Red, White, and Green Lasagna

Sunday night is the night I go through the fridge making sure to throw away any expired salad dressings, make sure I'm not growing any science projects in the produce drawer, and check any meat that I hadn't had a chance to cook yet and see if I need to throw it in the freezer (I HATE wasting groceries when there are still hungry people - when they solve world hunger I will begin to waste with abandon...but until then) and as I was going through my weekly inventory, I had some marinara and pesto that I needed to use up, and some turkey sausage that was only a few days from expiring, so this multi-colored lasagna was born.

Red, White, and Green Lasagna

For the red layer:
1 - 15 oz Marinara (I used Buitoni - but any marinara would do)
8 - Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles

For the white layer:
2 - 15 oz Tubs of Fat Free Ricotta Cheese
1/2 C Egg Beaters (or you can use 2 large eggs)
2t Italian Seasoning
1/2 C Shredded Parmesan Cheese
1 3/4 C Shredded Italian 3 Cheese 2% Milk Blend (You could also use regular Italian Blend)

For the green layer:
1 - 7oz Reduced Fat Pesto (I used Buitoni - but any pesto would do)
1 - 10oz Pkg Archer Farms Spinach Garlic Turkey Sausage, Sliced
1 - 8oz Pkg Sliced Mushrooms
Dash of salt
non-stick cooking spray

Topping:
1/4 C Shredded Parmesan Cheese
1 C Shredded Italian 3 Cheese 2% Milk Blend

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees

First assemble the green layer by spraying a skillet with non-stick spray and sprinkle with a dash of salt, putting the skillet on medium heat, add the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes and then add the sliced sausage and cook until the mushrooms and sausage slices are browned.  Once browned, remove from heat and stir in the pesto, and set aside.

Next assemble the white layer by mixing together the cheeses, egg, and italian seasoning in a medium bowl and set aside.

Now you're ready to put the lasagna together, in a 9x13 baking dish put half of the marinara on the bottom of the pan, then place 4 of the lasagna noodles on top.  Then spread half of the white layer mixture on top of the noodles, followed by half of the green layer then 4 lasagna noodles.  Then to finish it off spread out the remaining half of the marinara on top of the noodles, then the remaining half of the white layer mixture and the last half of the green layer mixture layered on top. 

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 60 minutes, sprinkle the topping cheeses on top and put back into the oven for 10 minutes.

Reasons I like this lasagna:

• Its easy to use light ingredients and you can't taste the difference
• The only cooking involved was to brown the sausage and mushrooms
• This lasagna has 8-10 servings, which means that I will cook once and have multiple meals already made
• Lasagnas freeze beautifully - you can assemble it and freeze before or after baking
• It was easy enough that I was able to watch the Golden Globes pre-show red carpet while assembling it

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

-Meg

So You Think You Can Cook?

Tonight, I was driving home (stomach growling), thinking about what I was going to make for dinner. Usually, my quick and easy go-to dinner in the winter is a little angel hair pasta with butter and grated cheese. There's nothing like easy, cheesy pasta to make all the insanity of your day melt away!

However, after chatting with Meg today, I decided to change it up a little. We were talking about how since the start of the blog, we find ourselves cooking more and wanting to try new things. To stop making the same things over and over because we're too afraid (or lazy?) to go outside of our comfort zone. So, I ran with that thought.

To add a little pizazz to my "lazy-man's dinner", I heated a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan, added a teaspoon of garlic, a teaspoon of basil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Once the noodles were finished cooking and drained, I tossed it in the mixture. Added some grated cheese and... VOILA! It was so much tastier than my usual noodles and cheese. It was EGG-CELLENT!

(Please note that I was also watching Celebrity Cook-Off Rachael Ray vs. Guy Fieri. I don't know if it was the spirit of the show or my lack of 'experience' but I may as well have been a contestant. I'm jumping around the kitchen trying to make sure the garlic doesn't burn or that the noodles don't set too long. After all was cooked and eaten, I looked back and saw stuff laying everywhere. It was just so pathetic. If a camera was in the kitchen, you would've seen a crazed-hungry, jumping bean making a total mess... Just sayin'.)

Now, I know this is nothing special BUT, I tried something different. Moved outside my comfort zone... on a week night at that! This is not the kind of thing I usually do. So, Bravo, Tina! Bravo!

Until next time...

~Tina, the other egg

Lasagna - Turned Up A Notch!

Almost every night, for at least half an hour, I'm in my kitchen watching my favorite cooking shows. The Barefoot Contessa, Cooking For Real with Sunny Anderson, Guy's Big Bite, Giada at Home (I know, I know, I have issues. I'm a Celebrity Chef Groupie *sigh*)... I sit there watching in awe, not only of their yummy-looking dishes but at how much fun they're having. The ease in which they create their dishes. Like it's the easiest thing to do... and they're there to show us how. But it just doesn't seem that way when I try to recreate the receipes. It seems like it's taking forever AND I make a massive mess of my kitchen.

