The Bad Blogger Returns...

It's true: I'm a bad blogger! I've had several online journals in the past and haven't posted regularly since I was in college.

What've I been doing lately? Well...

Food: Over the weekend, I made vegetarian lasagna! I'm not a vegetarian, but this is one of my most favorite recipes and it's realllly difficult to mess up. I also love the vast amounts of cheese in this stuff:

Honestly, who needs meat when you've got a tub each of ricotta and cottage cheese, plus a bunch of Italian herbs? And of course, SPINACH!

Yes, it is delicious stuff. However, I only like it raw and in pasta dishes and dip. Pay no attention to my goofy expression (especially now that I've pointed it out).

I've now been eating lasagna for at least one meal every day. I'm not sick of it...yet.

Speaking of food, my sister Jessi made a beautiful Serbian Easter cake for Orthodox Easter! She tells me it's called a "log cake"...and that thing contains a pound of butter and 10 eggs - whoa. Yummy! (I don't know how to say "really delicious!" in Serbian...actually, I don't know how to say anything in Serbian.)

Family: Last weekend, my sister Jamie and I took a mini-roadtrip to Eau Claire for her college placement tests. It was great to be in my college city again and to get some one-on-one chat time with her!

After our trip was over, we went back to my parents' and got facials from Jessi! Every now and again, I kind of wish I'd had a brother or two, but girly times like these remind me of how awesome it is to be blessed with a whole bunch of sisters!

SPINACH LASAGNA RECIPE:

The ingredient amounts in this recipe don't have to be exact - how awesome is that? Just keep in mind that you want A LOT of cheese.

Ingredients (estimates):

20 lasagna noodles

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 Tbsp minced garlic

1 bag or 2 cups fresh spinach

1 large or 2 small tubs ricotta cheese (~3 cups)

1 small tub cottage cheese (~1 1/2 cups)

2 bags shredded mozerella or mixed Italian cheese (a total of 16 ounces)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 egg

3 cups tomato pasta sauce

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Boil noodles for 8-10 minutes; drain. When my noodles are done, I set them on an oiled plate until I need them.

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until tender; drain, cool, and set aside. Boil spinach for 5 minutes. Drain, squeeze out excess liquid, and chop.

Combine ricotta, cottage cheese, and about 1 cup of shredded cheese. Add spinach, onion & garlic, egg, and all spices. Beat for one minute.

Lay 5 noodles on the bottom of an oiled or sprayed 9x13 inch pan. Spread 1/3 of the cheese mixture on top. Sprinkle on one cup of shredded cheese and then cover with one cup of tomato sauce. Repeat these layers twice more.

Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake for one hour. Allow to cool slightly and then enjoy!

Spring Has Sprung!

Or I hope it has...in Wisconsin, you can never be sure that you won't get hit with more snow until about mid-May.

Food: Possible snow aside, I've got big dreams of tomatoes and peppers and...well, mostly just tomatoes. A few weeks ago I set up three starter trays of them and they sprouted beautifully. And then I separated and re-potted them.

Sadly, they aren't doing so hot right now. Suffice it to say that you can't save every single plant and there's a reason the seed packet tells you to just do away with the wimpy looking ones. So...I've learned my lesson. Gladly, a hardy few survived my well-intentioned treatment - and will hopefully grow big enough to be transplanted to Mom's garden come late Spring!

If not, I've still got more seeds left. Wednesday and Thursday will probably be spent cleaning the starter trays and re-planting - hopefully with that packet of yellow pear tomatoes! I was thrilled to find the seeds...I first encountered yellow pears in college, when we grew them as part of a Bio/Med Club fundraiser. They're tiny and look delightful mixed in a salad...or accompanied with some cute cherry tomatoes for a summer snack.

Furniture: One of my goals for this year has been to buy more handcrafted or used items, and I've been needing a coffee table for my living room. Fortunately, I was able to get one completely handcrafted and it will arrive April 25th, delivered personally by the carpenter! I'm so excited to see it!

In an effort to get myself into the habit of posting...

Well, I finished my taxes. Good times, although this year's return is a lot smaller than last year's. It's kind of distressing to think of that tax money going towards billion dollar bailouts and such - but a little more encouraging to picture it going towards some of the things I do support.



Eat: This Saturday we had a family get-together at Pizza Hut - it seems like most meet-ups with my family seem to involve pizza at one point or another. It was kind of crazy with my entire family (sans Jess), my brother-in-law, my aunt & uncle, and Jamie's boyfriend/special friend/Werner. Crazy good, though. Follow that up with ice cream and Apples to Apples, and you've got some good times and good memories.

Shop: Today was do taxes/chill out day - which means shopping at at least one cosignment/bargain/thrift store. You know you've got thrifting down bad when you have a pattern in which you attack each store - but it pays off, because I got some awesome deals at GoodWill today! Brand new summer shorts (still with tags!), some awesome books, and a Wallace & Gromit DVD which might just be accompanying me & some knitting later tonight.



Mail: And to make today even more fun: I sent out some mail, which makes me a very happy person. Yay mail!

Testing 1, 2, 3

How many blogs have I had so far? Umm...several. I always seem to start them in an effort to communicate with a specific group of people, instead of just keeping one for the sake of keeping it.

So what's been happening lately?

Cooking: On Wednesday, I revisted my favorite "Oven Chicken Cordon Bleu" recipe on the occasion of lunch with my sister & brother-in-law. This time I omitted the dijon, used Italian breadcrumbs instead of cornflakes, and wrapped everything with bacon - which worked out awesomely, since it held those babies together! Yum!

Crafting: With Baby Colton's blanket finished and given, it's been high time to get to work on Baby K's gift (he could arrive any day and this gift has to be sent pretty much across the country!). I'm using Knitpick's shine sport, which is soft and lovely to work with. Can't tell you what exactly I'm making - it's a surprise!

Church: One of my co-workers recommended North Ridge Church, so at the next opportunity I'll be checking it out! They have a pretty nifty/helpful web-site (although there's no staff info and I couldn't find doctrinal info) - if you check it out, be sure to look at the "Cardboard Testimonies" video. They're also having a Holy Week drama that I might check out on Good Friday.

Lately I've been attempting to do some language learning during my knitting. After mini-trials with a few different programs/languages, I think I'm sticking with Indonesian! It helps that I've already got a little headstart from some studying I did in the fall, and there's the added advantage that it's related to several other languages. Will I ever use it? I don't know - but there's nothing wrong with giving it a shot!