Homemade Lasagna

Homemade Lasagna with a ground beef marinara, topped with parmesan and mozzarella

I have had the ingredients for a lasagna for weeks. So long in fact, that the cottage cheese I was going to use went bad. After purchasing a new carton of cottage cheese I finally had the time to make it. Monday I didn't have any class so I made it then. It is a pretty simple recipe I got from my mom, but I used more budget friendly ingredients. I started by cooking the lasagna noodles in salted water for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then I browned a pound of ground beef with salt and pepper. (Generally I use garlic as well but did not have it at the time). Once the meat was browned I added mariana sauce purchased for 84 cents at Walmart. Then I added about 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning. While the sauce was simmering I made the filling using a carton of cottage cheese, a cup of parmesan and a cup of mozzarella, more Italian seasoning and salt and pepper. (Amount can vary to liking). As soon as I finished the filling and the sauce I drained the noodles and let them cool. When the noodles cooled I started the layering process. I put down a layer of noodles, sauce, and filling and repeated the process until finished. I originally topped it with mozzarella and parmesan but it didn't have enough moisture. So later I added more sauce and cheese to the top and it made it much better. Wednesday night I took it over to Mark and Sarah's apartment and had a double date dinner with them and Shane. Lasagna is not something you make for just two people, it is way too time consuming for that:)

Chicken Fajitas

Sliced chicken thighs with salt pepper and taco seasoning (this shows how much counter space I have to work with...)

Homemade Chicken Fajitas with mozzarella cheese, salsa and tortilla chips

I have not posted anything in about a month, it has been busy. I left for spring break on a rock climbing trip in the Wichita Mountains and came back to rehearsal for the show I am in now. Anyway, I finally felt the urge to cook again, so before rehearsal on thursday I made dinner. I have not been to the store in a few weeks so I was pretty limited on my resources. I had two chicken thighs that I salted and peppered. then I cooked them on my cast iron until they were a little underdone. Then I removed them from the pan and placed them on a cutting board. After they cooled I used a serrated knife to cut the chicken into slices. Generally this works better with chicken breasts, but I only had thighs. After I removed all the meat from the bone I placed the strips back into the pan on low heat and sprinkled about 1 1/2-2 TB taco seasoning. This is when the chicken was able to fully cook without overcooking it. While I was doing the chicken I heated another pan with a little olive oil and placed each tortilla on it to get them warm and crispy. After those were finished I divided the chicken into each tortilla and topped it with shredded mozzarella cheese (because I ran out of cheddar). Then I carefully wrapped them and topped the whole thing with mild salsa. The chips on the side were commandeered from the cafeteria. If I had more resources I would have added onions, lettuce, tomatoes and all the great things that go on a fajita, but for what I had it ended up being pretty tasty.