From Our Kitchen - Lasagna Cups

I found this recipe on one of my favorite blogs, Kevin&Amanda, who I came across long ago through recipe hunting. They are actually Auburn alumni, and even more ironically, they got married at the same park in Auburn that we did. I discovered that while searching to see ways other people may have decorated it, and I happened upon their wedding pictures which is how their blog began. Anyway, you can hop over there to see all of her beautiful pictures of foods and her amazing travels, along with free font designs if you're interested in that. You can find her original post about these lasagna cups HERE, but I'm also going to do a step by step cook-through below.
We like pasta dishes around here. They make an easy, filling dinner for a busy week day. Plus they are usually cheesy (which I love) and often involve garlic bread (which I also love). Not the most nutritious,  but we won't go there.
I've had this recipe "pinned" for a while and finally made it a couple of weeks ago... and then again this week. But that's the great thing about this recipe - the meat mixture makes 4 batches, so it's even easier and quicker to make the second... third... and forth time!

MINI LASAGNA CUPS --------here we go!:
(very slightly adapted from Kevin&Amanda)
Click HERE for my printable recipe version!

First, brown your ground beef and pork, then divide it into four portions. You will only use one portion for this recipe. Bag and freeze the other three for another round of these cups or for other sauces/meals.

Take one portion and add your pasta sauce to it. For the record I should state that for pasta dishes I'm not the biggest fan of jarred sauce.  I guess my palate was spoiled with a mama who always made her spaghetti sauce! But for this recipe, you probably won't want to make a whole batch of sauce to only use one cup of it. I chose a roasted garlic infused sauce to add another punch of flavor since the meat is not seasoned very much.

While the meat is browning, you can prep other things. Spray a muffin tin - I used my Misto (mentioned in THIS post)!

Scoop out your ricotta cheese and mix in Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.

Also, go ahead and shred the cheese of your choice.

Now you're ready to assemble!
You will make two layers of each ingredient. The easiest way for me to do this without running out at the end was to divide my meat and cheeses into two parts in their corresponding bowls, and I knew I could only use half for each layer.

Start by placing a wonton in each cup, pressing it down to make a well to fill.

Then add a spoonful of ricotta...

then a spoonful of meat mixture.

Sprinkle on a little cheese, and you're ready to do it all over again!

Place another wonton wrapper on top, giving them a firm press to make another pocket to fill. Don't worry, these won't overflow. Add more ricotta..

..then meat and cheese. Now they are ready to go into the oven for 10-15 minutes - really just until the cheese melts and the tips of the wontons are golden. Use this time to make a side, like our salad we had!

Did I mention how easy this is? You can wait until your husband walks in the door from work to start this meal, and he can even take a (quick) nap while you're whipping up supper! Jesse has this part down pat:

Close-up shot so you can see all the ooey-gooey-goodness of these lasagna cups:

Note: Wonton wrappers can usually be found in most supermarkets near the produce section. My package looked like this, and had enough wrappers to make 2 recipes of these cups. They are the perfect size for placing in a muffin tin without having to cut them down to size.

This recipe is definitely going into our regular rotations!  I'm excited that the last several new recipes I've tried have been successful and delicious enough to make again and again.

Favorite Things - Kitchen Edition #2

I'm back with another edition of Favorite Things - Round 2 of kitchen accessories! You can read the first edition HERE.  This was also where I confessed my, possibly unnatural, love of kitchen tools and gadgets. I've noticed there are several other things I use fairly frequently that I could rave about. So here is an additional list to add to the other six.

Wilton Verona pan - we registered for Wilton baking pans and sheets for our wedding and received most of them. For some reason I didn't think to get a 9x13 baking pan; you know the most common one to have. I was in TJMaxx [or HomeGoods...one of those] one day and came across the pan you see above. It looked nice, the price seemed right, and I had needed a 9x13 pan (read: family sized box of brownies...for the two of us), so home it came and I fell in love.  For two reasons: 1) the handles - if you bake something that rises up high you won't smash it by taking it out of the oven  2) it is the most non-stick pan I've ever used! I have forgotten to grease the pan several times when makes cake-type recipes and it comes out clean every time. I had to do a bit of Googling because I couldn't remember the "special" name of this Wilton pan. I had never heard of this "special" Verona line of Wilton pans before, or since. On researching for this post I discovered many sizes are available on Amazon!

