Wordless Wednesday - Sweeter than Sweet

Recipe Review...French Lasagna

Okay, I got today's recipe over at Full Bellies, Happy Kids which happens to be another cooking blog which I am completely enamored with :)

This recipe was called French Lasagna :) (original recipe found here) and while I did tweek it a little it came out pretty good. Not great, but good and I think with a little more tweeking it could be made great for us :).

1 pound hamburg

1/2 pound sausage

1 small can tomato paste

1 tablespoon parsley

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon worcestershire sauce

2 cans crescent rolls (I use the recipe type, with no perforations)

1 cup cottage cheese

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

4 slices mozzarella cheese

Brown meat and drain fat. Add tomato paste, parsley, oregano, onion, salt, pepper and worcestershire sauce. Simmer 10 minutes. Place crescent rolls on cookie sheet, long side together. Pinch edges together. Spread 1/2 of the meat mix down the middle of the crescent rolls. Mix cottage cheese and parmesan cheese. Spoon over meat. Spread remaining meat mixture over cheeses. Place slices of mozzarella over top of meat.

To change the recipe I added a splash of spaghetti sauce since it seemed a bit dry and about 1/4 cup of spinach to the cheese mixture (gotta try and add those veggies in there when ever possible!)... and I accidentally bought Ricotta Cheese instead of cottage cheese (never heard of cottage cheese in lasagna so I thought I had made a typo when I made up my list). I also ended up using 3 tubes of Crescent rolls since I couldn't find the kind she said she used so I had to improvise a bit. The result was still the same.

Next time I make this (and yes there will be a next time) I will probably only use ground beef. We aren't really big sausage eaters here and I think it took away from the Lasagna-y taste.

Okay, that's about it for tonight, I am off now to go try making some stuffed chocolate chip cookies :)

Menu Planning Monday...

Tuesday: Shepard's Pie

Wednesday: Hot Chicken Salad Stuffed Bread

Thursday: Mac&Cheese w/broccoli

Friday: Cheesy Turkey Pot Pie

Saturday: Breakfast for dinner

Sunday: Chicken Ranch and Rice Soup

Monday: Spaghetti and Meatballs

I Heart Faces - Cell Phone Picture

For a while now I have been thinking about trying to enter the I Heart Faces weekly photo challenge...but truth be told I was really pretty much intimidated by all the spectacular photos that people enter on there! But with one little girl and another on the way now is NOT the time to let myself be intimidated by others. I realized entering into this is more about meeting a goal each week and learning from what all of these other photographers have to offer.

So here goes nothing.

This weeks challenge is a cell phone challenge, doesn't matter what the picture is of so long as it is taken with a cell phone and has at least one human face in it. The picture above was taken with my Droid 2 and edited with both FXCamera and Photowonder. I really truly can't stand the quality of Camera on this phone and I got a much better picture using my iPod and editing it with Instagram, but the challenge was for a cell phone picture and *technically* the iPod isn't a phone soooo...

Magic Cookies

Oye so I guess I failed the challenge, I missed posting yesterday, by the time I had a chance to sit down I just wanted to go to sleep...but anyway I had in mind to do this post all day yesterday but I didn't get to try out the cookies till today so I guess it all works out!

So I think that this website...thepickypalate.com ... is absolutely one of my favorites. Looks like I am going to be trying a lot more recipes from her in the near future!

Which brings me to these Magic Cookies!!! Why are they magic you ask??? Well basically because they only have TWO ingredients and cost under $4 for a batch of them...quite a deal in my book...and they taste fantastic! Kinda like a chocolate peanutbutter cookie. Which is what they are I guess :).

So original recipe is here http://picky-palate.com/2011/02/17/reeses-peanut-butter-cup-cookies-literally-2-ingredients/...

Start by unwrapping 24 (no less! If you want some to munch on get an extra pack!) peanut butter cups and get out one egg...

Put all the PB Cups into a processor and chop until blended!!

