Food

Well all this nice weather makes me want to be super productive (and apparently super hungry)

batter for raspberry muffins

fruit bread

plum + nectarine cake

raw kale

kale chips

mushroom 

lasagna sans ricotta

So, I had this craving for lasagna but not the kind that I normally make; the kind that my mom used to make.
I called her up apparently the secret to her cheesy delicious gooeyness is..... (drumroll please)

White American cheese.  ---yeah, as in the singles that go on your sandwich and have way too much packaging.   Mind you my mom has lived in Rome and speaks Italian.  

And since Mozzeralla is not my favorite ---what it doesn't make your mild lactose intolerance-which you got from drinking a entire half gallon of milk in one setting- seem very severe.  No, just me.  Meh *shrug*


So, I fuzzed my taste with hers and here's what I came up with.

~~~Also, bump sliced bread, oven ready noodles are AMAZING.  Saves on space, 2nd degree hand burns, and more broken noodles than the (happy) beast can eat.  ~~~

What you'll need

1 or 2 jars of pasta sauce (with mushrooms)
Fresh spinach
1 bunch of green onions
package of white american singles
some Parmesan
1 package of provolone cheese
1 package of oven ready noodles
3 oz. (minimum of prosciutto)



1. slice the green onions ans sautée with the spinach.  Pour sauce into pan.

Layer the noodles and cover with some sauce

Cheese 1

Cheese 2

Prosciutto

Repeat this.

Top the noodles with sauce and then with Parmesan. 

It was delicious, cheezy goodness.  and fantastic leftovers :)

-Nique

Day 12

Made some delicious orange-cranberry muffins for breakfast.  And successfully BAKED up some bacon.  It's pretty delicious and takes up way less time and burns than the fry method.  

Thank goodness for Tums, cuz the fella made this delicious meatiness.  

Meat aches did ensue but were well worth it. 

However with celery as the only vegetable, I really think I'm making negative progress on the whole salad thing. 

love the color of a smoldering fire

-Nique

Day 7

Today we had delicious venison and beef burgers.  They were so good.   The fella hunted a deer this past December and ground up some of the meat.

So while is cut up some tasty veggies the fella made and seasoned the burgers with some cayenne, garlic powder, pepper, and nature's seasoning--it's a seasoning mixture, I'd never heard of it before meeting him.  He added beef because venison is just so lean-it helps to keep the burgers together.  Ground pork is also a good option, so I'm told.

We ate them with toasted buns and some crinkled sweet potato fries ( I really wish fries could stay warm longer or just taste good cold) 

We made a few extra and they've made really good leftovers. (that taste good cold)

Do veggies on a burger count as salad???

 So between Day 6's inedible pasta and delicious banana bread, I'm at 0 for the year and the Fella has 1.5.  

-Nique

Day 6

So, school's back in session and it's been some the coldest days of the year here in FL. It's pretty entertaining to see undergrads in their lack of preparation/need to show skin.

But I did have a great time heating my place with my oven.
I made some banana bread based on this banana bread.  Only I didn't follow the directions.
I used splenda ( I somehow ran out of regular sugar) and added an extra 1/4 cup.
I used extremely rip bananas-like the kind that mash with almost not effort.  And excluded the walnuts.  I had no desire to take out my stand mixer so I fudged the directions so that I could manage without having to use my other hand for anything but holding the bowl.  So I mixed all of the ingredients- making sure to crack the eggs in a colored bowl to make sure that I could see any shell flakes.  Also, I used sea salt (because I also ran out of that), I've done it in waffles before; surprisingly, it does not effect the flavor/texture of things.   (I know that Alton wouldn't approve, but meh. ) While I was doing that, I melted the butter- in a mug in a skillet on the stove (sadly I do not have a microwave).  After mixing everything together, I added the melted butter and mixed everything for a few minutes to make sure the flour was well incorporated.  I would maybe cook it for 5-10 minutes less than indicated, as mine had quite a thick layer of crust on it.  --The fella really liked it, and I had some with chocolate ice cream :).  Well at least I can now officially say that I've made banana bread.
While the bread was in the oven.  I made some delicious jasmine tea... And some one pot pasta. So this was definitely one of those things I'd never heard of until Pinterest.  I used this as a general outline.  I did not follow directions since I like crispier veggies in something like this.   After letting the pasta cook, we strained it and I added some bell peppers in the pasta so they could cook some.  After a few minutes I added the spinach and tomatoes so the spinach could soften some.  For plating I added the mozzarella and avocado.  I know that this might sound like a strange combo, but really, it was a good mix.  ( I may or may not have added to much cayenne making the pasta mostly inedible-but the rest was very good).

All in all, it took about an hour to get all this done, which was great, seeing as I have this problem with taking on way too much .

Hmmmm, maybe I should actually whip out my camera camera for things like this.

-Nique