2. Pineapple Slicer - this handy tool got it's own post HERE, so I'll let you read up on that in case you missed it and save you from more rambling if you didn't.

3. Juicer bowl - I saw a sweet juicer bowl similar to the one above in a magazine recently for over $100. I'm not sure who pays that much to juice a lemon every now and then, but they should feel ashamed of themselves. I thought it was sweet and cute though, so when I found one at Ross for 3 bucks I thought I found a steal. This is completely unnecessary, as you can squeeze a lemon with only one hand, but it does get more juice out than I usual do, and you can strain the seeds out, and you can pour all that you've juiced into a measuring cup to make sure you have enough for your recipe without losing any in the process. (See how I did that? Justification of $3 right there.)

4. Cookie Scoop - this gadget happens to be from Pampered Chef because it was given to me by my sweet sister, Kristi. (Who is a Pampered Chef rep, so if you'd like your own cookie scoop or other items go HERE to order or contact her!)  I'm not sure how I made cookies before I had this. It just makes it so easy to place the dough on the sheet, and it results in "perfectly" shaped and uniform cookies.  Pampered Chef sells a small (1Tbspn), medium (2Tbspn), and large (3Tbspn) scoop. I have the medium size and think it works great for a good-sized cookie.  I'd like to have them all one day though. I could see where the small would be better for maybe making cookies for a large crowd or party where there is lots of food, so the cookies are only a few bites. I know my sister-in-law, Heidi, likes to use hers for filling her cupcake tins so that they are all filled to the same height and result in uniform, domed cupcakes. They are sold elsewhere, but I can vouch for the quality of these Pampered Chef scoops!

5. The Misto - this is a refillable container that you pump to create pressure so that it will mist out oil (or water you fill it with). Aunt Vera gave me this because she had two and likes hers, and I'm so thankful for it. I love refillable products (and should implement more of them into our home) because it produces less waste in our landfills. It also lets us use pure oil of our choice and not additives that are found in store-bought aerosol cooking sprays (why eat more chemicals than you have to?). You do have to pump it often to prevent a stream of oil in place of misting, but it's worth it.

I hope you've enjoyed this edition of Favorite Things! I enjoy sharing them with you, and some of you had fun responses to the last one. Do you have any new favorite kitchen tools?

Weekend Recap

While it's nearly the weekend again, last weekend was quite eventful so I thought I'd do a quick run-through:

Friday: Jesse and I had lunch with Aunt Vera at our usually place - O'Carr's for chicken salad and fruit. We realized we had never introduced Vera to Steel City Pops, and it was just right around the corner so we went!  Vera had vanilla (I told her that was too plain, but it is delicious), I had Maple Bacon Bourbon (ah-mazing!), and Jesse had Watermelon (I think... we've been again since...).

Later that night we drove to Helena for a free outdoor movie in the park with friends Ronda, Mike, Kelsey, and baby Addy. It's such a cute idea for the town to do for everyone to have some summer fun. And you all know that I love free. :)

Saturday:  We met up with friends and went to the Pepper Place farmer's market downtown. It was fun spending the morning strolling around chatting with friends and enjoying local produce and products. I love seeing the proud farmers standing behind their beautiful fruits and veggies. I can barely keep my one low-light, barely-needs-water plant alive, and these men and women have nurtured seeds into bountiful items to fill many dinner plates. I wish I had that kind of talent and patience.
We spent the afternoon at the outlet mall sprucing up Jesse's wardrobe.  Then we ended the night at the dollar theater with a big bag of popcorn, watching Oz.  I was pleasantly surprised with the movie. I love The Wizard of Oz, and while the plot of this movie occurs before the plot of the original I was hoping they would tie things together well, and they did.

Sunday: We were finally in town to be able to go to church, and it was SO good to be back to hear the importance and passion of our church leaders for community building within our congregation. I love the community group we attend and the friends we've made within it. Church is so much more than Sunday morning, and having a community of friends to share the week with is something I'm glad I've found here in Birmingham. Some of us even held true to the sermon on Sunday and had lunch together after church at Mooyah - a burger place similar to Five Guys, which was delicious!

