La La LASAGNA!

This weekend Alex and I had a few friends come to stay. I love to cook and wanted to make something delicious, but I did not want to slave away in the kitchen all afternoon in order to prepare dinner. Lasagna sounded good. It is easy enough to make, and if you use no-boil noodles, there is very little prep time required of you. So lasagna it was. My friend Michelle whipped up a Jello No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake while I assembled the lasagna.

Michelle and I ran to the grocery store to get the ingredients we needed, while the guys watched the kids and the results of the SC primary. Things were running smoothly, by my calculations, dinner would be ready just in time for the little girls to fill their bellies before heading off to bed. I had browned my meat and was beginning to assemble my lasagna when I realized that I only had FOUR lasagna noodles. FOUR. That was it. So I quickly made the girls peanut butter sandwiches (sorry girls!) and ran back to the store to get more noodles. Things didn’t go according to plan, but everything turned out perfectly in the end. While the lasagna was cooking; Michelle and I gave the girls a bath and put them in bed. This allowed the adults to have dinner in peace and quiet. It was a great weekend. Good food, good friends and a great time.

LASAGNA

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground Italian sausage
1 T olive oil
2 jars of your favorite spaghetti sauce
1 package Barilla no-boil lasagna noodles
15 oz ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese
4 c mozzarella cheese
salt/pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Brown beef and sausage in olive oil, until cooked through. Make sure to break meat apart while cooking. Drain off excess fat once meat is cooked through. Combine egg, ricotta, 2c mozzarella, Parmesan cheese and salt/pepper together. Grease a 9×13 in. pan. Pour 1c sauce on bottom. Layer 4 lasagna noodles on bottom. Put 1/3 cheese mixture down on top of noodles. Next place 1/3 meat mixture, followed by 1/2c mozzarella cheese. Cover with 1-1 1/2 c sauce. Repeat process twice. Once you get to the last layer, place 4 lasagna noodles on top, cover with the last of the sauce, followed by last of the mozzarella cheese. Cover and bake for 45-50 minutes. Uncover and bake for 10 more minutes.

Giant Crunchy Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

Sasha all bundled up.

It has been extremely cold here in Iowa. We have received about 10 inches or more of snow in the last five days. This morning when I woke up it was -17 and with the wind chill it felt like -30. BRR that is really cold. Needless to say, Marley does not enjoy going outside when it is that cold. When he is outside he does his business and he does it fast. I have been cooking all the comfort foods this week. Including Chicken Noodle Soup and Chunky Potato Soup (I will include those recipes in a separate post).

On Monday I felt like turning on my oven and do some cookie baking. I came across this eggless cookie recipe on Patricia’s website. However she calls her cookies Chocolate Chip Whoppers. You need to use both your hands to eat these cookies! I added crushed pecans to my cookie dough. My cookies came out EXTREMELY crunchy, so I changed the name. I may have accidentally left out a cup of flour, which could have caused the cookies to become so crunchy. I will try to make these cookies again and see if the result is the same. Alex and Sasha love these cookies, and that makes me happy. In fact, Sasha has become a pro at saying “Cookie. Please.”

Giant Crunchy Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

2 c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
1 c unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly–I used salted butter and omitted the tsp salt
1 c sugar
½ c packed dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 T water
12 oz semisweet chocolate chips –I used milk chocolate chips
1 c crushed pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and place rack in the middle of the over. Mix flour, soda and salt together. In separate bowl cream butter and vanilla with sugars. Add the flour mixture, mixing just until incorporated. The dough will look crumbly. Mix in the water. The dough will become soft and smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips and pecans.

Using 1/4 c measuring cup, scoop dough onto baking sheet and smoosh until 3/4 in. thick. Place cookies at least 3 in. apart. Bake for 15 minutes, or until tops are browned with a few cracks.

Makes about 16 giant cookies.

Red Wine-Braised Chuck Roast Photos

I have to apologize for the low quality of these photos. I did not decide to blog about this dinner until after we ate it. You have to give me a break, I am new at this blogging stuff. From now on I will take more photos while I am cooking!

If you want to check out great food photography visit one of my favorite blogs, www.pinchmysalt.com Nicole does a fabulous job taking photos of her food. Hopefully, I will get the hang of this, and my photos will turn out artsy like hers.

Creamy Parmesan Thyme Polenta

What was left of our chuck roast

The red wine braising liquid