Baked Witner Squash, Raisin and Pine Nut lasagna

This is a Weight Watchers recipe that I'm dying to try and thought I'd share.


* 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 2 1/2 cup fat-free evaporated milk
* 2 medium garlic clove(s), minced
* 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
* 1/8 tsp table salt, or to taste
* 1/8 tsp black pepper, or to taste
* 10 oz dry lasagna noodles, cooked al dente (about 12 noodles)
* 10 oz cooked winter squash, thawed if frozen
* 1 cup part-skim mozzarella cheese, shredded
* 3/4 cup golden seedless raisins
* 2 Tbsp pine nuts, chopped

Instructions

* Preheat oven to 350°F.

* Place flour in a small saucepan and very gradually whisk in milk and garlic. Warm over low heat, stirring constantly, until sauce simmers and is thickened, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.

* Spread 1/4 cup of cheese sauce over bottom of a 9 X 13-inch glass or metal pan and cover with 3 lasagna noodles; top with 1/3 of squash and 1/2 cup of cheese sauce. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese and 1/4 cup of raisins. Cover with 3 more lasagna noodles and spread with 1/3 of remaining squash and 1/2 cup of cheese sauce; sprinkle with 1/4 cup of raisins. Cover with 3 more lasagna noodles and top with remaining squash and raisins; cover with last 3 lasagna noodles, pressing sheets firmly down. Top with remaining cheese sauce; sprinkle with pine nuts and remaining mozzarella cheese

* Bake until lasagna bubbles around edges and is browned on top, about 30 minutes. Slice into 8 pieces and serve.

* This recipe is part of our Cook Once, Eat All Week series. To learn more about this month's theme, make-ahead pasta bakes and casseroles, click here.

Notes

* You can add color and flavor to this lasagna recipe by using a medley of dried fruit. Use 1/4 cup of dried cranberries, 1/4 cup of dried cherries or blueberries, and 1/4 cup of golden raisins instead of 3/4 cup total of raisins.

Spiritual Disciplines

I am fascinated by spiritual disciplines. I am so inspired by and admire people who fast and are committed to practicing spiritual disciplines/practices in preparation for something, in thanksgiving, or in honor of God.

I am not good at fasting. The couple of times I've tried it, I've gotten really sick. Last night I was having a conversation with a good friend about fasting. She pointed out that I may be taking the discipline of 'fasting' too literally. She shared that sometimes she will fast from music, or only eat cereal for a day or two, or fast from television.

She then pointed out that I DO fast from time to time. For lent last year, I gave up eating at restaurants if I was paying for it. The reasoning behind it was that I wanted to remember that I can enjoy a simple life and don't suffer from not being able to do 'luxury' things. I don't need to live my life the way man/society has pushed me: to overspend and indulge in unhealthy meals as a form of recreation or hanging out with friends.

I have decided that the month of October is going to be another fast for me in that same sense. With the economic issues that are going on, I am going to fast in the same sense and frame of mind that I did last year during lent. I will refrain from eating at restaurants when I am paying for them. I am also going to try to refrain from buying things I don't need, in remembrance that God provides what I need and I can find contentment, thanksgiving and joy in that. There are automatic blessings that come from that: less calories consumed, and a lot more money in the bank.

What?!?!

I received a violation notice, today, for having ten violations of driving through tollways without paying. They are fining me $210.

Here's the kicker...I have an IPASS, which is an automated device where the reader on the highway is supposed to read it and deduct from it. It's attached to my debit card, and every time it gets below a certain dollar amount, it adds another forty dollars from my checking account.

It came with pretty stiff penalties. I have two weeks to pay up or ask for a review. After the two weeks is up, they charge me $50 per incident. That would be over $500. After another period of a couple of weeks without payment, then they suspend your license and potentially revoke your vehicle registration.

And did I mention that all ten of said violations are from 2007? I have had an IPASS since I moved to Chicago in 2002. Ridiculous. I started to have a minor panic, because that is $210 that will make my budget VERY tight for the next month if I have to pay it, if for some reason the State of IL decides to make my life difficult.

Did I also mention that IPASS is attached to your license plate number? So they could run the number and see I have an IPASS? Seriously irritated right now.

I googled, and found a guy who had exactly the same thing happen to him earlier this year. He didn't have to pay it, and also found a Chicago Tribune article that said the state discovered that tens of thousands of tollway violations had gone unpaid and not sent out to drivers...and it resulted in $10 million of lost revenue to the state. Icky Icky Poo.

** UPDATE
After four hours of trying to get through, I was able to talk to someone and get this straitened out. No fines for me!

I lost 3 lbs!

YAY!

Chicken Pot Pie Soup

In response to Nichole's asking (and in anticipation of Stacey asking =), here is the recipe.

It comes from Cindy Griesbaum from the Mt. Olivet UMC cookbook.

