Old Faithful

We are revisiting favorites this week at our house. I made a batch of barbeque sauce yesterday that I'll be using for pulled pork tomorrow night. I'm excited already! And Darren and I just finished eating some lo mein. Later this week, we'll be eating semi-homemade pizzas on flatbreads from Trader Joe's. And Wednesday, we're having Darren's buffalo chicken tenders. He keeps vowing to post them, so maybe this time, they'll appear on here.

I hope you and yours have had a wonderful weekend, and I hope the week to come is great! Keep sharing food with friends and family. That's what it's all about!

And we're back!

After moving and starting a new job, I am finally back. I hope I'll be able to keep up with the blog on a more regular basis, but Darren has been cooking some and hasn't been posting his kitchen adventures either. Today we made sangria, bean dip, and a giant cookie. Hopefully, we'll get around to posting those eventually, but today I'm posting a delicious lasagna primavera that I briefly mentioned in the first post on our blog.

I changed the recipe very little, using two 12 oz. packages of spinach, adding some fresh squash and zucchini from Darren's grandmother's garden, and omitting the peas. It is great, but it makes a lot. I think next time, I will make it in two 8x8 pans and freeze half for later. It is a little labor intensive, so it would be nice to enjoy it a second time without all of the work!

I started by slicing all of the vegetables, grating the mozzarella, and mixing up the ricotta mixture.

Then I started working on the sauce by cooking a little garlic in some olive oil. I cheat and use that stuff in the jar that's already chopped.

Then I add the flour, whisk in the milk, and cook the sauce until thick.

Once the sauce is thick and bubbly, I remove it from the heat and stir in the veggies.

Then I prepare my pan with some non-stick spray and start with a thin layer of sauce.

Then I build up the layers with noodles, sauce, noodles, cheeses, noodles, sauce, noodles, cheeses. Mmmmm... it looks good already!

Then I baked it according to the directions and had a feast! It is actually better on the second or third day, so I will definitely see what freezing adds to the mix next time I make it. Eat up!

Moving and Recipe Variation

Moving really takes it out of me, or moving in the desert heat does. We are so excited about getting settled in our new apartment, but all of the moving and unpacking have not left much time for cooking and blogging. Hopefully, that will change really soon.

My goal is to put up one new food post or recipe each week after we get fully settled into our new apartment. I might also start adding some other things, too. We'll see how it all goes.

Anyway, I just wanted to let any faithful readers out there know that we will be coming back soon. I'm looking forward to taking pictures that include our new dishes and glasses, and using some of our new kitchen gadgets.

One quick variation of a previously posted recipe. Tonight, we made buffalo chicken pockets. Instead of bell peppers and onions, as in the chicken philly pockets, we left out the bell peppers, onions, and spices, and made buffalo pockets with spinach and Frank's Red Hot. I thawed and drained a 12 oz. package of frozen chopped spinach and added it after the chicken was cooked through. Once the spinach was warmed, I added the block of cream cheese and some Frank's to taste, probably 1/4 - 1/3 c. for our taste. Then we filled the pockets and baked them. Delicious!

I hope everyone is enjoying summer!