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!

Election Assistance Commission

I am interning this summer with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (www.eac.gov) which is a federal commission that was created by the 2002 Help America Vote Act.  Being a relatively new organization, they have more flexibility and less bureaucracy than some of the more established federal entities which allows for a lot more creativity and fresh ideas.

I have been working with the communications department since I started three weeks ago.  I may end up floating around to different departments or I may stay in communications, I'm not sure yet.  However, I really love working in this department.  I've always had a latent interest in communications and public relations.  I even went and spoke to a public relations adviser at one point at Auburn with thoughts of changing my major.  In almost every organization I was ever involved in, I took on the role of PR person.  I would make phone call and put up fliers for theatre shows.  I would organize information for students in the most accessibly way possible as a GTA.  I would make sure everyone knew where to go for summer camps.  It's just the role that I naturally gravitated towards.  Now that I'm looking towards an actual job, it's definitely something that I could see myself doing.

Most of my tasks thus far at the EAC have centered on our new website.  We launched a brand new website about a week after I arrived so I've been working to get all the information transferred from the old website to the new website.  I actually have a little experience working with websites.  I worked on both Senator Little's website and the election administration program in Auburn with different types of software.  The two programs I've used in the past were Dreamweaver and a local, website based program, neither of which I liked very much.  The web based program was extremely limiting with very little functionality and Dreamweaver, while very thorough, was complicated and I never could get any training with it.  We use another web based program to manage the EAC's website and it's much better than what I've worked on in the past but isn't without its flaws.  We do occasionally fight.  I've also gone through a few sections of the website and suggested changes to make things more usable for the average person who probably doesn't have a background in elections.  I have a few long term tasks that I'm working as well such as researching web governance policies and gathering information on all past EAC policies and procedures.

Working for a federal commission in a large city is quite different than anywhere I've worked before.  We have lots of keys - building/office keys (which really aren't keys at all, more like tiny skinny credit cards), desk keys, bathroom keys.  Lots of passwords for different things (that must be changed often and you can't use old passwords either!).  I have my own little cubical complete with computer and telephone.  The building that our office is in is beautiful.  The lobby is mostly green, white, and purple marble.  There is a large fountain in the lobby and most of the offices have windows that look out on the lobby.

Office lobby

One of the things I've had to get used to was the common usage of acronyms that I wasn't terribly familiar with.  I have a background in election so I was good with some of the basics (HAVA - Help American Vote Act, FEC - Federal Election Commission, NVRA - National Voter Registration Act) but I've learned several more (including non-election acronyms) such as FOIA - Freedom of Information Act, MOE - maintenance of effort, TGDC - Technical Guidelines Development Committee, UOCAVA - Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Voting Act, etc.

So far, I really like working at the EAC.  Like I've said before, everyone is really nice and helpful and indulge my constant barrage of questions.  I can't believe I'm already creeping up on halfway done!  Even thought D.C. is so very different than what I'm used to, it's a great city.  Though the heat has certainly reminded me of home!  This city can rival some of Alabama's worst days with the heat and humidity.  Yuck!  I miss everyone at home a lot but I'm enjoying my time here. 

Sausage Breakfast Rolls

These sausage rolls are one of the things I can eat until I'm sick, which is a very bad thing considering how super easy they are to make.  I'm not much of a breakfast eater and certainly not much of a breakfast maker.  Usually Andrew is the one to make breakfast.  However, these sausage rolls are easy enough for me to want to make in the morning.  I got the recipe from Andrew's sister-in-law Laura (hiiiii!) who fed them to us when we visited a year or so ago.  Mine aren't nearly as pretty as hers (Laura - what's wrong?  Do I fill them up too much?  Do you buy large crescent rolls and I've just been in the dark all this time using original size?) because as you can see I often have to use the edges to hold in the filling.  Do not be deceived by the amount that this recipe makes.  If you are cooking for more than 2 people (and if any of them are boys), you'll be fine.  If you really are just cooking for 2, you can half the recipe.  The filling stays good in the fridge for about a week.

 

By the way.  Yoohoo!  Down here.  Someone told me the other day that they thought my posts were really short and cut off.  Yeah.  You have to click this little 'read more' link to get to the rest of the longer recipe posts.  I just didn't want to clutter things up!  So click!

Strawberry Cheesecake

I love cheesecake.  It's one of those decadent treats that you only make on a special occasion.  Or should only make on a special occasion.  Our special occasion was we had strawberries that needed to be used.  When I asked Andrew what I should make with the strawberries, he chose strawberry cheesecake.  So cheesecake it was.  I don't need much convincing to make cheesecake!  This recipe from bakerella was pretty good taste wise.  I thought the consistency was just a tiny bit grainy but I didn't let it sit overnight in the refrigerator like you're supposed to, so I'm sure that had something to do with it.

You can top it with this strawberry sauce (which, by the way, was amazing), chocolate sauce, caramel (oooh my that would be good..), whipped cream, or pretty much anything you like.  bakerella made some amazing white chocolate decorations for the top of hers that I would like to try at some point.