Lasagna with Chicken Italian Sausage & Spinach

I'd like to sit here and pretend that we always have a big Sunday meal, with five choices of sides, three of which are freshly cooked vegetables, but most Sunday nights that is not even close to reality. Sundays around here are family days, which means depending on our moods and the season we can usually be found doing one of these activities or a combination of: sleeping in, cooking a big breakfast, going to church, gardening, watching football, going for a Sunday drive, a long walk, doing puzzles and reading with our girls. Sundays pass too quickly, and by evening I am feeling rather lazy in regards to dinner.  But some Sundays, when I have been extra organized with my time and my shopping list, I can put out a meal worthy of a Sunday dinner, family style........

Don't be afraid of lasagna, it's not as time consuming or as complicated as you might think. This whole meal from start to finish only took me a little over an hour, and more than half of that is just cooking time. A really great tip I got from watching an episode of The Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten) is to put your uncooked lasagna noodles in a bowl of piping hot tap water for 20 minutes, then drain. The lasagna noodles end up perfectly par boiled without the hassle of actually par boiling!

Lasagna with Chicken Italian Sausage and Spinach
Serves 6-8

1 pound sweet Italian chicken sausage (casings removed)
1 10 oz bag spinach
2 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes
1 6 oz can tomato paste
3 tsp italian seasoning (seperated)
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
20 oz Ricotta
8 oz Lasagna noodles (1/2 package)
12 oz FRESH Mozzarella (cut in thin slices)
1 cup Parmesan
1 egg
salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and cook until soft, about 5 minutes, season with salt and pepper.  Add garlic, cooking until fragrant about a minute. Add sausage cooking until browned, about 8-10 minutes. Add spinach in batches until wilted. Season with salt and pepper. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and 1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning. Simmer 20 minutes.

While sauce is simmering, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put lasagna noodles in bowl and pour the hottest tap water over them. Let sit 20 minutes, then drain. In a medium bowl combine Ricotta, Parmesan, egg, and 1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning, 1/2 tsp salt and pepper. The only good way to do this is by using your hands! Set aside.

In a 13x9x2 baking dish, spread 1/3 of the red sauce on the bottom of baking dish. Then layer half the pasta noodles. On top of that half the Mozzarella, then half the Ricotta mixture. After that 1/3 more of the sauce, rest of the pasta, then the rest of the Mozzarella, followed by the Ricotta mixture, then the last 1/3 of the sauce. Bake for 35 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Serve with salad, and like all lasagna the leftovers taste even better!

Special French Bread

Special French Bread

This bread will make you fat. (If you eat it every night.) So use your judgment and only fix it for special occasions.

1 loaf Sourdough or French bread
1/2 cup sour cream
1 stick unsalted butter (room temperature)
2 cloves garlic, pressed or crushed
Parmesan cheese
pinch of pepper
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix sourcream, butter, garlic and pepper in a bowl. Spread on two halves of bread evenly. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake @ 400 degrees until golden and bubbly about 10 minutes. Let cool slightly then slice and serve!

Vacation

I am so so excited to say that we are planning a small but much needed (childless) vacation to the Sonoma Coast (lodging in Bodega Bay). We hold Mendocino (and it's county line) near and dear to our hearts, but this time we wanted to take the road less traveled, and that road was to Bodega Bay. My husband's ideal vacation differs from mine and generally includes a comfy bed, room with a view, ESPN, and laying around enjoying all those things. My ideal vacation includes all of ,the above but I also have to incorporate my type A and ADD into all that...(do those two even go together???) I happen to think they do, meaning we are going to do everything the Hubs wants to do BUT also check out the best food, restaurants, shops, and markets, wineries, and breweries around and also enjoy the scenery, ie; eat, drink and be lazy! So far I have on my must stops : Lagunitas Brewery, Russian River Brewing, Andy's Produce Market, Casino Bar and Grill, Sonoma Coast Fish Bank, Barley & Hops Tavern, and Gourmet au Bay. Does anybody have any tips or suggestions in this neck of the woods??? Our last vacation alone was 4 years ago when I was pregnant with Sofia, so we are long overdue, and really needing this one! Until then, I'll be dreaming of this view.......

Cream of Asparagus Soup with Applewood Smoked Bacon

The best meal I've had in my life (so far) was in Reims, France, at a restaurant called Le Continental. I hadn't researched the place, heard of the place, nothing. By luck and lack of patience, (not wanting to wait in the long line at the restaurant next door) I just wandered in. Only 18 and a bit naive, I could have cared less about being in Reims and didn't expect much. To me, it was just a stop on the way to grand old Paris. It was New Year's Eve, I was hungry and they had a table, that was good enough. When walking into the dining room I was actually feeling disappointed because the sign outside only had 2 stars (I didn't realize they were Michelin stars, I had been accustomed to my mom's AAA guides where only 2 stars meant sort of sh**ty in American standards.) The waiter took full advantage of the fact that I didn't speak a lick of French and shortly thereafter I was served duck pate on raisin toasts, a dozen oysters, salad with champagne vinaigrette and fromage blanc, poached lobster tail sauteed in a mushroom champagne sauce, fillet of beef smothered in some other mushroom sauce followed by a course of cheeses that I am ashamed to say I can not recall the name of a single one, except for the fact that they were utterly delicious. It wasn't until my return home that I actually read a guidebook and realized that Reims was in the heart of Champagne country in France. Talk about traveling blind..........

The magical thing about traveling blind is that it can lead to what I like to call "stumbleuponedness" (I know, that's not an actual word, thank you.) The stumbleduponess factor is quite often the most memorable thing about traveling. When you stumble upon something truly special, you get that wonderful feeling of the excitement of discovery combined with comfort and happiness, because you swear it seems like you've been waiting to find that spot your whole life and then wa-la! there it is. For instance I will never forget getting lost in a maze of medieval streets on a snowy day in Marburg Germany and stumbling my way into a bowl of creamy asparagus soup. I could have sat there forever in that cafe, my bowl of soup, my little miniature coca cola bottle, people watching, wondering if I was going to miss my train but not wanting to leave that place.

The funny thing about food memories is that sometimes they don't surface again for a very long time, years actually. It was in fact exactly 10 years later when my asparagus soup food memory overtook me and man, oh man, I just had to have some. I don't know if this recipe is similar or resembles anything like the soup I had in that Marburg cafe, but when I fix it, it warms me right up and takes me back to a simpler time when I didn't have any agenda but escaping the snowfall.

Cream of Asparagus Soup with Applewood Smoked Bacon
Serves 4

8 oz Applewood Smoked Bacon, chopped
1 Bunch asparagus (roughly 1 lb) cut into 2 inch pieces
1 Yellow onion, chopped
2 Garlic cloves (kept whole)
4 Cups chicken stock
1/2 cup Heavy Cream
Salt and pepper
In a large soup pot over medium heat, cook bacon until crisp. When bacon is crisp, remove from pot and set aside to cool on paper towels. In the same pot, saute onion and garlic cloves in leftover bacon grease until onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Add asparagus and saute until tender, about 5 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper.  Add chicken stock, increase the heat, bringing the soup to a boil. Simmer (not boil) soup for 30 minutes. Stir in cream. Using an immersion blender (or regular blender, but be careful it's hot!) Puree soup. Season with salt and pepper. Top soup with bacon pieces. Serve with hot buttered sourdough bread!

Bacon "crisping"

Asparagus, onion, & garlic sauteing!