Sausage Spinach Lasagna

I had a coupon for ricotta so I thought I'd make lasagne. I bought several cans of sauce for this lasagne only to find that by the time I got around to making it, my husband had used all but one can for pasta.

Ingredients
- one pound mild Italian sausage, ground
- 15 ounces tomato sauce
- Italian seasoning, about a tablespoon
- 2 brown eggs
- 15 ounces ricotta
- 2 cups spinach
- 3/4 cup grated parmesan/reggiano
- 12 no boil lasagne noodles

Brown the sausage and add tomato sauce and Italian seasoning. Let simmer.

In large bowl, mix both cheeses, eggs and spinach.

Layer into 9 x 13 Pyrex dish-- sauce, four noodles, sauce, think layer of cheese; noodles, sauce, cheese; noodles, remaining sauce.

I would have preferred double the amount of sauce. I didn't think to add garlic.

Cover with foil and bake for 60-70 minutes at 375. Remove foil and bake another 5-10 minutes to let crisp.

Let stand before serving.

Spaghetti and meatballs

I thawed out the last of our ground beef when I got home from work last night so my husband used the Betty Crocker cookbook to make meatballs.

Reluctant Eggplant

Tonight's dinner is eggplant parm, except I don't want eggplant parm.

Frozen eggplant cutlets, Market Pantry basil tomato sauce, mozzarella and shredded Italian six cheese blend.

I haven't made bread lately so they'll be mo garlic bread.

I need a side to make this exciting. I got nothing.

Cheesy Stuffed Peppers

I made a cheesy version of stuffed peppers which is in my Pfaltzgraf (sp) casserole dish in the oven now.

I started with seven peppers picked from the garden after a hail storm Monday. I cleaned them, cut the tops off, took the seeds out and boiled them for five minutes.

Then, I steamed (as in my steamer) some Israeli couscous with some garlic salt. Israeli couscous is huge compared to its "standard" cousin.

Next I made a sauce:
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, cold-pressed
- 1 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1 teaspoon four color organic pepper

Heat. Add:
- 1 can plain tomato sauce
- 5 torn basil leaves from the garden
- About 1/2 cup torn homemade bread, stale

Add:
- The couscous (I made one cup dry = hell of a lot prepared)
- About 1 cup shredded cheddar
- About 1/4 cup grated romano
- About 1/8 cup grated parmesan
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 2 tomatoes from garden, diced

Stir. Stuff peppers and arrange in casserole dish. Plop extra filling around the peppers. Pour a second can of tomato sauce all around. Cover with lid. (My casserole dish is ceramic)

Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Eggplant Spinach Lasagne

I stopped after my haircut and splurged on some cheese from Calandra's. I wanted a twist of mozzerella, but the per pound price is up to $6 making the average twist $7-something. I had $6-something.

So, I also purchased a pound of grated romano, which brought my tab to $14.88 and seemed more appropriate if I were going to write a check.

For lunch we had mozzerrella with the leftover fried ham (think breadless sandwiches), my mom's ugly bean dip, bruschetta made with tomatoes and basil from the garden, and the last loaf of homemade bread from the freezer.

If I had thought about it, I would have also purchased ricotta. But I didn't. So when I got the idea to use some of the mozzerrella to make a lasagne (I have had one box of no boil lasagne noodles forever) I needed some other filling. I decided on eggplant and spinach.

Ingredients:
- one box no boil lasagne noodles
- garlic powder
- 2 cans tomato sauce (the normal sized cans, not the tiny ones)
- four color organic peppercorn
- olive oil
- about 2 cups spinach
- about ten pieces of breaded and fried eggplant
- 1/3 pound fresh mozzerella

The lasagne has three layers. So used about 1/3 for each layer. Except for the eggplant, it only goes on the bottom 2 layers.

In a small pyrex casserole dish, layer the sauce, noodles, spices, a little cheese, eggplant, spinach, and then repeat. The top layer has no eggplant, but does have cheese. I used spaghetti noodles to tent aluminum foil over the whole lasagne and baked at 375 for an hour. I plan to uncover for the last 15 minutes.

