Make Memories

I figured that maybe someone out there would be interested in our new meatless meals we are making so I will share another recipe. Remember that I am not a measure everything and make everything exact kind of cook. I just throw in this and that.

The other day I made a Spinach Lasagna. It was sooo good.

In our new meatless meals I am trying to add more ingredients so that you do not miss the meat. So I went for adding garlic and spinach to my normal lasagna.

I have seen many recipes for lasagna over the years but why use a long overly hard recipe for what should be a fast and simple meal. People think lasagna is hard to make and takes forever but it does not have to. So here is some yummy and fast lasagna.

Directions

1. Lay lasagna noodles flat in a 9×13 pan and pour boiling water over them. Let them soften while you get the rest ready.

2.  Mix a defrosted bag of spinach with 30 oz of Ricotta cheese, minced garlic and 2 eggs.

3. When the lasagna noodles are soft, you are ready to assemble your lasagna.

4. Spoon a thick layer of your sauce on the bottom of a 9×13 pan. Your favorite prepared spaghetti sauce will work. You will need 2 normal sized jars. We used a meatless kind.

5.  Start layering in this order…

* Place 4 lasagna noodles so that they overlap

*  Spoon a layer of sauce and spread evenly

* Spoon a layer of spinach and ricotta

* Top with mozzerella

6. Continue to layer until the top layer of noodles. At this point you should be out of the spinach and ricotta mixture. The top layer will be just sauce and Mozzarella. Make sure that you have all of the noodles covered in sauce so they do not dry out and burn. We buy the huge bag of mozzarella because James likes it very cheesy.

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Let the lasagna sit for a few minutes before you try to cut and serve it. If it is too hot some of the cheese will melt out and not look as good on the plate.

How darn cute is this?

Neona is really getting into puzzles lately and I thought that this would be a great gift for her. You can easily upload your favorite photo and have a puzzle made out of it by Kodak.

Think about the possibilities! Create a puzzle out of the kids all dressed up for Christmas or Easter. Use pictures of the family pets. You could even use photos taken from a vacation that you all loved. What great memories for your family to talk about while you work on a puzzle together!

You may want to get some extra ones for the grandparents too. Grandparents would love a puzzle of the grandkids. They could think about all of their fond memories while doing the puzzle. Now instead of being bored with nothing to do they can have fun and and be filled with warm memories.

This could also be used as a cute surprise. Set the puzzle pieces out without showing the box. Then you can make the puzzle with a loved one. They will love seeing what the puzzle is when it is all done.

I love all of the fun things that you can do with photos and Kodak makes it easy.

First I would like to mention that it is time for Today.com bloggers to nominate this month’s top blog. I decided to mention it this month since not too many people are visiting the forums to nominate anyone.

Now back to normal life… We had another big snow fall yesterday. I had big plans to get the bathroom painted but that did not happen. James came home from work early to snow blow the driveway. When he finished it all up we decided that it would be more fun to watch a movie. We had a really nice day sitting around as a family but the bathroom is still not done.

I am thinking that Wednesday would be the next day that I have time to paint. This means that we will have a few more days with no mirror in that bathroom. We already pulled down the old medicine cabinet and I do not want the new one up until after I paint.

Okay, I should get some sleep.

So tonight I went to work trying to make a delicious dinner without meat since James is not supposed to have any. I made one of our old favorites (taco bake) but adjusted it so that it would not have meat.

I started with the cornbread. As usual I mixed 2 boxes of corn muffin mix and added a can of creamed corn. I poured it into a greased 9×13 pan and baked it according to the directions on the box for corn bread.

When the corn bread started to get a little firm on the top I added my no meat taco mixture. I used two cans of vegetarian refried beans, a can of green chilies, a package of fajita seasoning, and a small bag of fake ground beef. I found it in the freezer section where they have the fake burger patties.

I spooned the mixture on top of the corn bread and baked it for a few minutes until it was soft enough to easily spread it the rest of the way. When it was all spread out evenly I added chopped onions and then shredded cheese to the top.

When it was all hot and the cheese browned a bit everyone was drooling from the smell. In the end everyone loved it and said that it was just as good as when I make it with meat.

