Around-the-Table Lasagna

jacqui_monet
November 17, 2016

In The Porcupine of Truth Carson Smith’s family has never been close. His grandfather ran out on his grandmother, his dad drank himself right out of a relationship with his mother and his mother has always been, well, an ice queen. Family dinners were never really a thing that Carson got to experience growing up, but it’s something that he and his friend Aisha  find themselves desperately needing. Living most of his life in New York I thought, what would more fitting than one of the most amazing dishes you can snag in the Big Apple? With all of the Italian restaurants (and all of the Italian Nonnas in every neighborhood), lasagna is a staple! Below is a recipe so easy, even Carson could make it.

You will need:

Box of lasagna noodles (I mean, you could make it fresh but that requires a lot of work appliances that most folks don’t have.)

Water for boiling

Ricotta Cheese 1 tub

Shredded Cheese

Ground Turkey 1 lb

Spinach (washed)

Salt

Garlic Powder

Optional: olive oil

Cooking spray

Bottle of your favorite spaghetti sauce (I like Ragu’s Chunky Sun-dried Tomato and Sweet Basil. Or, you could be fancy and make your own.)

13×9 baking pan or casserole dish, large pot, large frying pan, strainer

Oven, stove

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

In the large pot boil water and cook the lasagna noodles per the box’s instructions.

Meanwhile, brown the ground turkey in the frying pan season with garlic powder and the optional olive oil. Strain and return to the pan and mix in the spaghetti sauce. Let it simmer.

 

Let’s talk layering: this part can be a little tricky if you have over cooked you noodles. The order that I think is the best/easiest is as follows:

Noodles. Spread ricotta cheese evenly. Meat sauce. spinach. Repeat and then, if you have anything left over, add meet sauce and a couple of spoonfuls of ricotta.

 

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 mins. Remove foil and sprinkle on a layer of the shredded cheese. Bake for another 10 mins.

Alternative: If you want to assemble one day and then bake on the next you will have to refrigerate it and then bake for 40 mins covered, sprinkle the shredded cheese and then bake for 10 mins uncovered.

This lasagna recipe is so easy! Pair this with a simple salad and some garlic bread and your family won’t know what hit ’em!

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Daddy-Long-Legs Book Review

jacqui_monet
June 17, 2016

1499952

Author: Jean Webster

Series: kind of the sequel, Dear Enemy, takes place in the same world but not with our protagonist.

Genre: YA

Pages: 185

When I first saw this book, it was sitting sadly on the shelf at the library. The front cover was particularly boring featuring an ambiguously aged girl sitting with a pen and paper half smiling out of a window. Then I thought, “Daddy-Long-Legs? Really? What is this, the true life story of Little Miss Muffet?” So, being the strange ol’ bird that I am, I checked the book out.

You know the old saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover?” It totally applies here. Daddy-Long-Legs was a great read. With only 185 pages, I inhaled the books in a couple of hours. Two words: page turner.

First published in 1912, Daddy-Long-Legs tell the story of an orphan named Jerusha aka Judy who gets sent to college anonymously by a man who donates to the orphanage. This mystery benefactor will pay for her tuition, books, food, clothes and any and all incidentals along the way. Judy is told that she can attend school without fear of being indebted to him, but on two conditions.

  1. Judy must write a letter to him every month until she graduates knowing full well that he will never write her back.
  2. She cannot know who her benefactor is.

At first I was worried when I realized that all but the first ten pages were written in a letter format. Yet, this style never got stale. Judy’s letters were so detailed that while reading, I forgot that there wasn’t any actual dialogue. The letters are also pretty funny especially when she is angry about something. Also, the book gets its title from the way Judy begins nearly all of her letters: “Dear Daddy-Long-Legs.” She calls him this because at the orphanage, she was got a glimpse of his leggy shadow.

Another worry I had, was the book’s publish date because I hate reading a book and experiencing some type of language barrier. (For example, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere; it’s good but the British slang is confusing. I guess I don’t watch enough BBC.) Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with that one bit. It’s almost as if Jean Webster debuted this book yesterday! The diction sounds current if not a more polite way of speaking. You wouldn’t even realize that this took place in yester-year if it weren’t for the cost of things being so little back then. The story also has interesting twists and turns like Judy falling in love with her roommate young uncle, school dances, vacations with wealthy friends and potential boyfriends.

So, I’ve concluded that I love this book and I stand behind it all the way. I mean, if the only thing I don’t like about it is the outside cover, it’s great! If you read this and decided you want more, films have been made in the US (several times), Korea and Japan as recent as 2005. There are even anime and stage versions that have been created. I haven’t seen all of them yet, but I will say that the Fred Astaire film is great, but has some very bizarre sequences that are literally excuses to have him dance.

 

If this book interests you, check out the links below to experience it for yourself!

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006PV801Y/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/daddy-long-legs-webster-jean/1120679007