Lasagna night with a twist!

I'm not Italian, but I sure do enjoy making some homemade sauce and whipping up a yummy Italian meal!  Tonight I did lasagna, but rolled it into it's own little serving, a la ... Lasagna Roll-ups.  I was inspired by the recipe I found on pinterest.  Here is the original if you'd like to check it out.  I, of course, put my own spin on it, and made my own homemade sauce.  I'm posting the recipe for that first and then the recipe/instructions for the roll-ups.  This made a LOT!  Enough so that the boys will have leftovers for dinner tomorrow night.  :)

Spaghetti Sauce

2 - 29oz cans of tomato puree

2 - 6 oz cans of tomato paste

1 - 14oz can of beef broth

2 tbsp olive oil

3 tsp oregano

3 tsp basil

1 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C brown sugar

5-6 cloves garlic, diced (I LOVE garlic, so the more, the better for me)

* Combine all ingredients in pot and let simmer on the lowest setting possible for 5-6 hours, stirring occasionally.  

 

  Lasagna Roll-ups

16 lasagna noodles (I told you it made a lot!)

1 package ground sausage

1 tbsp olive oil

4 cloves garlic, diced

1 egg

1 C ricotta cheese

1/2 C grated parmesan cheese

3/4 tsp basil

3/4 tsp oregano

1/2 C shredded mozzarella cheese

* Preheat oven to 350

* Heat a large pot of water to boiling over high heat.  When it reaches a boil, salt liberally and drop noodles.  Stir occasionally and cook to just al dente.  You want to leave them slightly more firm since you'll be baking the pasta.  Drain noodles and set aside.

* In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes.  Add sausage and brown.  Add sausage mixture to your homemade sauce and continue to let it simmer until you're ready to assemble your roll-ups.

* In a small bowl, lightly beat egg.  Add ricotta, parmesan, basil and oregano, and stir together.  Spray pan lightly with cooking spray, and add enough sauce to lightly cover the bottom of the pan (if you want, you can put some aside before you add in the sausage mixture, this is what I did).  

* To assemble ... on a drained noodle, add a spoonful of ricotta mixture, top with a spoonful of meat sauce and  and roll up.  Please seam side down in pan.  Continue until you've used all the noodles (I made so many that I had to use two pans).  Top each with a little more meat sauce and sprinkle with mozzarella.  Bake approximately 20 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly. 

 

 

The finished product ....

Bloglovin!

I saw this on another blog I follow, signed up, LOVE it, and now I want to share it with all of you!

Bloglovin is this awesome website where you can follow all the blogs you want, and then they email you daily with all the blogs that have been updated in the past 24 hours.  It's amazing!  And, so much easier than having to sign in to your blogger/wordpress account and then go to your list of followed blogs to see who has recently updated.  It's also great for those who don't have their own blog, but would still like to follow others.  Just create a FREE account, click on "add blog" and then copy and paste the web address of the blog you want to follow.  It's as easy as that!  :)

A Gift for Daddy

For me, Valentine's Day and Mother's/Father's Day are the two holidays throughout the year that I feel like a  non-store bought gift (meaning, one that has a lot of thought and effort put into it) are most appropriate.  I feel like for these holidays I'd much rather receive something that came from the heart, then the mall.  Soooo,   with some inspiration from a few friends and pinterest, the kids and I came up with the following "Best Dad" painting.  I put quite a bit of work into and the kids had fun placing their handprints on it, and the best part of all ... daddy loved it!!

Supplies:

1 canvas (this one was 16"x20")
sponge brushes
cobalt blue paint (for the background)
gray paint (for the letters)
royal blue (for the little hand prints)
letter stencils (cause I'm just not good enough at freehand painting letters!)

I ended up putting 5 coats of the cobalt blue on before I did anything else.  It took me a few days to get that part done (and then I screwed up the letters, and had to start over, which is why he didn't get it until today).  The next part was stenciling on the letters, which again took a bit of time because I had to do a letter and then let it dry (about an hour or so per letter).  After the letters were all finished, then came the handprints.  If I hadn't been so paranoid about getting paint all over my furniture I'd have snapped a picture of Henry, for sure.  This was his first real art project, and he just didn't know how to react to all the paint on his hands.  He ended up pretty much needing a full bath when we were done.  His handprints are on the right, and Jacob's were on the left.  Jacob did his like a pro.  He lives for these types of art projects!  I can't wait until we're moved somewhere with a yard, so we can get outside and do a lot more painting projects!

Here's the finished product! (Please excuse the quality of the picture.  It's a cell phone picture with bad lighting and instagram touch-up.  lol)

Our plan was to make this for daddy, so he could hang it on the wall in his office at work.  I hope he actually does!!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful daddies out there!  Today I'm lucky enough to have two dads.  One who will forever look out for me and my kids from Heaven, and the other who is a permanent fixture in our everyday lives.  Thank you for all you've both done for me ... God truly blessed me to get not one dad, but TWO!

The other amazing father in my life is my sweet husband.  He's always there for the kids and myself.  He's our rock and the anchor of our family.  Without him in our lives, we just wouldn't be complete.  We love you, babe!!

John with a brand new Jacob.

First Father's Day ~ 2008

John with a one week old Henry.

I hope you're able to spend the day with the Daddy in your life! <3



Sunday Survey!

It's been quite awhile since I've done one of these, so since I haven't had much to blog about lately, here goes ...

 

1. Do you believe people can truly change?

 

I do.  But, only if they want to change.  I don't believe people can change each other.

2. Do you think there is anything wrong with being average?

 

Nope. 

3. Do you believe in fairy tale love?

 

I do.  :)

4. Has anyone ever spread something malicious about you?

 

Umm, yes.  And, we're not friends anymore.

5. Have you ever done something at a party that you've ever regretted?

 

Nope.  I don't do something if I'm going to regret it later.

6. How do you go about setting your goals?

 

In small increments.  My weight loss goal is 20 lbs at a time, and I'm just about there.  It's taken me about 5 months to get here, but at least I am, and I'm keeping it off.

When I was breastfeeding Henry and didn't think I could make it one more day, I set small goals ... one week, two weeks, one month, two months, and so on.  Eventually he was 15 months old, still nursing and I was one happy mama! :)

7. Do you believe you deserve everything you want?

 

Sure.  I don't believe I'll GET everything that I want, but I believe I deserve it.  :)

8. Do you have people in your life you could always count on?

 

Sure do!

9. Did you ever make a close friend from someone that you've dated?

 

Well ... I did.  But, we're not friends anymore.  I'm sure there are other friends I've met because of someone I dated, but I just can't think of who at the moment.