Recipe Review – Spinach and Prosciutto Lasagna

The cooking bug is back. During those 100°+ degree days of summer the last thing I wanted to do was fire up my stove and hover over it for an hour. Oh, we still ate, but it was usually some boxed carb concoction with a salad and some form of grilled meat. The days of fall are upon us now and it seems my desire to cook is inversely proportionate to the temperature on the scale. I've vastly looking forward to chili's, stews, soups, and baked dishes.

So I was knocking about on Martha Stewart's website the other day and found a segment of recipes for fast Italian dishes. My roommate mentioned the other day wanting lasagna and Stouffer's in the same sentence, but I couldn't bring myself to that. I did find this recipe Spinach and Prosciutto Lasagna which can be whipped up and ready to bake in seriously, 10 minutes. I made a few mods from the recipe and here it is. The boys each devoured two servings so they must have given it their stamp of approval too! Next time, I think I will use regular lasagna noodles instead of the no-boil ones- they seem to be a bit thicker and therefore, more delicious!

Ingredients

Serves 6

• 2 packages (10 ounces each) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
  
• 1 1/2 cups part-skim ricotta (actually just bought a standard sized tub and used the whole thing)
  
• 1 garlic clove, minced
  
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
  
• 2 1/2 cups jarred tomato sauce (again, I bought a jar of sauce and used the whole thing, but ran short and ended up using some additional sauce I found in the fridge)
  
• 8 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, finely chopped
  
• 9 no-boil lasagna noodles
  
• 2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella
  

  Directions
  

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make filling: In a medium bowl, stir together spinach, ricotta, garlic, teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper; set aside (I also threw in some bread dipping seasoning I had on hand Dean Jacob's Seasoning in the Tuscany Blend).
   
2. In an 9X12-inch baking dish, spread cup tomato sauce. Layer 3 noodles, 1/3 filling, 1/3 prosciutto and 1/3 remaining tomato sauce; repeat twice. Top with mozzarella. Bake until browned, 35 to 40 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.
   

Roommates Suck

Ok, not all the time, but I'm super pissed off today so I got to get it out.

Yesterday was knit night (yay!) but it was also the first Reds playoff game. So the boys decided to meet up at Hooters on the river to get some wings and watch the game. When I showed up at home at 9:30ish only one of them was home. My brother showed up about a half hour later with two friends in tow. However, he was also trying to get a couple of girls to come with and party back at the house.

Not ok. It's Wednesday night. I have to go to work Thursday. The other A was also sick, so not like he needed to stay up late either.

So about 11 or so I went to bed. After a few shut up requests via text message the noise on the front porch died down enough for me to fall asleep. About 2 or so I woke up needing to pee. The lights were still on downstairs and I could hear some talking, so I just turned off the hall light on my way back to bed. When I woke up at 7 I could see the lights were still on.

So I get ready, come downstairs, and one of my brother's friends is sleeping on the couch. Fine, rather him do that than drive drunk. However, my front door is standing WIDE open and every single light on the first floor, including the two outside lights (one in the backyard which I don't even think they used) was on. I venture into the kitchen to grab my lunch and it's a train wreck. The burners on my stove have been moved, there's an empty take out container on the stove, half a slice of pizza on the floor, crushed peanut shells and what looks like a brownie on the counter, a sample pack of coffee on the floor, along with various other assorted food item sprinkles and the kitty fountain is moved from its normal location. I can't help it, I cleaned most of this stuff up. I can't just leave my kitchen looking like a train wreck.

So then I go to leave. The handle of Jameson's my brother bought last week is sitting on the front porch, empty, along with a handle of Captain's and a bottle of gin. Glasses are all over the front porch, there's a can of dip on the steps, and 2 or 3 of (MY!!!!) empty Yuenglings, which I had to import from TENNESSEE.

It's like a Saturday night party happened on a Wednesday. Seriously, I'm too old for this shit. Is it overreacting to not want to let my brother's friend back over? Oh yeah, I was informed there will also be a party at my house Friday night. With the way my house looked today after a Wednesday night party I shudder to think what the aftermath of a Friday night party would be. Especially one I'm not planning on attending. Not to mention, it's my house, they just live there and I should at least be ASKED if there's going to be a party going on.