James loves meat. He is a real meat and potatoes kind of man. I have for years indulged him with meals that he likes. I know that he should not eat them but it is what he wants and it makes him happy.

Through the years he has been told by doctors to change his diet but it never lasts.  His blood pressure is high and he is on medication for it but the new diets lasts at the most a week. I always jump on board with him and make it a change for the whole family. It still does not last long because he does not want to give anything up.

Yesterday he went to the doctor because his foot was swollen and hurt a lot. He did not remember hurting it but that is nothing new since he is so busy all of the time. The doctor told him that he did not believe it was hurt. He said that it looked like James has Gout.

I will not go into all of the information about Gout. The big problem is that this means that the meat eater can no longer eat meat. Not unless he wants to be in a lot of pain. Gout will come and go the rest of his life depending on what he eats. Once it comes about it takes anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks to work it’s way out of the system.

He woke up this morning after another night of pain and decided that maybe he should become a vegetarian.  I then spent the next couple hours looking up what he can and can not eat. Then I switched to finding recipes.

He should not eat any meats not even poultry or seafood.  It looks like eggs are okay so far. I was surprised that he is also not supposed to have any whole grain. This really limits the vegetarian recipes that he can have.

He is now at the grocery store with the list of vegetarian staple foods that I made him. As always I will be trying to help him out by adjusting all of our meals so I eat the same things.  He has already called me 5 times from the store asking about what he is allowed. I really wonder how long this new diet will last. Hopefully now that pain is involved he will stick to it better.

Remember when I told you all yesterday about our trip to the huge Walmart? Well this is the new game we bought. It is for the Wii and it uses the balance board from the Wii Fit. The game is named  Raving Rabbid TV Party.

This game is sooo funny. The game is a bunch of mini games with the crazy rabbits. Each game is supposed to be like a show on TV, hence the “TV Party” in the name.

The first game I played with the girls was a motorcycle race. You take turns and see who has the best score. You use the balance board, Wii remote and nunchuck to do most of the mini games.

In the race style games you use your butt on the balance board to steer. Yes, you read that right! To turn you lean to the way you want to go and lift the opposite butt cheek up off the balance board.

The girls were amazed by my awesome butt control.

Add a little bit of wine for mommy and we had a great Valentines Day playing this truely funny game all night. James really liked the game too but he said he was too tired to play the mini games that used the balance board. I think he was just afraid that he could not compete with my winning butt.

Raving Rabbid TV Party is another great Wii game that helps get kids more active.

Wow, has life been crazy!James had to work a half day on Valentines Day so we started discussions on what to do at 4 pm when he got home. We knew we wanted to have a fun day as a whole family. After much discussion we decided that every place would be too crowded and there were not any movies we were interested in. So we headed to the huge Walmart in Madison to buy a new video game and something nice for dinner.

First I must say that this was the first time I had been to this Walmart. James and the girls love it so they were all excited to show me it. Never before had I seen a Walmart with underground parking. You take either escalators or one of the elevators up to the store. We went up seperate…James took Nicole and Neona up in the elevator like they wanted, and I went up with Noelle because she wanted to do the escalator.

When we got up into the store I was shocked at how huge the thing was. We had way too much fun and spent way too much money. When we were making plans we discussed that doing this would be cheaper than going out to eat and seeing a movie. We were dead wrong. We ended up spending $600.

I really like the huge Walmart but I will be avoiding it for awhile.

This is one of the only home improvement projects that we have had time to get started. We are just getting started on this bathroom. We put a new shower head on recently and now we replaced the shower rod and shower curtains.

I did not think we needed a new shower rod but I am now glad James bought a new one. I love this thing. Hotel Shower Curtain Rods curve outward. This provides a lot more room in the shower. The first time I took a shower after it was installed I was shocked at how much of a difference it makes.

The old type curtain rods leave you feeling stuck in a small space. The curved shower curtain rod makes you feel like you are showering in a wide open space. It is also much easier when you have two people in the shower. 

We still have a few more things to do in this bathroom. We will be painting the room a pretty shade of green. It is kind of like a seafoam green. It is in one of the stripes in the shower curtain. Then we will be putting in a new medicine cabinet. I wish life would stop being so crazy so I could get to the painting.