Me and My Baby

Here's a picture my mom took of my son and I making pot pie.

 He's standing on my flour bucket so he could be up where he could see what was going on and 'help'. And no you're not color blind, my kitchen is only half painted so it's still got some green between the counter and cabinets.

Lasagna

I made lasagna a couple days ago. It was amazing. Nothing beats homemade lasagna.

Heres my dough balls. I only made enough for 2 13X9 sheets of dough.

And here it is rolled out. Once it was in the pan I stretched the corners a bit to make it more square.

I've got my sauce boiling and I'm about to add the meat. I did it together unlike my recipe because it saved time. To get just sauce for the bottom I just skimmed the top. And yes you can brown meat in sauce. Just mash it with the whisk and it will break up beautifully.

And here is the cheese mixture. I used ricotta in it because they had it on sale at Kroger. 

And going into the oven. I didn't get a picture of the finished product but you can use your imagination.

Car Trouble and a Semi-Homemade Meal

 We had a gift certificate for Les Shchwab for a tire balance and rotation that someone in my family won in a raffle at the volunteer fire department fund raiser. No one needed it until we got new tires for my husbands car recently and put them on ourselves because my dad was a mechanic for a long time. So yesterday my husband took the last half of his shift working for a bank of america call center off and we drove to the neighboring town where the certificate was written out to and got the tires done. And of course one of the joys of owning a car is taking it to have one thing done and the guy tells you you have something else wrong. The ball joint on the left side is shot so we'll need to have my dad fix that.

 Anyway, so when we got home it was late and I just didn't feel like making anything fancy so we had sloppy joes. We used store bought buns and a can of sauce so I didn't take any pictures. I just wanted to post this as a reminder that homemade food is great, and nothing beats homemade hamburger buns. But sometimes it's okay to splurge and eat something prepackaged and factory made. The buns were actually free because the call center is neighboring with the local food bank and when they have over stock they sometimes bring stuff over and let the employees take it home just so someone eats it and it doesn't get thrown away. But if we had bought it we can get it for $0.98 at Kroger or $1.00 at Walmart just depending on sales, and the sloppy joe sauce was store brand for $0.88. The beef is about $3.50 for 1lb but we already had some from a larger package. Either way you're looking at about $5.50 for 8 'sandwiches' which is still an amazing price considering if you went out to eat you would be paying about that much per 'sandwich' if not more.

Chicken Alfredo Pizza w/ Cheddar Cheese

Last night I made macaroni and cheese with chicken chunks in it. I completely forgot to take a picture even though I reminded myself over a dozen times. Tonight I made chicken alfredo pizza with cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella because that's what I had in the fridge.

I started by heating all the water and pouring all but 1/4 cup into the bowl, then I added the sugar and yeast to the measuring cup and let it sit. I added all the other ingredients and some flour to the bowl and mixed it with an electric mixer for a couple minutes.

I kneaded in the rest of the flour until It was a smooth elastic ball. Then I rolled it out and put it on the greased pizza pan and poured alfredo sauce on it, sprinkled shredded chicken, and shredded cheese on it. This picture is right after I put it in my preheated oven before I closed the door.

And heres right after I took it out of the oven. As usual I didn't time it I just looked for the golden brown yumminess.