2 cans chicken vegetable soup
1 can chicken broth
2 cans water
1 large family sized can cream of chicken soup
4 chicken pot pies
oregano
thyme
salt/pepper to taste

Bake the chicken pot pies while you're heating up the soup base. When pot pies are done, put into the soup and use spoon to break apart the pastry.

I have made this soup quite a bit in the winter, and LOVE it. It's hearty, and filling, and makes a ton of soup. I'm a big fan of making this and taking it to potlucks.

It's even better as leftovers, because the pie pastry gets very much like dumplings. It gets thick - about halfway between a cream based soup and a stew. It also freezes well.

I made a variation tonight, using leftovers. I made three cups of chicken buollion broth, added about two cups of milk, threw in a can of cream of mushroom soup, added some leftover mixed veggies I had in the fridge, cut up the rest of an onion, half a bag of shredded carrots, and green pepper I had in the fridge, and some leftover chicken that had gotten dried out (the soup was perfect, because the chicken pieces picked up the moisture). I had the pot pies in my freezer, in anticipation of making this soup sometime soon. So yummy! I successfully used up all my leftovers and the rest of my fresh ingredients that would have gone bad after I returned to Chicago next week!

Things I'm Proud of This Week

a) I didn't overeat too badly this week.
b) I not only didn't gain weight, I LOST WEIGHT! I can't wait for my weigh in tomorrow.
c) I did laundry. It's been almost three weeks.
d) I successfully talked myself out of picking up takeout on three different occasions.
e) I successfully talked myself into ordering iced coffee or iced tea the two-three times I was in Starbucks instead of ordering a pumpkin spice latte. The savings are two-fold: at least $2.50 and 700-800 calories per drink.
f) Getting my homework done while babysitting Rosie.
g) Getting caught up at work.
h) Knowing that I'm going to Missouri Thursday through Sunday, I looked in my fridge at my fresh food/leftovers. I used ALL of it (except for two apples) making chicken pot pie soup and zucchini bread muffins, both of which I can put the leftovers in the freezer come Thursday. (BTW - made my zucchini bread with splenda, egg substitute, fiber powder and flax seed. And they're delicious with about 1/2 to 1/3 the calories!)

Splenda Trick

If you've tried to bake with Splenda, but found that it produces a spongier, cakier cookie...or a spongie, flatter bread or cake...try adding a tablespoon of hellman's or miracle whip. I've now successfully baked muffins and cookies using this trick, and my roommates couldn't tell a difference between them and the 'real deal.' Hooray!

Meal Plan Sunday

This week week for lunch: veggie casserole and turkey meatballs, leftover pizza, bagged salad and yogurt/fruit.

Dinner this week:
Monday: turkey dogs with swiss cheese, veggies, pita chips, apple
Tuesday: pizza or chicken at a work meeting
Wednesday: quesadillas with chicken, green peppers and onions, peach, yogurt
Thursday: beef stew (from freezer) with quinoa and bread, apple
Friday: Honey BBQ salmon, fried zucchini, fruit, yogurt

A Single Girls Love/Hate Relationship with Leftovers

It's hard to cook when you're a single person. I often feel like I'm throwing at least $10 a week in the garbage in un-eaten leftovers or fresh produce that's gone bad before I can eat it all (e.g. a bag of salad.)

I just had an I'm-proud-of-me moment. I had a girl's dinner party the other night at my house, and had a lot of leftover quinoa and veggies. I also had several chunks of yummy, yet very moldy, cheese. I took a little trip to the grocery, and made myself a casserole that is DELICIOUS!

I made some whole-wheat rotini while i cut the mold off my gouda and swiss cheese, then cut it into chunks. I threw my leftover veggies in the casserole pan with melted butter, chopped fresh garlic and some milk, then added american cheese singles with the pasta in the pan. I stirred it every few minutes in the oven, then added more american singles when necessary. I sprinkled some shredded asiago cheese on and left it in the oven another five minutes. The result? A very yummy casserole that I will love to eat on this week at work! I think I have about four-five meal-sized servings, and bought some turkey meatballs at the store to go with. A nutricious, balanced meal. Go me!

BTW - threw the quinoa in the freezer. I have plans to use it in place of rice and make chicken and rice later this month.

You MUST Go See This Documentary

This film filled me with outrage. It is a documentary of what really happened during and after Hurricane Katrina.

The majority of the footage shot during the hurricane is filmed by a couple who didn't have the means to leave New Orleans. They shot the footage with a camera they had bought off the street for $20 the week prior to the storm. They documented what was happening to them during teh storm because they thought they were going to die and wanted to leave a document to be found in their home.

