This weekend I got a lot done, even though I have some kind of yucky cold and had to eat some soup and take a few naps. I got all the laundry done and cleaned and organized my desk (which was a day-long project, I haven't organized it since college!) Shane and I also went out to dinner with a bunch of our friends for a joint birthday celebration for Katherine R. (a grad school mate), Natalie (a grad school mate and now a coworker), and me! Our awesome friend Jen (a grad school mate and also a new coworker) planned it all out for us. We went out to eat at Hugo's Mexican Restaurant, which was awesome, and had some Sprinkles Cupcakes for dessert :). Hugo's is a fancy Mexican restaurant, which I highly recommend. The food was awesome and reasonably priced, and the atmosphere was high-end. I had tuna ceviche (loove me some ceviche!) and Shane had absolutely wonderful tamales. Then we went to a martini bar that had all different kinds of martinis and some hardcore clubbin' music. We followed up by hanging out at Jen & Natalie's apartment for a few hours. It was a wonderful night!
Before we went out to eat on Saturday, I made two Abby/Betty recipes. I wanted to make a light lunch Saturday because I knew we were going out to eat and that we'd be having cupcakes, so I made a Caesar salad. It turned out wonderfully, and Shane has declared it one of his top three, along with Strawberry Shortcake and Lasagna. We ate all of it, which makes me kind of sad because it would be a great thing to take to work. Next time I'll have to buy enough lettuce for a double recipe! The recipe including making the dressing in the bowl, which I though was cool. I cut a clove of garlic in half and rubbed it on the sides of the bowl, leaving some pieces of garlic in the bowl; then I added lemon juice, olive oil, mustard powder, salt, and pepper and mixed the dressing in the bowl with a fork. I added the romaine lettuce to the dressing and tossed it together with my awesome wooden salad hands. Then I added parmesan cheese and croutons (H-E-B brand Caesar croutons) and served it. I left out the anchovies, 'cause that's just gross :).
Then, on Saturday afternoon, I prepared the vegetable lasagna to bake on Sunday. I shredded a zucchini and added it to some Paul Newman Marinara, mixed together some cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, and thawed-out chopped spinach, then layered it with oven-ready lasagna noodles, canned mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese. I kept it in the fridge until today when we were ready for dinner and baked it. This wasn't an entirely homemade recipe, but it turned out really well and was super convenient. Once you have it all made and in the fridge (where Betty says you can leave it for up to 24 hours) it takes about 55 minutes to bake, which is about the same as a frozen lasagna from the store! It turned out really well, and I got Shane to eat his veggies again :). We had H-E-B Poteet Strawberry Ice cream in waffle cones for dessert. Yum!
P.S. I can't figure out how to rotate a picture on here.
