blended. Reduce speed to low; beat in flour mixture just until blended.


3. Drop by rounded measuring tablespoons (I used a regular spoon) 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.


4. Bake until edges are browned, about 13 minutes. Transfer to wire cooling rack to cool completely.

I ended up freezing most of them but may need to borrow my neighbor's freezer if I need some ice. It made a lot of cookies. A lot. You can also add other stuff to the dough like chopped nuts, mini chocolate chips, or lemon zest/peel/juice. I would post a picture but they are asthetically boring to the eye even though they are yummy.

Soup's done. Cookies are done and now people have the nerve to ask me what is for dinner! Soup and cookies, that's what! Nah, the boy will not eat soup and as relaxed as I have been about his eating lately, I cannot justify cookies for dinner for a toddler. Not on a Friday.

While I was at Trader Joe's they were sampling this:

With this:

So that and a salad made up the very late dinner. Pretty good and you should totally check it out! That is if you have a Trader Joe's near you. And you are not a vegetarian.