It is absolutely SICK how the government abandoned the lower 9th ward of New Orleans prior, during and after the storm. Some of it I had heard bits and pieces of via the news, but nothing on the news portrayed the reality. The biggest misconception I had prior to watching this film was that residents who stayed behind had chosen to do so. That is NOT true. There was no public plan by the mayor or governor to evacuate the city. If folks didn't have money or a vehicle, they had no choice in the matter. The same was true after the storm blew threw - the government DID NOT bring in transportation to get people out of the toxic areas and to safety where food, water and assistance awaited them. There is footage of hundreds of thousands of people from New Orleans who are walking out of the city, trying to get to the superdome or a shelter, and they are so weak from the heat/humidity and lack of food and water that they are moving at a snail's pace.

Hospital patients were abandoned while the staff and personnel left them to die in the storm and water. You read that right - they were found drowned in the hospital building in their rooms. The county jail was abandoned by the guards and the detainees were left to die. Thankfully, many of them did not drown, although without guards, it was chaos inside the walls.

911 audio clips are inserted where folks were calling from cell phones in their roofs, begging for someone to come in a boat and get them out because the water was already in their roof at that point and they couldn't break a hole to get out. The 911 operators had to tell these people that no emergency personnel were going in to save people until weather conditions got better. (FYI - when the second hurricane blew through shortly thereafter, they had the nerve to ask residents to write their social security number in magic marker on their arm or leg to make it easier to identify their bodies.)

Meanwhile, residents who had found a way to get out of their house when the water rose above their ceilings were trying their best to go from house to house, saving those they could. If residents, with no life jackets and without boats could save people in their homes and get them to higher ground, I find it hard to believe that emergency personnel or the national guard couldn't have been deployed.

When the couple filming and a large group went to the nearby Naval base to find shelter, they were threatened with M16s, ready to fire. FYI - the government was in the process of shutting down said Navy base prior to the storm coming, and there were over 500 empty barracks yet the military wouldn't open it up for the now homeless people who hadn't had water or food for two or three days.

The lack of humanity prior, during and in the aftermath was literally astonishing. The part that I couldn't grasp was how Christians could do this to other human beings. The most powerful line in the movie came from a resident who saved dozens of people from their homes by using a floating punching bag for them to ride on. It didn't matter who the people were, he saved them. He was a gang-banger, and he even saved one of his sworn enemies. Two weeks later, he was smiling and happy and said, "I never thought that God would use a guy like me." All of those hospital, emergency, government and jail personnel could so easily abandon people for their SURE death, yet a drug using/selling gang banger was one who God chose because he knew he wouldn't say no. Absolutely astonishing to me.

Please support this film. It needs people to come out in numbers for the distribution company to continute to send it to cities. These astrocities MUST be seen by the greater public in order to hold the government accountable and get new policies in place that value ALL human life, regardless of where they live, what color skin they have and what they may or may not do to earn money.

Ugly Betty

I love that show. I've been watching re-runs on ABC.com during my lunch break this week.

I especially adore the relationship between Betty and Gio. I just watched the episode where Betty and Gio chaperone the junior high dance. When Gio tells Betty, "That's just it...I don't want to be the rebound guy, I want to be the guy." I melt, just melt.

Love it! Can't wait to see what this season has in store.

Flooding in Chicago

I called home this weekend, telling my parents that I had flashbacks to being along the Mississippi. We had over 7 inches of rain in a 24 hour period, and more rain that fell over the next 12. It was storms from Ike that made their way up here.

My neighborhood is called Albany Park, and we have the north branch of teh Chicago River that runs through it. It flooded and shut down several streets, many homes, and a good deal of our campus. School was closed yesterday, but we're back in business today.

Two dorms had to be evacuated and sleep in the rec center over the weekend. Thankfully, they were able to return to their dorms to sleep last night. There is water damage in many of our buildings, and a couple of computer labs were destroyed.

I was on my way to babysit Rosie on Saturday when the water began pouring over the street down the way and they began sandbagging it. The water is still covering Foster Ave by Jewel, and traffic yesterday during rush hour was terrible. Traffic was backed up on Foster past Swedish Covenant due to Foster being closed between Pulaski and Elston, and Kedzie was backed up to Peterson with cars trying to get onto Foster Ave.

There are still sandbags on campus surrounding the river. The students seem to be okay, for the most part. I haven't heard that anyone lost any of their posessions, and they seem to be in good spirits now that they can get into their rooms.

Weight Loss and Anxiety

This past week has been interesting for me. I've been very busy the last two weeks. Too busy. It's been too much.

A couple of things I've learned about myself are:
a) spiritual warfare is a very real thing in my life, and anxiety and bad depression can be a result
b) not having time for creative outlets will directly affect me
c) the more i feel a time crunch, the more I will experience anxiety.

This has been an anxiety-filly week for me. I've also gained some weight in the past few months, and I'm officially the heaviest I've ever been. That's got to stop for two reasons: to help my anxiety and spiritual warfare, and because I don't want to experience some significant health issues.

