I am not a foodie blogger and probably never will be. In the Disney/Pixar movie Ratatouille, Remy the rat says to his brother Emile, "Do you detect that? An oaky, nuttiness?" And Emile replies, "Oh, I'm detecting nuttiness!" That's me.
I will never have as much to say about food and recipes as some writers do. I positively love writing where food takes on a personality, but I just don't have that gift. (See Tortilla Soup, Chocolat, Mistress of Spices, and any books by Sarah Addison Allen.) For one thing, I've recently been informed that my taste in cheese is lacking in class. Also, I tend to have short, obsessive love affairs with certain herbs and spices that end in tears and inedibility. First it was Sweet Marjoram. Oh, how I loved the undertone of buttery sweetness it seemed to add to recipes... but fermented marjoram? Scary. Then there was Cilantro, with its bold flamboyance. Did you know that cilantro/lime rice will mold three different colors? Currently, I am in love with Cumin, but you can see how my culinary infidelity tends to lead me astray.
That said, I have been having fun with food lately. It's amazing how easy it is to delight the male of the species, no matter the age, with food. For instance, Bisquick is a miracle substance. I can make pancakes from scratch, but they never come out the same way twice! But if I make them with Bisquick, Joe is happy. For Charlie, it makes perfect pancakes with an element of fun-- just pour the batter into star shaped cookie cutter and voila!--
goofy facial expressions!
Actually, I've been trying, on the advice of a venerated relation, to make sure my family has better food every day. This may sound like a rudimentary thing for a full-time-kid-wrangler/mom-type-person, but in fact, it is something that is struggling not to go the way of the dodo in our culture, so much so that even parenting books have begun to have to advocate eating dinner together! Well, unfortunately for nocturnal, second-shift creatures such as ourselves, that doesn't work out so well. So, I'm working on the next best thing, as I see it.
The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I don't know if this is true. What I do know is that lasagne never hurt anybody. But who has time to make lasagne anymore! All that browning of meat, mixing of cheese and spices, boiling of noodles, layering, baking... Not even the Merovingian could make enough time for that! (To decipher cryptic movie reference, go here, then here.) But I have a solution!
Hannah's Cheater's Lasagna Bake:
1 box of your favorite small piece pasta (can be shells, macaroni, spirals, penne, whatever...)
1-2 lbs of meat (can be chicken, sausage, beef, or even deer, and quantity depends on your family's carnivorous attitudes)
Random spices to taste (I like cumin *big surprise*, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano)
Can or jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce
Pound of Italian cheeses (I like the bagged, pre-shreaded kind, but as I said, my taste in cheeses has been called to account)
2 eggs (optional for stick-togetherage)
3 or 4 roma tomatoes, sliced thin-ish
1 red pepper, chopped
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
Half pound of parmesan
Brown your random meat with your random spices and saute your mushrooms in butter or olive oil while your pasta boils. Dump meat, pasta, sauce, mushrooms, peppers, and cheese (and optional eggs) into a big bowl and stir it all together. Dump that concoction into a baking pan. Place roma slices artfully over the top, and cover with parmesan. Bake it for, oh, about 20 mins at 400 degrees, or whatever looks good to you. Magic.
You can see why I'm not a foodie blogger. Most people want actual detail in their recipes, instead of "whatever looks good to you" randomness. That's how I cook, though. And it usually works out. I'd prove it to you, but Joe wouldn't let me take a picture of his goofy facial expression for the blog.
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