I also told them the toilet had to be fixed before they could have people over. They plan to fix it with duct tape. That is NOT fixing it. I also wanted to get my front porch steps fixed soon and the grass cut. Too bad they are so busy this weekend watching football to be bothered to do a damn thing.

Ask me if either one of them have paid rent yet this month.

If I come home Sunday to my house looking anything like it did this morning, I think they will be looking for a new place to live. I'm too old to be putting up with this shit.

Yes I suck at Blogging

It's hard to blog when you're not even sure if anyone is reading it. Yeah, you could consider it "getting it all out" or whatever but I'm not really that type of person. I'm going to try blogging through word, the theory is if I can make it faster and easier maybe I'll actually do it!

Lots of things going on lately. I have roommates now. Young roommates, sometimes I feel like a mom! But I haven't lived with people in a while so I'm really relearning how to do that. I think I'm doing pretty well, I now have them both to the point where they will clean, do dishes, and take out the trash unprompted. We're working on the lights – it's amazing how people can just leave lights on all over the house! But I've found if I just ask for what I want in a fairly diplomatic way it's not that big of an issue. Hinting and passive aggressiveness don't work so well!

I'm heading to Nashville this weekend to go to a baby shower for my roommate from college. I haven't seen her in years and I'm really glad this shower is in Nashville and not Memphis, because a weekend trip to Nashville by car is just a little more doable than Memphis. I didn't buy her a gift – I made one! I made her an Op Art blanket from Knitty and an Elijah by Ysolda. Actually, I first made one Op Art blanket in blue and brown because I didn't know what she was having and thought that to be a versatile color combo (with sport weight yarn on 7's, nach). Then she finally registered so I popped over there and discovered from the abundance of pink items on the registry that she's actually having a girl. Not just pink, pink and BROWN. Ugh. So now I have a blue and brown Op Art blanket waiting in the wings for the next friend who has a boy and a second in pink and brown that's going to R. Of course, the second time around I picked up some worsted weight cotton/acrylic blend and knit it on 10.5's instead – much faster. Now, Elijah, who I actually have named Ella Elephant instead (she's a girl. Duh) was done in the same pink yarn the blanket is made from and I made some brown eyes out of the brown blanket yarn, and I have to say, she's pretty fucking cute. I finished her up last night and managed to wrap her up without taking a single picture (I should stop drinking so much, I forget things!) And of course I forgot my camera today to take this weekend. However, I do have a camera that work owns sitting on my desk so I might just kidnap that for the weekend, maybe no one will notice it sneaking out on non-work hours J

My life is getting to be fairly busy. Next weekend I'm going to a wedding with my new boy. Not just any wedding, his brother's wedding. So I'll get to meet his whole family, yay. He's already coaching me on what to do and not to do. I'm not allowed to look at my Crackberry at all (!@*&$@)?????) and I'm supposed to talk to his mom about cooking and my cats. Oh, and I'm not allowed to say BTW either. I don't know why people judge me when I say BTW, I mean, people say FYI, ASAP, GE, and IHOP. It's a perfectly valid acronym! He just better not give me any grief when I tell him not to smoke around my parents, I know my mother will not approve of that AT ALL. I don't see this going well though. He was complaining about money last night and how he might move and find a cheaper place for a while. I was TRYING to be helpful when I suggested that he might consider quitting smoking, that he would save a lot of money that way and he kind of freaked out about that. I got really upset about that, I mean, it's a win-win. More money, better health, and he's planning on quitting at 35 anyway so why wait? Putting a deadline on it is just going to make quitting worse for him. But I guess I should just keep my mouth shut about it for now.

The weather's finally starting to turn and I need warm snuggly knits NOW! I have my Featherweight Cardigan also on the needles but I had to take a break from it to finish my baby gift. I'm doing it in laceweight yarn (soo skinny!) and striping skinny sage green and winter white stripes, with thick bands of green at the hem, cuffs, and collar. I want it NOW! I'm also making a second set of Glorious Cabled Mitts so I can wear them at work. My first pair were done in a winter white color, white make them very feminine and delicate. The second set are going to be done in a heathered grey brown color, and are going to look much more rustic. I love that you can change things to make them suit you, and that something as simple as a yarn substitution can make such a huge change. I also have yarn lined up for Cerisara and Audrey in Unst so I'm going to be one busy girl!