Then I have an epiphany: These people take hours making their dishes and then are edited to fit in a 30 minute segment AAAAAND don't have to clean up after themselves! UGH! Of course, they don't show you THAT on the show! Because I'm pretty sure if I had a "staff" to clean up after me, cooking would be so much easier and I would look just like them!

For Christmas, my friend's mother gave me The Barefoot Contessa Family-Style Cookbook. I was so excited! I couldn't wait to try out a recipe. And finally did, this past Sunday. I was really craving comfort food so I decided to start out easy and try the Lasagna with Turkey Sausage. Now, I've been baking the same, super yummy lasagna for years. But, like Ina says "we're going to turn it up a notch!"...

...And so we did.

First off, Ina says the lasagna takes 20 minutes to prepare. You know what I say? She lied. It took me a good hour to prep the whole lasagna. For crying out loud, it's a 3 step process! Noodles, meat sauce and cheesy mix! 20 minutes?? I. Don't. Think. So. Plus, my kitchen was a disaster area! It looked like a tornado had just finished blowing through!

Second, I did make some changes to the ingredients to, let's say, fit more to my style. See my remarks in red below...

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion - 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves, minced (2 teaspoons minced garlic, from a jar)
• 1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian turkey sausage, casings removed (1 Jimmy Dean Pork Sausage Roll)
• 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes in tomato puree (crushed tomatoes IN puree? No, just crushed tomatoes!)
• 1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, divided (1/4 cup dried parsley)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves (1/2 cup dried basil leaves)
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 pound lasagna noodles (8 lasagna noodles)
• 15 ounces ricotta cheese
• 3 to 4 ounces creamy goat cheese, crumbled
• 1 cup grated Parmesan, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling
• 1 extra-large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 pound fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

The fact of the matter is, I only have a chance to cook on the weekends. To constantly buy fresh herbs, when I already have the dried ones in my cupboard (and refrigerator), for two people to eat, seems ludicrous. I almost never use fresh herbs and my meals are just as tasty. Also, I don't care for turkey... Unless it's a big, fat bird in the middle of my table at Thanksgiving dinner.

So, let me say this... I ♥ Ina Garten! I LOVE her recipes and will continue to recreate them. This lasagna was definitely a step up from the lasagna I'd been making. I think the thinly-sliced mozzarella was better than the shredded mozzarella I used to use. To me, it gave it a "thicker" taste. And the goat cheese? Why had I never thought to put that in my old recipe? I mean seriously, it gave it fabulous texture and taste! Much creamier with a little tang. I'll never go back! This is now MY recipe for lasagna going forward!


And how great was it that my new Temp-tations Old-World Oven-to-Table Set came just in time? AWESOME!

~Tina

Every Lazy Lady's Dream - Candy Bar Cookies

Happy New Year!!  For those of you that have resolutions that include losing weight or eating less sugar, you'll want to go get back on the treadmill and just ignore this. 

Ok, now that I have just "my people" here, Crisco's chosen ones, lets talk cookies - sometimes a girl just needs a plate full of cookies that look impressive and taste fantastic, but you don't have the time or energy to start on a recipe that begins with "Sift the first 12 dry ingredients together" then this is the cookie for you.  This isn't a recipe, this is simple assembly. 

Candy Bar Cookies

What You'll Need
Premade Sugar Cookie Dough
Snickers Mini Size Candy Bars

Using your cookie scoop, scoop out the desired number of cookies so that you have uniform amounts of cookie dough. 

Flatten the scoops into little round circles.

Put a snickers mini in the middle of the dough, and seal the candy bar inside.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake as directed, taking the cookies out a minute before suggested so they don't burn on the bottoms as you let them cool while they are on the pan instead of a rack because they are pretty delicate and fall apart when moved since their middles are all melted chocolate and nougat.

If you are feeling particularly motivated you can decorate the tops of the cookies (Nothing says lazy lady like posting a pic of the Christmas tree cookies in January, now does it?!?)  To decorate the tops, I put a few green Wilton candy melts and a few red Wilton candy melts into freezer bags, put them in the microwave for 30 second intervals, stopping between to knead the melting candy until it was the right consistency to squirt out of a snipped off freezer bag corner and just freehanded the trees.  I think they would also be cute with white snowflakes on top for winter, red hearts piped on for Valentines, shamrocks for St Patrick's Day and so on.  (Where did I get the idea to pipe on decorations using a freezer bag with the corner snipped off?  Well Tina of course, she's brilliant if you haven't noticed!) 

So, don't stop here with just the sugar cookie and snickers bars, come up with your own combos, such as peanut butter cookie dough with Reese's minis inside - there is no end to the flavor combinations and these cookies are so easy you will find yourself making them over and over and the best part, people ALWAYS compliment how yummy these cookies are!  Enjoy!

-Meg



Meat & Potatoes, Please!!!