Wegmans Pesto Ravioli

We had Wegmans pesto ravioli, from the frozen food aisle, for dinner. One bag feeds the family for a light dinner. I usually get florentine ravioli for the extra "vegetable" content. They really do have some green vegetable vitamin equivalent. Reading the label on these pesto raviolis, they also have green vegetable matter.

They were delicious. We had simple red tomato sauce, and added some asiago cheese on top.

Then we sopped up the extra sauce with homemade bread. And in the child's case, some butter.

Spaghetti and sausage

Easy dinner tonight. We went out to eat at Little Italy Food Center in Pohatcong last night. I brought home about 2/3 of the sausage in my spaghetti and sausage. So, since my daughter and I are heading to Philadelphia tomorrow and won't be cooking, I thought we could make our own spaghetti and add the leftover sausage. It was a hit.

Daddy pasta

Last night, I had three meals in mind. But, since my husband got home from work first, he whipped up his famous Daddy Pasta for an Army. He makes more than a pound of pasta, because he thinks it will make good lunches to take to work.

In this case, he made a huge quantity of wheat pasta with red sauce, peas and vegan Boca burger.

The sauce, as usual, is the cheap cans of plain tomato sauce with his special seasoning added.

Eggplant Parmesan

I unexpectedly worked late tonight, so I briefed the husband on how to make eggplant parmesan with some frozen eggplant cutlets we bought at the warehouse club. For lunch today, I made my daughter a scrambled egg with the last of the blueberry bread pudding. And leftover broccoli sicilian for breakfast. Yes, we splurged and got a sicilian last night.

So, the eggplant cutlet come breaded. My husband added layers of sauce, garlic pepper, Italian seasoning, grated parmesan and shredded cheddar, with some diced broccoli for good measure. It's yummy.

French Bread Pizza

I took a loaf of my multigrain French bread, sliced it and piled it high with tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, seasoned with four-color pepper, pasta and pizza seasoning, and fresh garlic. I toasted it in the oven. Then I added fresh broccoli and more sauce, cooked it some more, then added some grated pepper jack and lots of cheddar.

Penne Regate with Chicken sausage

We tried the chicken sausage with spinach and asiago in penne regate with red sauce and grated cheese tonight. It was good. Better than I expected. I purchased the sausage at the warehouse club because it sounded different and had a nice vitamin A content that made it a nice "vegetable" addition...

Pizza night

We made one of our homemade whole wheat, unbleached white and rye flour pizza crusts and topped it with some fresh broccoli we feared would go rancid soon, some black olives hanging around, the leftover Wegmans tomato soup and some of the velveeta-style american cheese Gayle gave us. It was hardly gourmet, but it was hearty.

More Daddy Pasta

Daddy made his hamburger helper style stuff... the red kind. He browned some hamburger (almost a pound, goodness gravy) and added it to shells with red sauce.

Daddy Pasta

While cleaning Tuesday a.m. I did something to my back. I've spent much of the last few days with ice packs and Aleve. I thought I was better today but an unexpected day on my feet at my desk job destroyed any progress I had made.

This directly relates to my post. I made chicken diable to use the chicken I had planned to prepare as a fancy French style meal on Tuesday. The effort killed me. So, for yesterday and today we lived on leftovers.

Last night my husband made this pasta. He loves to experiment with noodles. Nothing drastic, always lots of cheese.

He made spaghetti. For the sauce he used two tiny cans of the plain tomato sauce, seasoned them with Italian seasoning, and added the tail end of a big old block of cheddar we'd been cooking with for the last week or so. I don't buy sliced cheese. I either get cheddar in blocks from Aldi, $1.20 for 8 oz., or the warehouse club, about $5 for 32 oz. Orange American freaks my daughter out because in our house cheese is white. And since the big blocks dry out if you don't store them perfectly, my husband thought it'd be a good idea to finish this one off.

Then, he added frozen vegetables. Peas, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli to be exact. I would have left out the carrots, but it was a bag of 'California blend' and unlike me, he wasn't about to pick them out.

