Recipe: Cheater's Lasagna

I have been craving lasagna like crazy lately!  Unfortunately, this pregnancy (and my toddler) are both kicking my butt causing me to feel tired all the time.  Needless to say, spending 4 hours making my lasagna is not high on my to do list. 

So, for dinner tonight, on a whim I threw some things together and bam!  Craving satisfied.  It was so good my hubby asked me to put it on my list of things I regularly make.  If that wasn't enough to boost my ego, my toddler couldn't get enough of it.  You can tell when she really likes something if as the fork is coming towards her mouth she opens as wide as she can, then chews her mouthful with a big grin.

Well, here is the recipe I came up with.  Hopefully it is as big of a hit with your family as it was with mine.  Wish I would have taken a before picture, but I will add one later the next time I make it.

Cheater's Lasagna

Prep time: 10 minutes     Cook time: 25 - 30 minutes

Ingredients for 2-ish servings:
1/2 jar 100% Natural Prego Tomato, Onion and Garlic Sauce (at room temperature)
25 frozen raviolis (I use Mona's 5 Cheese Ravioli, yum!)
4 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

You will also need a 1.5 quart casserole dish (if making more than 2-ish servings go bigger) and a spoon or spatula with holes in it.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook ravioli according to package directions. Do not drain!
3. Spoon a small amount of sauce on the bottom of your casserole dish, just enough to thinly cover the bottom.
4. When the ravioli is finished cooking, remove from heat. 
5. Take your spoon or spatula with holes in it and carefully pull them out one at a time, allowing water to drain from the spoon/spatula.  (Yes, it is more time consuming to do it this way, but if you drain the water not only do you run the risk of hurting the raviolis, but they also tend to stick together if left to sit for too long.)  Do this until you have a single layer of ravioli on the bottom of your casserole dish.
6. Spoon a small amount of sauce over each ravioli.
7. Lightly sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the pasta (lightly, you will want to save the majority of it for the top).
8. Repeat steps 5 through 7 until you have used up all the ravioli (I got about 3 layers).
9. Once all the ravioli are used, spoon a generous amount of sauce over each ravioli.
10. Use the remaining mozzarella cheese on the top (I had about 2 oz left so I had a nice layer of cheesy goodness on top).
11. Last, sprinkle your parmesan cheese on the mozzarella.
12. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes.  You will know it is done when the sauce starts bubbling along the edges.

Lastly, enjoy! 

Annabelle is Walking!!!!

We were in the living room playing with our dog, Peanut.  Annabelle crawled over to the doggy gate by the kitchen.  Then she stood up, without the help of the gate or the wall.  She looked at me with a smile on her face, then took that first wobbly step.  Then another.  And another.  She made it all the way to the couch by herself!  Sure it was only 6 or 7 feet, but that's a mile in baby steps!  When she got to the couch, she started squealing and jumping up and down.  She was so proud of herself!  Of course, I was right there with her doing my own version of a happy dance.  I scooped her up in my arms, gave her a great big hug, and told her what a great job she did.  What does she do?  She starts doing laps around the couch. 

Life as I knew it is now over.

Unfortunately her favorite place to walk is on the tile instead of the nice cushy carpet we have in the living room.  My heart stops everytime she stumbles.  But she gets right back up and keeps on waddling.  She's so cute!

Just wanted to share it with everyone.  Thank you for indulging my "proud mommy" moment!  :-)

Prunes! Prunes! The Magical Fruit...

I recently came across a mom of a 5 month old boy who needed some advice.  She recently started making the transition to solid foods with the introduction of rice cereal.  However, she noticed that he started having trouble making a bowel movement.  Her pediatrician recommended mixing water with white grape juice.  She tried this, but it didn't seem to be working.  It had been almost 10 days since his last bowel movement when she contacted me.

I had the same issue with my daughter when we started feeding her oatmeal.  Being the paranoid first time mother that I was, I contacted my pediatrician the first time I noticed a struggle.  He said to give her some baby prunes with her oatmeal and it would help move things along.

After some trial and error trying to find the right amount, it worked like a charm.  Each morning we would put 8 baby spoonfuls of prunes (the first generation baby food kind) in with her oatmeal and formula.  By the afternoon, she would poop.  It was wonderful!  After she started having regular bowel movements, we started weaning her off the prunes.  If she started having an issue again, we just reintroduced them until she became regular again.

A word of advice though.  Never ever EVER give an entire jar of prunes at a feeding.  It causes a nuclear blowout.  Not kidding!  We're talking out the diaper, up the front and up the back almost up to the neck!  Ewwwww!!!

Well, I told this story to the mom in question and she proceeded to give some prunes to her son with dinner that night.  By morning he had pooped.  She sent me a very emotional email thanking me profusely for the advice.  I wrote her back, reminding her to let her pediatrician know what she had done and how well it worked, that way her doctor was in the loop with what transpired. 

Prunes, prunes, the magical fruit.  The more you eat, the more you poop!  :-)

If you have a question or need some advice on anything baby related, or relationship related, please contact me.  I am more than happy to help.

An Unforgettable Easter

My Mom hosted Easter this year. She went above and beyond and did such a wonderful job!  The food was AMAZING (and gone in the blink of an eye).  It was soooo good Annabelle even ate my mom's famous german potato salad (and ham, mac n' cheese, green bean casserole...she's such a good eater)! 

It is always so nice to get the family together.  But this year, we had all of my Dad's family together, including his brother from Chicago and his brother from North Carolina!  We couldn't believe it!  It was the first time all of the 'kids' were together since we don't know when.  My Grandmother was especially excited to have them all together for the holiday.

This was also a chance for us to celebrate my brother and his fiance.  They are soon moving to Iowa, and though I know we will see them again, it may be awhile before we can get everyone together.  As a parting gift I gave them a Florida box.  It was a wooden box filled with post cards, some sand from the beach, a few palm fronds, some t-shirts, refrigerator magnets, etc. all things Florida. This way, on those cold winter nights they will be able to have some 'warmth' to look back on.

Thanks to my wonderful and insanely talented future sister in law Elizabeth, we are able to cherish the memories of this Easter forever.  I won't be posting any of the group photos (though I know they will be blown up, framed, and hung in each member of the family's house) but I will post some of the amazing pictures she took of our Annabelle.  Elizabeth not only took these great photos, but she also edited them before sending them to me.  Like I said, she is insanely talented.  Keep up the good work!

Happy Easter everyone!  I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

One of the few times she left her bunny ears on long enough for a picture!

 I love, love, LOVE the editing work on this one!!!

Our happy family.



Not sure if that look is because my brother is holding her or she's getting tired of not being able to play with the camera, lol.


My brother, Adam

 

And a closeup, drool included! Yay teething!