Now we need to make more plans for this coming weekend - a big blowout weekend before Summer semester starts on Monday!

Second Wedding Anniversary

I'm trying to catch up on blogging here. We are taking full advantage of my summer break and have been gone most weekends.  Since we visited Auburn the weekend before and went to the beach the weekend after our anniversary, we had a low-key night out during the week.  It was nice to be able to do our celebrating on the big day instead of waiting for the weekend.

Once Jesse was off of work we went for dinner at Firebirds. The meal began with a loaf of bread. Any restaurant that brings be freshly baked bread first is already racking up brownie points in my book. I had the grilled salmon with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables, while Jesse had an enormous steak (slow-roasted ribeye) with sweet potato fries.

We then had high hopes of recreating our wedding day cupcake flavors (chocolate, key lime, carrot, and red velvet) at Gigi's cupcakes only to remember that they bake only certain flavors on certain days.  When we arrived they had none of the above flavors, so we settled for a Wedding Cake cupcake and called it even.

(No photo of the cupcake, as we ate it after the next event, and it fell over in the car ride making it far from photo-ready.)

Our last stop of the evening was Vulcan Park. This is on our Birmingham bucket list, and we felt like it was a proper night to gaze at the city from up high.  We slowly walked through and read all of the signs telling about Birmingham and the Vulcan's history.  Then we decided to take the stairs up (instead of the elevator...why?!) to the outlook point.  It was quite romantic - seeing the city at night all lit up. Definitely one of the best views (if not the best) in the city.  We were surrounded by a few other couples, and we giggled at  those that were obviously on their first (or so) date getting to know each other. Then I politely interrupted one couple to snap a picture (or twelve) of us.  Thankfully she was overwhelmingly sweet about it, and after some trial and error did a decent job. I couldn't leave without one (good) picture of us on our anniversary day! 

(for more photos, click HERE)

I often sit and think of how blessed I am to have such a wonderful man at my side, now and forever. I've realized this more and more over the past year while I've been drowning in studies and he picks up all of my slack. He's patient when I am not. He's quiet when I should be. He's level-headed and keeps be balanced when I think the moments at hand are more important or overwhelming than they really are. He loves me through it all, and I cherish all of our moments and memories together.  I'm looking forward to another year of memory-making - who knows what's in store?!

Spring/Easter/Summer Mantel

I redecorated our mantel at the beginning of March for Easter/Spring and never shared it with you all. Now that summer is nearly here (at least in Alabama), I'm finally getting around to uploading the pictures. It's probably my favorite yet.  Some things I gathered from around the house and some I picked up at Hobby Lobby.
(Do excuse the blurriness of the images. I was relying on window lighting to reduce the glare from the overhead light, and I was probably rushing.)

A few little eggs (and an improvised "nest"):

A couple of white porcelain birds:

A watering can (from my IKEA trip) filled with a few ranunculus (plural: ranunculi? probably not):

A beautiful cross for Easter:

As well as a verse (the design I copied from a finding on Pinterest) to be a constant reminder of why we celebrate Easter, in case we got wrapped up in things - in this year's case studying instead of egg hunts:

And a picture of from our wedding day, as I anticipated this decor being up for a while = through our wedding anniversary (proved myself right):

All together now:

I included our travels map because I don't have a better place for it, and the colors seemed to blend well.  Also present are cards from Easter and my birthday from our wonderful parents and an uncle & aunt.

I love my mantel, and my sweet husband for making it for us! It is fun to decorate for each season - finding things I already own that fit the "theme" and picking up new pieces to go with it. For instance, in what you see above, the map and jar full of pins is from a prior project; the book underneath our wedding photo was just the right size so I recovered it with some matching scrapbook paper; the tea cup that holds the eggs was from the thrift store long ago (something my mom eventually talked me into getting out of her house); the milk bottle hidden behind the card on the left was also thrifted; and the "B" was from our wedding! Everything else was pretty much found at Hobby Lobby, so of course it was at least 40% off.

