Exhaustion from Kleenex...

This weekend could have (and probably should have) been a very relaxing time. Instead, I somehow picked up some bug from somewhere and have spent the last 5 days quite miserably. It started out with the soar, achy throat. Then I got the runny nose, and watery eyes. Now I've moved on the the scratchy cough and hoarse voice. I'm hoping that I'm on the up side of things now. I must've used over 500 Kleenex this weekend.

That is the main reason that I haven't posted anything in awhile. I've been trying to recover. I was hoping to get my house in order, but it's just gotten worse this weekend. You somehow loose every bit of motivation when your sick. It's not fun. I'm struggling with the fact that I have to close tonight at the restaurant. I barely have a voice, so we'll see how this goes. I'll keep you posted. :)

New Food Friday - Caprese Lasagna

I've decided to try something new. Every Friday I'm going to try a new recipe and let you know how it is. At least that's what I'm going to attempt to keep up with every week. So today, I decided to try a Caprese Lasagna from Rachel Ray. It was absolutely fabulous!

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or grated
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken stock
A few grates of fresh nutmeg (I left this out because I didn't have any)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 box oven-ready lasagna noodles
4 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
Half a bunch basil, chopped (about 30 leaves)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
Place a large saucepan over medium-heat and melt the butter. Add the garlic to the pan and cook until aromatic, about 1 minute. Sprinkle the flour over the butter and garlic and cook for about 1 minute. Whisk the milk and chicken stock into the butter-flour mixture and bring up to a bubble. Add the nutmeg, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and simmer until thickened, 3-4 minutes.

Assemble the lasagna by ladling a small amount (about 1/4 cup, just eyeball it) of the sauce into the bottom of a 9-inch x 13-inch baking dish and laying three lasagna noodles over the sauce. Top the noodles with about a third of the sliced tomatoes, a third of the basil, 1/4 cup of sauce and about a third of the shredded cheese. Repeat until all ingredients are used up, topping the lasagna off with a final layer of sauce and shredded cheese.

Cover the pan with foil and bake the lasagna for 30 minutes. Remove the foil from the baking dish and bake another 15 minutes until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly. When ready to serve, top with the remaining chopped basil leaves.

The only complaint I have is that I don't think there was quite enough sauce. I'll definitely make more next time. But all in all, it was a success. Will definitely make this again. I couldn't find fresh basil leaves anywhere so I ended up buying a basil plant from Fresh Market for $2.99. It is awesome!

The perfect housewife...

Just recently I've been craving the chance to quit my second job and just be the perfect housewife with my extra time. Those people used to drive me absolutely crazy. You know the ones.... their house is always spotless and they always have perfect homemade, 5-course meals prepared. My dear sweet sister-in-law is one of those. :) It's always made me feel guilty and depressed when I came home to my small little place that is piled high with dirty clothes and dishes, and the fridge is always empty. I used to loathe those activities. Now I long for the chance to be able to stay at home in the evenings and cook and clean and piddle around doing crafts and whatnot. Ha ha. But alas I am stuck going to work, to serve food to people that I could care less about and forced to run around for hours on end. Oh for the simplicity of cleaning my bathroom and dejunking my closet. Someday soon, this will be my reality. Then I will count myself truly blessed to have the time to do my dishes and organize my filing cabinet. But until then....

I finished knitting my baby hammock. I was surprised at how simple and quick of a project it actually was. Besides fudging around to figure out a certain stitch, everything went extremely smooth. I forgot to take a picture of the finished project before I handed it off to my sister. You will just have to be patient with me and wait until she gets to put it to use for a picture. Until next time, I shall be dreaming of doing my dishes. :)