Pasta Time

We went back to mine and Miss Annette's favorite type of food this week -- Pasta!!  I swear I could live on pasta.  Sometimes I take leftover spaghetti noodles, chop them up, add some chopped onion and celery and toss with dressing of some type (Italian, Ranch, Vidalia Onion).  Good lunch.

We had lasagna.  Now some of my loyal readers might think 'you just had lasagna a few weeks ago'.  You would be right in that thought. But we changed this one up.  We had White Lasagna.

I'm not sure this picture truly shows the deliciousness of this recipe.  The recipe called for ready to bake lasagna noodles so that was what Gary used (typically he buys the packaged noodles and cooks them).  We took a large chicken breast seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked. This was then chopped up.  We took a package of frozen spinach, thawed and drained (squeezed).

Take butter and melt in pan, add onion and garlic and cook until tender.  Add flour and salt and cook until bubbly, this is known as making a rue.  To this add some chicken broth and milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly, for one minute. Add Mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese,  basil, salt and pepper to taste, remove from heat and set aside.

In baking dish layer, sauce, noodles, ricotta cheese, chicken and spinach for three layers. On the top layer add Parmesan and Mozzarella cheese topping last layer of noodles with sauce.  Bake until bubbly golden brown.  Let rest about 5 minutes before cutting.

I made an appetizer of Prosciutto Cups.

Arrange Prosciutto ham in mini muffin cups making certain that bottom of cup is completely covered. Leave some of the ham hanging over the edge. The filling was spinach, thawed and squeezed, garlic and ricotta cheese. Mix all together and put about one Tablespoon in each priscuitto cup. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.  

Can we say good stuff?   It was!

We also had Garlic bread furnished by Mr. Rick.

We have determined that there is nothing Garlic Bread does not go with.  I 'm sure you'll agree on that.

Miss Annette tried a new recipe for dessert, Italian Lemon Drop Cookies.

They look good don't they?  We were not pleased with them.  Miss Annette described them as a ball of Crisco.  LOL  She wasn't to far off the mark on that.  The recipe called for Crisco, flour, sugar, baking powder, milk, egg, and lemon extract.  Mix together, shape into balls and bake until golden brown. The topping was Crisco, powdered sugar, milk and lemon extract.  We all decided that if butter had been used instead of Crisco it would have produced a better flavor and product.

To make up for the not so great recipe she put the cookies on one of her best plates.  Presentation is the key.  She also brought a second dessert since the original was not good.

She brought some Toffee Bars. She only had milk chocolate to use for the bars but they sure tasted good.

So there you have it.  We have been doing New Food Night since May and have only had two recipes that did not live up to our expectations. I think that's a pretty good ratio myself.  Who wants to join us next week?  It's Thanksgiving week so be prepared for a special treat!