My belly is so full! I cooked the tastiest roast and lets just say... I gorged! Yeah, I have a way of doing things like that. Over-indulging is my middle name!

Last week I told my husband to pick up some "dinner meats" from the grocery store. What I got was a 2 lb eye of round roast. Now, since I'm fairly new to cooking (and loving every minute of it), I don't really know much about cuts of meat. Only that I like to eat them. I guess I should do some research. Anyway, in the end I did realize that it's a tougher cut but it didn't really matter... because it was TASTY!!!

Look at it, isn't it beautiful?!!

We'll call this Herb-Rubbed Eye of Round Roast with Red Potatoes and Onions :)



Ingredients

• 1 - 2 lb eye of round roast (or any other roasting meat)
• 2 1/2 tsps kosher salt
• 2 1/2 tsps paprika
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 red potatoes, quartered
• 1 yellow onion, quartered

Directions

In a small bowl, mix all of the spices and olive oil. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Next you can prepare one of two ways... 1) Place in 13x9 baking dish, add potatoes and onions to surround the roast then pour spice mixture all over meat, then rub it in to make sure the whole cut is completely covered. Or - my personal favorite - 2) Prepare the same as number one BUT do so in an oven bag. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE Reynold's Oven Bags! Not only do they not make your bakeware super messy but they also allow you to do whatever you want instead of standing at the oven constantly basting. That would drive me insane! I highly recommend Preparation #2.

Roast for about 1 1/4 hours for a nice medium rare center. Remove from oven and cover with a little aluminum foil and let set for 15 minutes before slicing. (By the way, I don't slice... I leave that job to my husband!)

So, if you're a meat and potatoes kind of person, then I highly recommend! The herb rub made both the meat and potatoes super flavorful!

~Tina

Welcoming Martha to Casa de Tina

I just HAD to share my bargain purchase with you! Who knew Martha Stewart had DVDs?! Not me! I was so excited I wanted to scream! (I think I did)



I know what I'm doing tomorrow! :)

~Tina

Trying to Cook Away a Cold

Most people spend their after Christmas days shopping - I am so jealous of Tina's new planner and all of the other fab things she got at the after Christmas sales -I however, spend my after Christmas time trying to get over a cold almost every year.  I Purell, Zicam, and Airborne it up, but it doesn't seem to help - the only reason I can think of is that my husband wants to keep me from filling up our house with discounted holiday goods and secretly has every sick little kid lick my toothbrush in an effort to keep me away from the after holiday sales.  But I digress..

To start to kick this silly cold, I first whipped up a variation of my mom's lemon and honey remedy.  whenever I got sick as a kid, my mom would take honey and lemon and microwave it until it was warm and let me tell you what - its so yummy it was almost worth getting sick!  As an adult I have doctored it up a bit and I won't claim that its a "cure" but it sure does make your throat feel better and you stop coughing for awhile. 

Adult Lemon Honey Cold Remedy - make it as big or as small of a cup as you'd like
1 part brewed green tea
1 part lemon juice
4 parts honey
put in the microwave for ~30 seconds, then stir in 1 part Jack Daniels

I will say this did make me feel better for a little while, but then I started to feel congested so it was time to get out the big guns...SPICY FOOD!!  I had seen a recipe in Redbook a month or so ago that made spicy peanut noodles with good ole peanut butter - so using that as a base, I made a few variations to come up with my version of Spicy Peanut Noodles (click here to see the original Redbook recipe)

To make Spicy Peanut Noodles you'll need:

• 1 lb cooked spaghetti noodles (I used whole grain ones, but any would do)
• 3/4 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce, plus a splash for cooking the mushrooms
• 1/2 cup Siracha (you may want to use less - I was trying to kill a cold)
• 1T garlic (I used the squeeze out of a tube kind - but minced cloves would work great too)
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 1 cup cubed cooked chicken (I used the already cooked chicken breasts from Trader Joe's)
• 1 pkg of sliced mushrooms (I used baby bellas, but any would do)
• Sesame Seeds (optional)
• Sesame oil (optional)

In a wok or a large skillet, spray a little non-stick spray into the bottom of your pan and pour in the package of sliced mushrooms and a splash of soy sauce and let the mushrooms cook for 5 min and then add in the shredded carrots and chicken.  Then, in a small bowl, stir together peanut butter, soy sauce, siracha, garlic, and 1/3 cup warm water until smooth and pour into the wok along with the spaghetti and toss until combined.  Sprinkle sesame seeds and oil over each serving.

Here's why I love Spicy Peanut Noodles - It was a large enough to feed the hubby and I for two very generous meals and a snack for me inbetween, you can vary the heat by adding or subtracting a little Siracha, it took longer to boil the water for the noodles than it did to stir everything together, and I could breathe through BOTH nostrils after I finished a bowl! 

Next time you sniffle or you just need an easy throw together meal - give spicy noodles a try!

-Meg