Weekend Recap

This past weekend we took a quick trip to Auburn. Mostly to visit friends, but also to reminisce with the past. This was the first time we have been back in Auburn since we left a year ago.

We arrived at lunch at Kyle and Michelle's and ate at Mrs. Story's Dairy Bar - a one-room, order-at-the-window dive that's been in Opelika for decades. I'd often go with the girls at work on our lunch break to grab a chili dog and a cup of delicious ripple ice cream. I've been craving that combo for a little while, so we made those dreams come true on Saturday.

Next, we strolled around Toomer's Corner and made a drive around campus. Not much has changed in a year, which is surprising, because there was always some kind of construction going on while we were there. We did stop in for Toomer's lemonade, admired the lawn of Samford, and mourned the loss of the Toomer's oaks.

We also drove around Conway Acres - our old trailer park.  Of course, with it being summer hardly anyone was there, but the guy who bought our trailer was standing out in the yard. I wanted to stop so bad and see how he changed it, but everyone vetoed me - saying I'd be upset because it wouldn't look like "our" home anymore. Which is true. It's weird to think someone just moves in and paints over your paint colors and orients the furniture differently than you did.

We met up with Gabe and Stephanie who recently bought a limo, so they were more than excited to take us all for a ride to Venditori's (used to be Provino's - our favorite Italian restaurant in the area) for dinner!  

Sunday morning, we visited our "old City Church" (what I've dubbed it as since we now attend Christ City Church in B'ham).  While most of our friends have moved on as well, it was nice to see those that are still there. It seemed a lot different - mostly a whole new congregation, but it was great to see that the church is molding and changing and not stuck being something they shouldn't be.

On our way back to Birmingham we met Gene and Marilyn and got to pick up Maggie to bring her home. We sent her with them a couple of weeks ago so that we could freely travel recently. She picked up right where she left off:

High Five for Friday

Happy Friday everyone!

This week was the beginning of my summer break - before summer semester starts, that is.  While I've done a lot of relaxing, it has also been rather productive. Here's how it's been going:

(some photos by Erika & Gussie!)

1.  We started off last weekend with some of our optometry friends on a camping trip to Port St. Joe, FL.  This was the first time I've camped since I was a child, and honestly I was a little afraid.  For those of you that know me well, you know I love the indoors and bugs are not my friends, but I had a great time!  We arrived after dark, pitched our tent, and had grilled hamburgers for dinner. The next day we relaxed on the beach until it rained, then we all loaded up and explored the town. Smores also happened. What's camping without smores, right?  This was a continuation of Erika's birthday celebration, and she picked a great spot to unwind after finals!

2. On our way back from the beach we stopped in Luverne to visit with our mother's for Mother's Day. It was a quick stop and dinner, but we were so glad we could see them on their special day!

3.  Throughout finals (and probably before) I was mulling over tons of ideas of things I'd rather be doing besides studying.  Top on the list was baking sugar cookies and decorating them with royal icing. There are amazing ladies out there that do this and create works of art out of them. (Check out SweetSugarBelle, Sweetopia, and Bridget at Bake@350 for where I was going with all of this.)  Of course I was inspired, and had been collecting all of the proper equipment to try my hand at it. I've done it a couple of times before - once for a family 4th of July gathering and, most recently, with Heidi and Kelsey for Easter cookies.  But this time I was shooting for "perfection" because I decided to make these as gifts for two special graduates - Kayla from Alabama School of Fine Arts where she dances, and Kyle from Auburn School of Pharmacy.  Most of the cookie designs were pulled from the ladies mentioned above, but a couple I made myself. Here's a little peek:

4.  While home for Mother's Day Marilyn gave us some sweet peas from their garden. I shelled and cooked them last night for dinner. One of my fondest memories of childhood and my Memaw is going to her house to help with her garden. This involved buckets and buckets of peas, beans, corn, tomatoes, okra, and other delicious veggies.  I probably complained at the time because my tired thumbs were green and purple from the hulls, but now I love it because it reminds me of simpler times when food came from your backyard, not... Chile.

5.  Our Community Group has planned a fondue night for today, and I am SO excited! Jesse and I look forward to this with his family once a year, but now we get to share this with some great friends!