Thanksgiving 2009

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We spent time at C's parents' place and my brother's house.

Lasagna

Please tell me, is making lasagna that hard/a big deal?

I found a fascinating recipe in Real Simple for Broccoli and 3 Cheese Lasagna the other day. C wasn't interested in it, so I made it myself. The hardest part was cooking the noodles and that was more of a pain than anything.

I rarely had lasagna growing up. I can't remember my mom ever making it. But I've had some good stuff in the past and I've been craving it.

Yesterday, I was talking to my mother and sister in law.
Me: I made lasagna yesterday.
MIL: Oh? Was it frozen?
Me: No. I made it from scratch.
SIL: Did C help you? [C is known for cooking. I don't think they've gotten the memo that I've been cooking more lately]
Me: NO, I did it all by myself.

The conversation then went into how frozen lasagna is actually pretty good. MIL won't make lasagna any more, since she likes the frozen stuff better.

Cut to today. C called from work, and mentioned how he brought some with him for his lunch today. He pulled it out of the fridge in the lunchroom and heats it up and sets it down. His coworkers there at the time gave him a hard time too.
Coworker: Looks good, is that frozen?
C: No, my wife made it.
Coworker: No she didn't! It's got to be frozen.
C: No...my wife made it!

Needless to say, he never convinced them that is was not frozen lasagna.

Does anyone understand this? Is lasagna a lost art or something? I thought mine turned out decently. It's not amazing or anything, but it's tasty. Thoughts?

Decorating!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

C and I decorated the house for Christmas Tuesday night.

The star we got on sale after Christmas last year. Finally get to use it!

Should have put this one on our Christmas card!

I hope you all have marvelous Thanksgivings!

Thanksgiving Sale

Hello everyone! I am running a Thanksgiving weekend sale of my own!

I have added 5 new prints to the shop, and they are each 25% off!

I still have the Alaskan Flora 2010 Calendar for sale as well! It could make a great Christmas gift!

And, as always, I have all the rest of the prints for sale as well

Buy your Christmas presents now to ensure they get to you in time!

Chicken Cordon Bleu!

The extremely long awaited recipe! Unfortunately, my husband is not writing this, so it is not very humorous....

You will need:

• Spinach
• 1-2 cups Chicken
• 1-2 cups Ham
• 1 package Phyllo Dough (Usually found in freezer section, near pies)
  
• 1 package Le Gruyere Cheese (Usually found in specialty cheeses)
  
• Butter or margarine
  

Cut up the chicken and the ham into chunks. An inch cubed is fine for the chicken and an in inch for the ham is fine as well. We used sliced ham, but you can use chunked if you want. Mix those in equal proportions along with the cheese (grated) and spinach (all equal portions) in a bowl.
Make sure the Phyllo Dough has had a chance to thaw out in the fridge (it is generally frozen)

Carefully peel off a sheet and place it on the table (or counter)

Melt some butter in a bowl and you will definitely want a pastry brush for this. We used a large one this round, but a smaller one will do. Gently dip the brush in the butter and lightly coat the phyllo dough.
Scoop some of the filling mixture onto the edge of the dough. Put it on the long side of the dough.
The goal is for the butter on the dough to help the layers of dough stick together. Fold the edges over like shown and butter the new edge as well.
Carefully roll the filled in edge and again fold over the edge. Butter the new edges again. Basically you want the entire little bundle nicely folded into the dough, buttering it as you go.
Meanwhile, if you have help, have them start buttering another sheet of dough.
Because the Phyllo dough is so thin and floury, it doesn't like to stay together. As you fold the corners, you may want to put butter on the thick parts of the dough (as seen above). Remember, the goal is to have as little butter as possible, but still have it stick!

Once you get to the final folds, butter up the sides and the end and fold them over.

Take the completed, 1 layer stuffed dough and start the process again, carefully placing it on the newly buttered sheet (they tend to fall apart =O). This time, start the wrap on the shorter side, so you can get more dough in the middle of the wrap. You can do 2 or 3 sheets per stuffed one. We only did 2 sheets each, but if you have more phyllo dough, 3 is fine as well.
Once you have the 2nd or 3rd layer finished, butter it lightly at the end so it will be "sealed" and then place it in a 13x9 inch pan.
Continue the process until you have the pan full, or you run out of ingredients! Cook at 350F for 20 minutes. Take it out, flip the wraps and cook another 20 minutes.
When you take them out, dip (or drench) them in cheesy alfredo sauce and enjoy!

