Memorial Day Coffee Drinks

Daughter started her day with some Aldi Kids Crunch, their version of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. Around 10 (it is a holiday after all), husband made scrambled egg wraps and flea shampoo potatoes. The recipe for flea shampoo potatoes (named after the smell) can be located under Eileen Breslin in the links below. It's one of her recipes from her vegan cooking course at Northampton Community College.

For dinner, I used the last batch of frozen spinach-cottage cheese-ricotta mix (at least I think that's what it was) that I preserved in February when I made calzones with my own dough. I created a lasagne that tasted great and got nice and crispy on top the way I like.

But the treat was this afternoon's coffee drink.

My husband saves all the partial pots of coffee we never finish. He keeps them in the fridge in a pictcher and instead of Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts he mixes up our own special iced coffee drinks.

Like iced decaf with milk and Chambord.
Or iced coffee light and sweet like a frappucino.
Or a shot or two of coffee with soymilk for extra protein between meals.
Or, like today, a big cup of coffee with vanilla ice cream in it.

Waste not, want not.

Spinach Lasagne

I did not put forth my best effort on this one. My daughter requested lasagne, and it's not one of my favorites to make, but since her father is preparing dinner tomorrow I thought it would be a nice treat for them. A hot meal when Mommy's not here.

This is a small lasagne in I believe a 14 by 9 Pyrex dish, only about two inches deep.

For the cheese filling:
about a pound and a half fresh ricotta
one can spinach
garlic powder
basil
pizza and pasta seasoning

I mixed everything together (including the liquid from the spinach) with about a tablespoon garlic powder, two tablespoons basil, two tablespoons pizza and pasta seasoning.

For sauce, I use one can (the little 8 ounce cans) of generic no salt added tomato sauce. That's why I put so many seasonings in the cheese mix. Commercial tomato sauces have a ton of salt and sugar. And they're expensive. I've tried making my own. So far, it's not worth the effort.

Some mozzarella would me nice. And of course the no boil lasagne noodles.

I poured at least half a can of sauce on the bottom of the dish, layered in a single layer of noodles and put in the other half a can of sauce. Then I plopped in half the ricotta spinach mixture, which filled about half the dish. Oops. More sauce. More noodles. A layer of mozzarella. The rest of the cheese. More sauce. More noodles. A second layer of noodles. More mozzarella, more sauce. Done.

Update: It's not my best work, somewhat bland, but edible. Easy to doctor on the table if needed. I had a small serving for dinner. My husband packed some for lunch and I had cold lasagne for breakfast. With the remaining portion, I sliced two pieces for future lunches and packed those in aluminum foil to freeze.

I like my lasagne crispy, so I took a piece the size of a loaf pan, wrapped it in foil with the seam on top, and placed it inside a pyrex loaf pan. This particular pan has a lid that I had planned to put on before I froze, but now I can't find it. My thought was to freeze in the dish, thaw in fridge, remove the lid, crack the foil and toss back in oven for another meal.