Garden Chili

I wanted to make something a little different for dinner, something we hadn't had in a while and chili seemed right. But we're seriously lacking ingredients, so I had to make do with what I had. So this is what I call "Garden Chili."

Garden Chili
In a big pot, combine:
About three teaspoons fresh oregano
One tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
About 1/4 cup fresh spinach, shredded
About 3 tablespoons fresh chives, chopped
1/2 teaspoon fresh parsley

Cook until spices are aromatic and tender.

Add:
Two tablespoons tomato sauce (it was leftover, certainly not 'needed')
Two tablespoons garlic powder
Three tablespoons commercial chili seasoning

Cook until well combined.

Add:
14.5 ounce can diced tomatos with basil, oregano and garlic
10 ounces crushed pineapple 1/2 teaspoon Indian chili powder
2 tablespoons cocoa

Mix and bring to a boil on high. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add:
15.5 ounce can black beans
15.5 ounce can dark kidney beans, organic

Return to a boil; then reduce heat and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Add:
15.5 ounces of sweet yellow corn (Del Monte in this case)
Cook for 15 minutes.

These were literally the only things in my garden and cabinets that would remotely work for chili. We'll be eating at five. I'll edit this post to report in on if it's gross, indifferent or yummy.

And the verdict is: Two bowls each husband and chef, daughter ate all of her bowl and ate well. It was the best bowl of chili I've made in a long time. Not spicy, yet flavorful.

Ice Cream Man and Spaghetti

My daughter had a meltdown today when I told her we didn't have money for the ice cream man. She must have cried for ten minutes. A little while after she settled down, I offered her an ice cream cone Mommy-style and she enthusiastically said yes. I warned her this would be the best ice cream cone ever.

I started with a wafer cone, the kind my father-in-law brings. I packed in some vanilla bean ice cream and lined the top with Goldfish honey grahams, a gift from a neighbor who visited the Pepperidge Farm Outlet. I spooned on some butterscotch topping, added another portion of ice cream and topped the whole mess with rainbow sprinkles.

My daughter is so over the ice cream man.

For dinner, I wanted to use the leftover beef BBQ. My daughter had eaten most of it for lunch yesterday. I opted for spaghetti. We made meat sauce with the beef BBQ and then served with grated parmesan and shredded mozzerella. We all had two big plates.

Open Faced Meatball Broccoli Garlic sandwiches

I took the meatballs I made last night and made strange sandwiches for dinner. I cooked the leftover meatballs in plain tomato sauce with some four-color pepper and italian seasoning. While they simmered, I melted some butter (about 1/3 of a stick) and added a tablespoon or two of garlic powder and a teaspoon of parsley. I took the last few slices of the homemade French inspired cheesy bread and slathered on the butter sauce.

I broiled the bread until the edges got crispy, then I pulled them out of the oven and covered them with tiny bits of fresh broccoli. On top of the broccoli, I piled the sauce and then two meat balls. Finally, I sprinkled on grated cheddar (liberally) and returned it to the oven to bake.

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.

Spaghetti and broccoli cheese omelets (not together)

It's the weekend. Last night I had the worst craving for pasta with red sauce, even though we had mac and cheese the night before. My husband humored me and made pasta with red sauce with some bits of hamburger and lots of asiago and parmesan.

For breakfast my daughter had a little Kellogg's Smart Start (an Aldi purchase a couple months ago) with lots of raisins, and at her request, lots of golden raisins too.

For lunch, my husband made broccoli cheese omelettes.

Artichoke and black olive pizza

With five inches of snow and rain getting it all wet, I surprised my family with a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs and English muffins when my husband came in from shoveling. My daughter had just gone out to play. My husband could not avoid going to work, as apparently he is essential these days since the students are still buying textbooks...

My daughter and I made black olive and artichoke heart pizza. The artichoke hearts were an impulse buy at Wegmans. I have already detailed my pizza making process (click on pizza below). I thought I'd treat my readers to some "how-to" style photos. My four-and-a-half year old is doing the work.  

This meal was originally intended as lunch tomorrow, but with the snow it gave us something to do. I also needed to use up some tomato sauce that had hung around my fridge too long.