Then add your egg and keep blending...I don't think I blended enough but they came out good still, they just didn't look like the pictures on the original recipe site...

Then roll into balls...

Flatten a bit...

Sprinkle on some sea salt...(totally an optional step, but it sounded good so I went with it)

Then toss them in the oven, recipe says at 350 for 15-17 minutes, but I found 10 minutes to be plenty since I like my cookies a bit on the chewy side plus I think mine were a bit smaller.

Make sure you have a cute little kitchen helper to watch an make sure they don't burn! (yes I am fully aware she is in Christmas PJs and it is almost March but they still fit her and they were clean and she wasn't going out in them so why not :) ).

And that is basically it...I don't have any good pictures of the finished product since we were outside organizing the garage when they finished and we just dug right in when we took a break :) but if you are looking for a quick easy cheap weekend snack project definitely give this one a try!!! They are basically fool proof!!

Friday tidbits

So I way over exerted myself today and I am just plain exhausted, my back is killing me and I am feeling all 27 1/2 weeks of this pregnancy all at once therefore tonights post will be in bullet format instead of the normally scheduled Fun Friday post...sorry...Cassie pics and Ali in the Belly pics sometime this weekend...

~ Today was an absolutely beautiful day. I think it actually got up as high as 64 degrees AND it was beautifully sunshiny to boot!

~ Got a call from the Dr. office letting me know I failed my glucose test :( so I needed to schedule a 3 hour one at the hospital for next week...great, more nasty sweet drink and more blood work, my favorite!

~ Over the past week I think I unpacked a total of 20 boxes/totes (at least...I lost count yesterday...) working at a good clip, still haven't gotten to any of our stuff that we actually use yet though...its all been boxes of old clothes, craft stuff I have no place to put yet and Christmas decorations. But I suppose it all needs to be gone through, it would be nice though if I could find some of my maternity clothes and shoes! But the good news? PROGRESS is being made, I can see pathways of bare concrete in the garage!

~ Matt and my Grandpa have also been making EXCELLENT progress downstairs in the basement...we decided to switch some stuff around design wise so they are really trucking along, all the outlets are almost wired for both sides, all the lighting is almost in for the Family side, all the wall framing is done for the Family side, framing for Mom's bathroom and kitchen are done AND they are doing the pipes tomorrow. They are doing a SUPERB job if I do say so myself.

~ Mom and I went out today in search of an apartment size fridge and stove for her today so that we could get them delivered and down stairs before we flip the stairs around. What actually happened was we found a fridge for her at Best Buy and they happened to have the Electrolux stove I have been salivating over for a while now on sale for $600 off...soooooo needless to say since I will be doing most of the cooking upstairs we got the fridge for her and the stove for me and she will be inheriting our stove we have upstairs now...win win! Can't wait till it gets delivered on the 5th, expect reviews!

~That's about it right now...I had to cancel going out with my friend tonight which really totally sucked, hopefully we will be able to get together next week sometime. Mama needs some quality grown up time out of the house!! But right now mama is headed for some quality time with her pillow instead...hopefully sleep comes easy tonight.

This mommy reads

1. Awakened (House of Night book 8) ~ PC and Kristen Cast

2. Storm Front (The Dresden Files Book 1) ~ Jim Butcher

3. My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover if Not Being a Dumb Ass is the New Black, or, a Culture-Up Manifesto ~ Jen Lancaster

4. Songs of Love and Death - Various Short Stories

Currently reading -

A Game of Thrones (A song of Ice and Fire Book 1) ~ George R. R. Martin - this book is excellent!! It was recommended by my friend Suz. Didn't know it was going to be as lengthy as it is, but that's okay the story line more than makes up for it. It's going to be turned into an HBO show I think I will tune into the first episode to see it, but won't hold out much hope since what they did with the Sookie Stackhouse books. But we will see maybe it will turn out to be a good show in and of itself regardless of the books.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child - Marc Weisbluth - Still literally 2 pages into this book...ah its the thought that counts right??