So...I'm going to ask my readers to ask me occasionally and help hold me accountable (ahem - Stacy!). I've started weight watchers online again, and am going to try out Overeaters Anonymous and see what I think. I may start a second blog that is a journey of this stuff.

The Blessings Keep On Coming

Tonight I got to help out with the youth ministry at my church in a way that allowed me to start to get to know some of the kids better. So much fun!

I got home to find a check for $250 for an overpayment to the hospital from an er visit several months ago. I was pretty positive I had overpaid, but was assured that I had not. SSooo surprised to get the refund check, and very happy!

It's a blessings week for me.

And They Keep On Coming

Remember how I got a free Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks last week?

Today they accidentally made me a 'tall' size instead of a grande, so they gave me both for the price of a grande. It's like I got a Venti!

It's the little things in life that make me happy. =)

Yum!

Trying to lose weight, and sometimes need a quick dinner option?

I made Archer Farms Polenta with Chicken Marinara this weekend. It's from Target. I often have looked at these 'meal in a box' options, but find they are often full of calories, fat, and never fill me up.

Color me happy when I made this and was STUFFED after eating one serving. It literally took me about ten minutes to make, was delicious, and it felt like a meal I would order at a restaurant.

I may buy this and make it for a dinner party!

Delightful

Here are some 'delightful' moments of my today...

1) It finally started raining. I love waking up slowly when it's raining outside. there's something peaceful in that.

2) Bagelfuls. I just ate one. Great work breakfast food invention.

3) Our new coffee/cappuccino machine. We just bought it after the one we purchased last year went ka-put. Just say no to Cooks! DeLonghi's the way to go! I'm currently drinking a peppermint mocha with soy milk.

4) Not having pain in my stomach right now. I'm beginning to suspect that my mother passed her lactose intollerance to me. It's unfortunate, really, because I love cereal with milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream. I'm still going to eat the ice cream, yogurt and cheese, but try to cut out regular milk and replace it with soy. We'll see how this continues.

God Loves Me

Shortly after my first post of the day, I heaved a deep sigh because I had made myself a cup of coffee from our pot. I drank the lukewarm liquid, and realized it was strong Folgers. That means we've run out of the good stuff and are now brewing ground coffee we keep on hand for events.

I walked over to Starbucks to buy some Sumatra beans...and was THRILLED to see the Pumpkin Spice Latte is back! I was so excited, that the manager gave me a free grande sized one. I told him that he'd totally made my day!

I always say it pays to be nice to people. I'm always nice to the staff in there, and make sure to tell the manager when his employees go above and beyond...and give him tips on when we have large groups or events happening on our campus so he can schedule accordingly. =)

It jumped out at me

This morning felt like a week.

I woke up really tired, because I stayed up until 1 am watching the first hour of 90210 (it was delayed due to a Cubs game that went into extra innings.) My head hurt, and my fall allergies kicked into high gear bc the barometric pressure and humidity are off the charts right now due to going a long time without rain. We're supposed to get thunderstorms today.

I had a meeting with two people at 10 am at a restaurant at Western and Division. I thought it was at Western and Diversey. Diversey is one of those spoke/angled streets, and I have yet to accurately read those signs and almost never turn on the correct street at a spoke (where three streets at varying angles intersect.)

I got horribly turned around, and pulled onto a side street to turn back the other direction. In backing into an alley, I ran into a light pole and dented the back bumper of a work car. I proceeded to turn the wrong way down to more spoke/angled intersections, and finally called my boss for some directional help as I was so turned around I wasn't sure which way was east.

As I arrived at the restaurant, my friend called. I had texted him, asking him to call me because I needed some help with my directions. He proceeded to tell me that I need to invest in a GPS because 'you get lost too often.' SO not true!!! lol

Ohhh....geeezzzz....it's one of those days.

**P.S. Thank you, Nichole! It did get better - see my Starbucks post. Also, due to getting lost and hitting the pole, I was 45 minutes late to my meeting. Thankfully it was with people who love me, and they bought my breakfast at this hot little spot called Nellies.

A Rosie Medley

She's so fun! I love that little girl!

A special prize to anyone who can guess the song she's singing. =) I'd never heard her belt this one out before.

The Botanical Gardens with The S'Moores

I went to the Chicago Botanical Gardens with Amy and Joe today. Apparently our friend Amber calls them the S'Moores, and I loved it.

Here are some photos...

Labor Day Weekend With Bree

My friend Bree moved away in the beginning of the summer, and she came to visit for a long weekend. It has been fun. We've hung out around the fire, eaten pizza, and tonight is dollar burgers! Let's just say that giggles have abounded.
Lol. We were giggly, and we're referring to the photo above, where Bree said she felt like she was pulling her shirt down. =)