I hope this wasn't too confusing! Please ask questions if you are confused!

Ferrets?

Sunday, I heard that my in laws ended up with 2 ferrets. Long story short, they will not be staying, most likely, but they are quite cute and silly.

I love this one :)

My parents in law don't want them, so we had this conversation,
Shell: we could have ferrets for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow!
Mother in law: Not enough meat.

Haha! I tried ;)

Almost the End

C and I are almost to the end of Star Trek Voyager. We have 2 more episodes left.

Last night was "Homestead." I have never cried at a TV show before. But my goodness, I cried last night. It was Neelix's farewell episode. I had no idea I was so attached to him. But he finally got happiness :)

Ahh, I will probably cry at the last episode as well. It's been an awesome ride, though!

Randoms

Winter has finally truly arrived. It was slow in coming, that's for sure! We have snow, and cold, cold temperatures. The lowest I have seen so far is 3 degrees. Today, it is back up to 18, so it's more warm! It is finally feeling like winter now. I usually am into the Christmas spirit by Halloween. Not so, this year. I'm only now beginning to realize how close Thanksgiving is. I have been pestering C about putting up Christmas stuff, but so far it has not happened.

I have gotten back into the swing of things after being sick, so that's been good.

The eagles are officially on their way back for the winter! I saw 4 on Monday evening when I took some photos of the sunset.

Tonight, for youth group, we are doing Underground Church - where the kids run around town trying to reach a final destination without getting caught. This year, I am helping to provide a clue.

C had inventory at his work yesterday. Last year, he came home around 4. Yesterday, I was quite pleased to have him home by 1:30!

I only have 3 weeks left of 2 classes and then 4 left of the other 3. It's time to get busy on my final projects! It's hard for me to believe that this semester is almost done. It has really flown by!

That's what's happening right now!

Better

Well, I caught the swine flu by Saturday. I was miserable until Monday and then started to feel better. It definitely is not as traumatic as the media is making it sound.

Winter is officially here. We've had several snowfalls now, but most have not stayed. It feels really strange to be halfway through the month with barely any snow.

I have a month left of classes! That seems so hard to believe. I guess it's time to settle down and get cracking on those projects!

Hubby Feeling Icky

The husband is ill.

Yesterday, he didn't get a very good night's sleep and woke up being sore. That's nothing new for him, so he thought nothing of it. We went to a friend's house and he started to get a headache, but he said nothing about it till we got home.

He walked in the door and immediately started shivering uncontrollably. He ended up laying on the couch for nearly 3 hours after that. And he had a fever.

He called in sick today. He is now coughing quite a bit. The Dr's office wasn't much help. He's to stay home from work until his fever has been gone 24 hours. They have been prescribing Tamiflu, but apparently there is none in town right now! Many people have H1N1 right now, so I'm sure that has depleted the supply.

C's feeling pretty good right now. I hope this does not get worse. And I don't want to get it either!

Apartment Changes

Here's the latest in our kitchen. All my original work now. I will continually be adding to it as I take more...unique shots, but I like the ..symmetry.. of it as it is right now.
We got this bookcase from my in laws last month or so. I have, of course, taken it over. It's barely more filled up since then. It's a great feeling to have a not full bookcase!
Bought an empty wreath last week. Filled in the empty spots with little fake things that were on sale. It's not done yet, as I'd like to get some more doodads, but I couldn't resist putting it out on our door! It's not like that many people see our door anyway!
This guy is a plastic bag holder. I got him from my work this summer and finally put him up today!
We got this painting from a local artist as a wedding gift. I have badgered C about putting it up for the past year and a half and I finally just did it myself!

I adore the colors in it so much!

Random painting I did my senior year of high school as an art project. No, we don't have a dog, but I needed something there! I'm not quite the painter as Sabrina is, but it was still fun. I finally attached a hook to it tonight and hung it on our bedroom wall.
Our lovely Kitchenaid mixer! Haven't used it yet, actually! I know, I know, what am I thinking?

Gradually, the walls are getting less and less bare here!