World’s first Skype phone booth installed in Estonia

World’s first Skype phone booth installed in Estonia



How cool is this? And I had no idea that Skype was developed in Estonia!

Before I forget...

Valentine's Day 2011:

A dozen roses, a heart-shaped donut and a heart-shaped charm for my bracelet. It was a good day!

One word - YUM!

There's not much more to say.... ;-)

My Poor Neglected Blog….

So for months I’ve been meaning to start blogging again – but my blog was still decorated for Christmas (from 2009!), and I couldn’t remember how to easily change it. It seems that in the year I’ve been ignoring it, Blogger changed some of its coding requirements, so the old templates I have weren’t working.

Well, I finally took some time last weekend and this weekend to work on it, and voila, finally have figured it out and finally done away with the Christmas theme. I think I need to not try to worry about changing the décor every season – that’s just too much to tackle every few months! The template still doesn’t work the way I want it to – I want the background to stay put and the text to scroll when you move up or down. But, I’m not having any luck figuring that out, so I guess it will stay the way it is. But, I do have post separators now, so that’s something new.

Anyway, now that I’ve spruced it up, I plan to start blogging again. Not sure if I’ll talk about anything specific – maybe just stuff as it pops into my head. If I over think it too much, I’ll never post.

One down, fifty-one to go....

Well, that's one week of this new year under my belt. As far as resolutions go, I think I did pretty well.

My biggest resolution is about cooking dinner at home as opposed to eating out. Pete loves, and I mean LOVES, to eat dinner out. Doesn't matter where - Wendy's and Taco Bell are favorites, but he also enjoys Moe's, Chili's, Applebee's, Five Guys, and any local Italian, Chinese or Indian places, all of which are very convenient to our home. So, he always suggests we eat out, whenever given the chance.

I, on the other hand, enjoy cooking, and think that it's always healthier and more economical for us to eat in. But, of course, that makes a lot more work for me - planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning up. He was "traumatized" by always having to wash dishes growing up, so he won't help with them now. It's just another aurgument for why we should eat out, in his mind - then we won't have to do any dishes!

So, I must admit, I had gotten a bit lazy about cooking in December - with everything going on, and constant evening shopping for gifts, it was much more convenient to just eat out somewhere.

So, I did some planning and shopping New Year's Day, and launched into my first week back cooking. Friday we had a "good luck" meal of pork chops with sauerkraut to welcome in the New Year. Saturday we had BLT's for dinner (Pete's special request). Sunday I made PW's lasagna for dinner. Monday was a bit of a cheat - I brought in take-out, but it was salad, bread and a pasta dish from a local Italian place for only $20. But, as it wasn't fast food, I was happy with that, plus it was enough for a family of 4, so there were leftovers for my lunches. Tuesday we had leftover lasagna. Wednesday I tried a new recipe - Sesame Pork Rice, which we liked a lot. I even snuck extra veggies into it for us! Thursday we had leftover lasagna again (yes, that recipe makes a huge pan!). Friday I made taco soup. Saturday I made Lazy Stuffed Peppers. Guiness Beef Stew is on the menu for today. More planning and shopping today, and I really feel like I'm on a roll....

I'm looking into "once a month cooking" - a concept that sounds wonderful to me. I'll post about that once I know much more - once a month may not be feasible, but maybe twice a month is. Anything would be a great improvement over once a day cooking!

Le Creuset in the home

Yes, I know, I am obsessing about this stuff... But anyway, since my kitchen is fairly small, I've been wondering about storage of my pieces - they can't really be stacked, and my cupboards are all already full! I plan to take some of my old T-Fal stuff up to camp this summer, which will make room, but probably still not enough.

Here are some great LC display examples, mostly in pretty small kitchens.


Besides the fact that they show them stored/displayed out in the open, I also find it interesting that most of these people have multiple colors. I really like the one that shows a blue, green and yellow pot - such a lovely cool palette. Maybe, since I already have red, I should look at getting some pieces in orange and yellow in keeping with my warm palette?

Lasagna!

Great segue from my last post - Saturday afternoon I made us a big pan of lasagna. One of my New Year's resolution is to cook at home as much as possible. Lasagna is a great way to do this, as it makes for lots of yummy leftovers for the rest of the week.

I used my LC large roaster and followed Pioneer Woman's lasagna recipe. Now for those of you who haven't tried it, you just must. It is truly one of the best tasting lasagna recipes in the world. It's amazing how the addition of spicy breakfast sausage and the roasting of the tomatoes adds wonderful flavor to the dish. As a Midwesterner, for years my lasagna was always made with just ground beef and sauce from a jar. But, after living in the Northeast for the past 9 years, with all the Italian influences around (I'm guessing 60% of our all local restaurants are Italian!), my old recipe just seemed too bland. I had started substituting sliced meatballs into my recipe, but that is a costly and time-consuming option. Good yes, but not ideal, as the meatballs came from an Italian grocery in Utica! Maybe someday I'll perfect my own meatball recipe, but that's another post....

Please do give PW's (or P-Dub as she calls herself!) recipe a try - you won't be sorry. I make a few modifications when I make it - I cut the ground beef back to just a pound, and I don't pre-cook my noodles, but do add about 12 oz. of water to my sauce to make more liquid to cook the noodles while baking in the oven. No-boil noodles are a bit too wimpy for this recipe - all this meatiness calls for the robustness of a regular lasagna noodle. Red wine might actually be a nice addition to the sauce as well - I think I'll try that the next time I make this. I also increase the amount of the cottage cheese layer to 4 cups, to balance out the meatiness. If you are a purist, by all means use ricotta cheese instead - it's not my favorite, so I stick with small curd cottage cheese.

My LC pan is extra large, so this full recipe fits well. I found it to be too much volume for a regular 'ole 13x9" pan, so if that is what you have, save some of your sauce for another baked dish. The wonderful flavor of this dish comes from the roasting of the tomatoes in the sauce, so you'll be disappointed if you just try using the sauce over pasta - it tastes totally different if not baked.

Mmm, the lasagna leftovers are so yummy!