The Hunting Widow!

I was a hunting widow last week. It was fun. Rob went out to fill his bull elk tag. This is a once in a lifetime hunt and it's amazing how in to this he is.

He left last Friday and I went to the football game with some friends and then came home and had a sandwich. I know so exciting, but it's not always fun to cook for yourself.

On Saturday I had a bunch of friends over for appetizers and beer and that was fun too. We had elk tenderloin on crackers that I made. Recipe forthcoming in another post. My friend Dave Meisner made the tenderloin. It was soooooo good. He served in on the crackers with sourcream/horse radish sauce and pomegranate seeds. His kids call it a Rudolph. I thought it was funny.

On Sunday, I had Talmud study with some of the people from the JCEC. I made raspberry and pear pie with a streusel topping. It turned out well.

2 cups of fresh raspberries, three sliced pears, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 c. sugar, 1/8 tsp. ginger, and 2 tsp. corn starch. Mix this all up and put into a pie crust.

Cover with streusel topping.

2/3 c. flour
2/3 c. brown sugar
2/3 c. chopped pecans
1 tsp. cinnmon
5 tbs. melted butter.

Mix together and then crumble on top of the fruit.

Bake at 350 until the filling is bubbling and the crust is brown.

Rob likes Lasagna!

I know I say it all the time, but gees, life is so crazy. Two weeks ago (I think that was the week of Halloween) was unbelievable and the week before this one wasn't any better. It started off with some weirdness and I think it may take an award.

Last Monday I went to the doctor and when I got home I didn't really want to deal with cooking, so much so I can't remember what we had a week later. Obviously memorable. Tuesday Rob had class and I don't remember what I made for dinner for that one either. Something with artichokes I think, but who knows. Wednesday, I made spaghetti. Here's mom's spaghetti sauce with a little tweeking.

Oh, I have so many tomatoes and I have to can them, and I really should do it tonite, but I need to go in and bake, and, and, and, and.

So, anyway.

1.5 lbs. of ripe tomatoes cut into quarters
2 small green, red, or yellow peppers. seeded and quartered
1 large onion, quartered
3 cloves of garlic
2 tbs. of italian seasoning
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. red wine
1 small can of tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste
1 can of tomato sauce if you don't think your tomatoes are juicy enough. Mine were juicy enough.
1 lb. ground meat. (I used venison.) Put all of the above, except for the wine in a food processor or blender and combine until liquid.

Brown the meat in a pan and then add the tomato mixture. Let the whole thing simmer, simmer, simmer.

Cook some pasta and then serve with salad. Right on the plate, I can't tell you how good the pasta, salad and sauce is together. OMG! I love it. Oh and you need really crusty, great awesome bread with it.

I can make that too!

So you are asking, then, why does Rob like Lasagna if you had spaghetti? Well, of course spaghetti and leftover sauce lead to lasagna. So on Halloween we had just that. Our friends Jeff and Trinity came over. They are not a couple, Trin's husband Michael was working and her step-daughter was at friends for the evening and Jeff doesn't get any trick-or-treaters in his neighborhood, so they came to our house.

Lasagna

1 box of no boil noodles
2 quarts of spaghetti sauce
1 package of sliced swiss cheese
1 cup of grated parmesan
1 16 ounce container of small curd cottage cheese


for this lasagna, Isauteed some mushrooms and some asparagus before they went bad and created a layer of this too.

Heat up your spaghetti sauce, spoon a thin layer on teh bottom of a 9 x 13 casserole dish. Add a layer of noodles, another layer of sauce, a layer of swiss cheese and cottage cheese and then a layer of the mushrooms and asparagus and then repeat this three times. finish with a layer of noodles covered with a layer of sauce and the parmesan cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes at 375. or until bubbly.

Let it set for five or ten minutes before you cut into it.