Job hunting

Alright, I'm dedicating a post to my job hunting. I don't really talk about being unemployed because although I know it's not entirely my fault, I find it embarrassing. But since I've been out of work for 4 months, I feel that I really need just to get it all out there.

I don't miss my old job. I really don't - I hated that job and I was always bored. I felt it wasn't challenging me enough, and I felt my old boss was an asshat. I talked to an old coworker today and he said he's bored - there's no work for them. That just cements my feelings about it.

I feel the universe is punishing me. The last two times I've been laid off I've found something else almost immediately. I feel the retaliation of this now. It's been 4 months and the most I've had is a phone interview, which led to an in-person interview that was cancelled. They put the position on hold.

Recently I got a call about that position, asking if I was still available. It sounds great and all but I really don't want this job. It's a quality engineering position, which means working on a dirty shop floor with people who have low levels of education, trying to write procedures and methods that an 8 year-old couldn't mess up. It will mean overtime and driving nearly 30 minutes to work, and it will probably mean making less than I was at my last job without bonus. But I feel like if I get the job I would HAVE to take it. Well, for one thing if I turn it down I have to report that on my unemployment forms and for another thing, did I mention I've been out of work for 4 months? Um, yeah, there's that too.

I got a call about My Perfect Job the other day. Applications engineering, which is basically a sales job for a technical person. The only problem was that they already interviewed 5 people for the job but hadn't officially decided. Well, I found out today that they offered the position to someone and she accepted it. Then I was told if they had my resume earlier it might have been a game changer. The problem is, the recruiter sat on my resume for a week and a half - he didn't even bother to send it over until AFTER they had drawn together an offer. He eventually did send it over but it's a little too late now. Maybe if they got my resume they would have interviewed me too. The recruiter told me that I probably would have gotten the job too, if it was any consolation. Um, no, fucker, it's NOT!

Maybe a dating blog?

I've sort of been inspired to blog more about my dating life. The stories are quite interesting and maybe it will help remember more. I hate it when people bring up things that I don't remember happening until they do (Hey, Emily, remember the time Boomer offered you $200 to sleep with him?) Um, yeah.

So last night I went to Teak for sushi with, well just call him Mr. Persistent. Mr. P. emailed me about 2 dozen times online before I actually responded thinking, maybe I should just give him a chance. Nest time I'm going to listen to my instincts!!! So we decide to meet there at 8. First he calls me at 6:30 saying he got bored and decided to head up there early. Ok, whatever, I still have shit to do so I'll be there at 8. Then came the annoying text messages about when I was going to get there. Um, 8. Then the phone call as I'm trying to find parking, trying to back into a spot while some asshat cab driver sits on my bumper, not letting me move, while more and more traffic shows up and all I want to do is park in my damn spot and I eventually had to give up, flip the cab driver off and move on.

I finally get there and the waitress made some comment about how I finally made it. What? I was 5 min early! It's not my fault he decided to show up so early. But whatever.

So we order sushi. All the sushi he orders is cooked. Don't get me wrong, I have a thing for shrimp tempura and crab in my sushi, but I like me some spicy tuna and masago as well. Which kind of makes me think that he doesn't like sushi as much as he lets on. Which is furthered when he barely eats any of it. And this is a big guy we're talking about here. I devoured pretty much almost all of mine. If I hadn't been eating alone I probably would have decimated it all.

Afterwards we went to Longworth's and grabbed seats at the bar to have a few drinks. I like Longworth's and live music so I was chill. Not to give a play by play of everything that happened, but here are my favorite highlights:

* When I mentioned I went to school in Evansville, he said, whoa, Evansville is a rough town! Of course, I looked at him like a crazy person and said, it absolutely is not, maybe you are thinking of Evanston. He then proceeded to tell me, no, it was Evansville, and he read about it and it certainly was a rough town. Yes, something you think you might have read that might have been about Evansville is probably more accurate than my account of living there for four years.

* He was drinking Bacardi and diet coke... and then proclaimed the only beer he drank was Bud Light lime, Corona, and Blue Moon because "it ain't beer unless it has fruit in it!" I'm pretty sure the expression is usually most often used in reverse, and I'm sorry, but Smithwick's is about 9854739564376 times better than Bud Light Lime. Hell, IMHO PBR is better than Bud Light Lime.

