Lasagna

Lasagna is one of those things that everyone seems to like and everyone has their favorite way to put it together.  There are so many options for what you can put into a lasagna - different types of sauce, hamburger, sausage,  veggies, ricotta cheese, cottage cheese - the list is endless.  This is my mom's recipe and therefore my favorite.  My sauce is a little sweet (and it's also basically the same sauce that I used to make spaghetti) and I prefer ricotta cheese rather than cottage cheese but it's a recipe that I think most anyone would like.  This recipe is very versatile so feel free to add whatever you like.  I've added onion and mushrooms to the sauce in the past, which works well.  You could also sub half the hamburger for sausage, which I think would be amazing.

Easiest French Bread Ever

I love making bread.  It sounds dumb, but I find it very therapeutic.  A lot of people find it a little intimidating, what with all the yeast and rising times and working with dough and whatnot.  I promise, it's not hard!  Especially this recipe.  It doesn't have insanely long rising times (like a lot of bread recipes do) and it's pretty easy to work with.  And nothing is better than the smell of freshly baked bread.

I'm really not sure how I ended up with the shape loaf that's shown in these pictures.  It was the first loaf I made using this recipe and all subsequent loaves have turned out much fatter (like the pictures on Fake Ginger's site - and by the way, I love Amanda's site.  Such great recipes!  Definitely take a look!)  Maybe I didn't let it rise enough?  Who knows.  I'll have to try and replicate it sometime because it's prettier (but the other way gives you more bread!)

The original recipe makes 2 very large loaves of bread so I've scaled it down to 1 loaf here.  Much easier to manage!

I did not get a picture of this (or any loaf from this recipe) before it was cut into.  Impatient boys.

4th of July

Being in Washington, D.C. for the 4th of July was something I had been looking forward to immensely.  I went over to a friend's apartment and we cooking hamburgers and hotdogs before venturing out into the heat.  We took the bus to the Capital Mall between the Capital and Washington Monuments and walked around a bit before the fireworks begin.  We tried to go to the National Archives because there was supposed to be a big Happy Birthday America party but it was over and everything was closed by the time we got there.

So we stopped to dip our feet in the fountain at the Navy Monument.  I apologize for the crappy quality of some of these pictures.  For some reason I took them with my iPhone even though I had my real camera in my purse.  Go figure.

Eli, Moriah, and Josh at the Navy Monument

 Me at the Navy Monument

We headed towards the lawn of the mall when it got closer to fireworks time and managed to find a spot among the throng of people that were there.  Seriously, way more people than I thought!  We brought blankets and ate popsicles while we waited for  it to get dark.

National Lawn with the Capital in the background.

 Actually not sure what this building is, but it was pretty and right next to us!

Once it got dark the fireworks started!  They didn't last as long as I would have liked but they were still beautiful, especially with the Washington Monument.  Though we quickly realized why the spot that we chose was empty.  We had to deal with the giant (thankfully OFF) spotlight that obscured our view.  Regardless, we still had a great time!

Fireworks!

Moriah and I waiting for the metro to go home after fireworks and dinner.

Petsitting & Chicken Spaghetti

I pet-sat two dogs - Cindy the papillion and Cyrus the bichon frise - for someone at work a few weekends ago.  I love animals and miss Toby so being able to spend sometime around other little dogs was great.  They were both very sweet and very well behaved.  Cindy reminded me a lot of Rachel's dog Pacey and Cyrus reminded me of my mom's dog Barkley (when he's being sweet).

                                     

 

Another plus to petsitting was being able to do a little bit of cooking in her kitchen, yay!  I miss cooking (and baking).  A lot.  Not having all my kitchen tools limited what I was able to cook so I decided on something that was easy, required few ingredients, and would reheat well.  Chicken spaghetti!  I love chicken spaghetti.  It's something that my mom made often growing up so it's really comfort food for me.  Most people aren't really sure what I'm talking about when I say chicken spaghetti but once I describe what is in it, it sounds more familiar.  It's noodles and chicken and cheese.  Who could not like that :)

 

Yes, that is a biscuit in the background.  A home made biscuit.  It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be with few tools and I promise to post the recipe later!