Lazy Lasagna

You can find my favorite full lasagna recipe in the post - but if you're looking for a fast an easy meal you should try my cousin's delicious Lazy Lasagna recipe. Making lasagna this way DOES NOT mean you're lazy. In fact, I should re-title the recipe either Genius Lasagna Recipe or Look, Do You Want Clean Underwear or A Full On Homemade Lasagna-Lasagna? For now we'll stick to Lazy Lasagna.

I could add guesstimate quanties but what's the fun in that? Like they say in Fubar, Just Give'r. Maybe another recipe re-title for Lazy Lasagna could be Fubar Lasagna. Uh. Nope, sounds gross, like it would have beer and bits of cigarettes in it. 

 I've adapted my cousin's recipe slightly so I'll list her original recipe and put (my notes in brackets):

• Large pan - heat olive oil (Saute garlic, onion and any other veggies you want to hide from your kids and husband)
• Start pasta in separate pot (I like Yolk Free Egg Noodles)
• Back to large pan - add ground beef, ground chicken or ground turkey and brown (Drain it)*
• Add tomato sauce (or it could be paste. you'll have to figure it out) + one can tomato soup (I use 1 big can of low sodium crushed tomatoes instead)
• Add a package of taco seasoning (Instead I use: garlic and onion salt**, a palm full of basil, some oregano/italian seasoning, black pepper)
• Combine (Let sauce reduce a bit, or until it thickens)
• Remove from heat
• Dump cooked noodles on top***
• Add grated cheese to top of noodles
• Cover pan so cheese melts & holler DINNER TIME!
• Serve with crusty garlic bread**** and side salad

* I buy bulk ground meat, cook it, drain it, put it in ziplock bags, squish them flat, freeze them and then stack them up and down like books (saves space in freezer and time in the kitchen later)

** I mix my garlic salt and onion salt 50-50 & in a spice container because I use them both together, all the time. They are best friends

*** You can also put sauce mixture into tupperware or glassware, then add noodles and cheese - cover with lid until cheese melts, remove lid, let cool and put directly in fridge.

**** I make my own garlic bread by putting a bulb of garlic in the oven & cooking it (at maybe 400˚) until the house starts smelling good and the inside of the bulbs are soft. Squeeze out the garlic mush and stir it up with some butter or margarine, spread on bread. Yum.

I have a couple more Lazy Recipes up my sleeve, so stay tuned ;)

Would you trust these guys to make your lasagna?

What are your favorite colours?

Do you have a favorite colour, or favorite series of colours? Someone asked me what some of my favorite colours were today and it made me smile. Here they are:

Blue Dancers, c1890
Oil on canvas by Edgar Degas

Teal, Aqua, Gold, White, Expresso and Raspberry Red. Yes, The Raspberry Red is missing from this Degas, but that's ok. I imagine these girls have raspberry red lips and that will do.

I'm a big fan of colour in the home. Inspiration can come from anywhere: a painting, your favorite jewellery set, a holiday photograph, a pet (seriously, some cats and dogs have beautiful colour combos) and last but not least - Mother Nature. There are even some cool websites that take photos and profile their colour pallets: Design Seeds or Photo Card Boutique. Fun to browse.

There's a TV show our daughter loves about a sister and brother called Stella and Sam. In one episode 4 year old Sam asks his older sister Stella why the sky is so colourful...she tells him a story about the Sky Painter. The Sky Painter is fairy like woman who paints the sky beautiful colours. Isn't that sweet?

Image linked from Grade ONEderful - a Canadian Primary Teacher's Blog

You can find inspiration everywhere and anywhere. I once asked my gorgeous hairstylist cousin what colours I should be wearing. She said we are attracted to colours that suit us. And I sighed a sigh of relief. Of course.

The colours we are attracted to can also make us happy when we look at them. Fill your home and your heart up with these colours. Forget the latest trends, what your neighbour has in their house or what you may see in magazines for a while and colour outside the lines. Why not?

Kale Chips...

Is it just me, or are Kale Chips like, ehhh, whateves (?)

I made some Kale Chips and I'm not sure if/why I was expecting more. Maybe I overcooked them, maybe I should have added a block of butter to the recipe...maybe not. I'm still eating them so they can't be that bad.

Here's the recipe I tried. Do you have winning recipe or some kale chips tips (sounds cute, right?)? If you do please let me know. I'm willing to give them another shot.

I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.

Mae West

Chicken...

This post is dedicated to the CHICKEN.