* He brought up fraternities and sororities. The last time I was actually IN a sorority was 10 years ago. I'm 31. I don't care. BTW he was a Sig Ep, and proclaimed no other fraternity was worth the time. My brother is a Phi Delt. My grandpa was a Phi Delt. You can like your shit, but don't downgrade my family's, especially after I mention that my family is in a different fraternity.

* He has 4 tattoos. A cross, his fraternity letters, his nickname (WTF?), and a cross. It was like he couldn't remember and had to mentally go through them all. Wouldn't you just say 2 crosses? And further, if you HAD a tattoo of a cross, why would you go get another one? Maybe if they were in memory of someone but his weren't. He just likes crosses.

* We were in a bar. Drunk people came in. He was completely annoyed by them and wanted to beat up some guy because he was wearing a polo shirt. Did he think there were going to be nuns at this place? Who did he think was going to be there? For the record, I LOVE drunk people as long as they're not crying or spilling shit on me. Like the guy at the Oakley Pub last weekend, who was randomly and loudly singing off time with the Queen songs that were playing. I wanted to put that shit on youtube.

* Then he kept touching me. Ew. Don't run your hand down my side. I was like my mom's old cat Finn, he'd do the same thing as I was doing when you tried to pet him. I now realize the cat thought we were all douchebags too.

So he asked if he was going to see me again. I lied. I said to call me. He has since been reprogrammed in my phone as "Do Not Answer". I got a text from "Do Not Answer" before 2 today that said "I can't believe we left all that sushi." I wanted to respond with "Maybe if you weren't such a douche..." but I refrained.

I take it back

I take it back. I would rather be called "the bottleneck" than "the horse we're riding".

Still Trucking...

Yup, I'm still going to post even though no one might be reading :)

Finished my Apres Surf Hoodie... Here it is blocking...

I made it much longer than the pattern indicated and the length is just right. Love it! Wore it last week to the Vetern's Knitter Sale at Fiberge and got my 25% off. Love a sale - I got some more baby merino to make my brother an argyle cowl for his birthday. And some to make myself one to go with my new orange coat as well. I'm digging this whole popularity of the cowl thing... Keeps your neck warm, won't unwrap and fall off like a scarf, the ends don't get in your way and when you arrive at your destination, you can pop it in your pocket as some are barely larger than a hat! I think my brother will like his in tan and black fair-isle type argyle... The boy is a prep at heart, anything argyle is tops on his list! And yeah, this is a birthday knit, there's no way I'll be done in time for Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, I finally started my Christmas shopping this weekend! I made it up to the outlet mall with my 20% off at Coach coupon and bought my previously mentioned brother a new wallet. Outlet priced at $120, half off sale plus coupon made that puppy only $50. I'm trying to control my spending this year so other than some kitten mittens that'll be it for him. What are kitten mittens? I'm so glad you asked!

I hope that works, I used to know some html but not so much anymore. If not here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGCKONstXWI. Yeah, it's his favorite show and I think I can probably whip those suckers out in a few hours.

Work has been crazy busy. I should probably be doing that instead of posting here but let's be honest. It's boring. I need to bring in massive amounts of money this year so we can hit our financial goal and get our bonuses and lucky me, our sales guy waited until the end of the year to get a bunch of PO's. I've hardly had anything to do all year and now it's going to be non-stop until next year. Good thing I already took most of my vacation time. Everyone is freaking out and they need to CALM DOWN. 1) I'll get this shit done. I always do. I've never missed a hard deadline. I'll bring in more part coders - it's something I can easily find, especially in this economy and right around the holidays. 2) When the stress level is high, I get sick. Since I'm the only one doing this, I can't get sick. So the stress level needs to come down. 3) If I have my headphones on and I'm not responding to you, there's a reason for that. I'm probably trying to calculate the volume of a hollow circular paraboloid and translate that into flat plates. It's not the time to interrupt me to tell me that Nordstrom Rack is opening less than a mile from my house. Trust me, I already know. And 4) I would prefer is people not refer to me as 'the bottle neck'. It's not my fault all these PO's came at the same time. It's not my fault there's only one person here that does my job. It's not my fault that everything has to go through me before it can be coded. It's also not my fault that our statement of works don't charge extra for all the work I do during set up for coding. I can get it done fast or I can get it done right.

Ok, back to work. I can't even tell you how happy I am that next week is only 3 days!