Why? Because I've been up since 4:30 am (Why up so early on a weekend you ask? Well, I'm a human soother to our infant + snoring spouse + can't sleep because I know that the contents of our fridge, pantry and freezer need addressing and the grocery store down the block opens at 6 am - may as well beat the rush).

A) Going grocery shopping at 6 am on a Saturday is good. It's not busy and you'll find 90% of the stuff you need in stock. Going grocery shopping at 6 am is not good if you realize 9 hours later you've left the 4 KILOGRAM BOX OF FROZEN CHICKEN BREASTS on the basement floor beside the freezer. Oops.

What does a sleep deprived human soother do, exactly, with 4 kilos, or 8.8184905 pounds, of partially frozen chicken breasts (besides putting a few coins in the swear jar and thinking, serves you right for considering blogging how efficient and fabulous you were today, even though you've been up since 4:30 am)? You cook em. That's what (see end of post for more).

B) My husband laughed at me while I was trying to walk through the same grocery store parking lot in high heels a couple of years ago (no, we do not forget). We were on our way to a family photo appointment and I was trying to look the part. You know, competent, put together, pretty, a woman who hasn't lost herself in the process of becoming a wife and a mother. Whenever I try to look the part it always seems to lead to trying to hard + clothes throwing, bad hair, a few tears and regret for having not kept up with my most-fit-self-of-15-years-ago. To add insult to injury, I tried to direct the whole photo shoot resulting in a family photo that would have been the perfect poster title "Why you should not try to direct your own grocery store photo appointment. Really, it's a terrible idea". On a nice note, we ended up purchasing a very cute photo of our daughter sitting alone in a little chair, playing with one of the puzzles from the play area. It reminds me of how cute she was at that age and that I shouldn't try too hard. I digress. So, the heels and the mockery. Yes, I'm a terrible high heel walker, even if the heel is not high (1.5" to be exact). In fact, I've realized that I most likely resemble a CONSTIPATED CHICKEN while trying to walk in high heels, so it fits the theme of this post.

I started looking around the net as I was cleaning out my shoe collection and came across this tutorial - How to Walk in Heels & Stilettos =P. You know what? It's helped me. I like Wendy from Wendy's Look Book and since I'm rapidly starting to resemble a [INSERT SPORT OF CHOICE HERE] MOM, I'll take any help I can get. Until then I'll continue to carry a backup pair of shoes whenever I attempt a heel.

C) My maternity leave is coming to and end. I've been putting off making those kind of calls because I'M SCARED (AKA CHICKEN) of being rejected and was hoping a part time job would fall into my lap that gave me weekends, evenings and holidays off, wasn't too stressful and was close to home.

So far the only thing that has fallen into my lap that resembles some of my past employment experiences was some of the fouled water I scooped out of the future pool fouler's baby's bathtub tonight and into the toilet. 

TO THE CHICKEN. The bird my Grandma always said she felt sorry for, for having to lay all of those eggs day in and day out.

WHAT TO DO WITH  4 KILOGRAMS, OR 8.8184905 POUNDS, OF PARTIALLY FROZEN CHICKEN BREASTS

• Boil the mostly frozen ones for a while.
• Place the others in various baking dishes, drizzle with olive oil + spices (I used onion powder, garlic salt and paprika for one batch, Cajun spices for another, Jamaican spice mix for the third and made the last one plain) - bake at 350º F for as long as it takes to cook.
• Transfer boiled chicken to a baking dish, if you like, drizzle with olive oil and bake until they look more appetizing (just saying).
• Freeze chicken on baking sheets and write yourself a note (put it somewhere obvious - bathroom mirror?) to remind you to transfer the chicken to proper freezer bags/wrap in tin foil or butcher's paper.
• Congratulate yourself for making it work and for having some go to meals in the freezer (just add veggies/whatever)...maybe forgetting to leave the chicken out wasn't such a bad thing after all!

Another "egg peeling" method

Here's my Mom's method of "peeling an egg" from Manitoba Egg Producers (excellent method if you want to peel eggs right away, for easter egg "peeling" method see this post):

Let eggs sit overnight out of the fridge in a non-metal container.
Place eggs in pot of room temperature pot of water, bring to a boil.
Turn off heat, put lid on pot.
Let sit 8-30 mins (depending on how soft or hard boiled you want them).
Drain water.
Rinse eggs with cold water.
Hold under water and slip the shells off the eggs!

If you have a kitchen tip let me know and I'll post it. Less time preparing in the kitchen = more time doing other things out of the kitchen!