Lasagna and brownies

Ah, lasagna. Seemingly so complicated but really so easy. How I love thee.
Saute chopped onions over medium heat until almost clear, then add chopped garlic (maybe one onion and about 4-8 cloves of garlic). Add 2-3 cups of chopped mushrooms. Feel free to add a splash of wine or balsamic vinegar.
Empty the pan and saute spinach in olive oil until dark green and wilted. You can also saute sliced zuccini, eggplant, or whatever veggies you like.
Put veggies in bowls, along with ricotta cheese, shreded mozzerella cheese, fresh basil and boiled lasagna noodles. Splash tomato sauce down on a 9 x 13 pan, and start with a layer of noodles. Add more sauce, then 1/3rd of the veggies, 1/3 rd of the ricotta and a few good handfuls of cheese. Add more noodles, and repeat. Add more noodles and repeat. Top with noodles, a tiny bit of sauce and the rest of the cheese, along with some parmesian. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes to an hour, or more if you have made this ahead of time and refrigerated it. When a knife inserted in the middle is hot, it's ready. Let sit for 5 minutes before cutting.
What goes really well with lasagna?
Brownies!
This is a recipe from Nink, who was a student of Jeremy's mom's housemate's back in Chicago in the 1970's. We like it because it's rich and dense and tasty.
1 c butter or margerine
2 c sugar (I usually cut this by 1/2 c)
4 oz unsweetened chocolate (although I recently made this with bittersweet chocolate by mistake. It was very sweet, but not the horrible disaster I thought it would be)
4 eggs
2 t vanilla
1 c flour
1/2 to 1 c nuts (pecans or walnuts)
Preheat oven to 325. Melt butter and chocolate over low/medium heat, stirring constantly. Add sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, making sure you stir the hell out of it each time so the eggs are combined completely. Add vanilla, then flour. Fold in the nuts. Pour into a sprayed 8 x 8 pan and bake 25-30 minutes, or when an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Rhubarb scones

Aren't these beautiful?

We the previously posted scone recipe but added pecans and rhubarb (coated in sugar). It got a bit sloppy from the juice, and was challenging to fold it all in, but damn, these were tasty.

Piper's salad recipe thing

Yes, I know it looks disgusting, but this salad tasted so damn good.
The base is lettuce and shredded carrots, with garlic, green onions, tomatoes, mock duck, mint stir fried in chilis, vinager, sugar and a little bit of sweet chili sauce.
(For a fast topping for salads or rice, you can also cube tofu and throw in a wok with minced garlic and a few good dollops of sweet chili sauce. It cooks up nicely.)

Farmer's Market bounty

This beautiful photo displays the farmer's market selections from early June. The strawberries were the first local ones of the season, and they were so sweet they tasted like jam. Great tomatoes too.


When cleaning the cherries, I found not one, but EIGHT siamese twin cherry bunches. Isn't that strange? (Especially considering I've never seen even one before then...)

Wafernusse and Don Juan Tempranillo

There are some folks out there who hate Aldi's. (ALbrecht DIscount, a discount supermarket chain from Germany.) They think that if you're paying 25 cents for canned goods, there's got to be something wrong with it. Now I know that most Aldi's seem to crop up in the less than wealthy parts of town, and that the produce is usually pathetic and sad looking (even though it's dirt cheap), but within the aisles of Aldi's you can find several treasures.
First up are these fine Chocolate Wafernusse. Delicious crispy wafers with hazelnut and chocolate layers. So, so good.
They have excellent prices on pure vanilla, brown sugar and marachino cherries, as well as comparable prices on flour, sugar and other baked goods.
Like Trader Joe's, owned by Aldi's, they have cheap nuts, dried fruits and cereals.
When I went last week, the fruit looked great and man, what a deal! $2.99 for a whole seedless watermelon, 50 cents for a cantelope, cheap cherries and strawberries (neither of which we needed) and Mama Tia's frozen cheese pizza for $1.99 (which actually became my new preferred pizza, as long as you add sauteed veggies on top.)
Speaking of Trader Joe's, I believe we purchased Don Juan tempranillo from there for $3.99. It tastes just like a tempranillo--sort of dry, a little acidic. Not bad, especially for that price. Not a superstar, but come on, it's less than $4!

Pizza, Blue Bunny ice cream and Rex Shiraz

We love pizza, and even though we'll eat frozen pizza when we're lazy, we prefer to make our own. Jeremy uses a great recipe for a whole wheat pizza crust and we include whatever veggies are in the frig.
The usual suspects: sauteed onions, garlic, mushrooms and spinach, sometimes asparagus, sometimes artichokes and olives, sometimes hot peppers. YUM.

I'm a sucker for cheap ice cream. When looking for no sugar added versions after my dad found out about the diabetes, I found Blue Bunny's vanilla, a tasty, non-chemically alternative to "real" ice cream. The Bourdeaux Cherry Chocolate was also good, with giant chunks of cherries and chocolate. (Not diabetic friendly, I'm afraid.)

With dinner we drank some Rex Goliath Shiraz. As I said before when reviewing the Chardonnay, I like Rex and have never been
disappointed by their wines. They are cheap (usually $7 or 8),

last a good while and go with just about anything.
Hooray for cheap tasty wine!

Vegetarianism's little secret

I don't remember farting much growing up. Seriously. I was born into a good, hard-working, German family, with lots of meat and potatoes and milk. (I don't remember being constipated either, but I should have been with all of that starch and dairy...but I digress.)
Since becoming a vegetarian, however, I seem to produce enough gas to fuel the world. It's ridiculous. No one told me. It appears that flatulence is a common complaint among vegetarians and vegans.
Here's a good explanation from www.thestraightdope.com:
"The problem is the body's inability to fully digest the complex carbohydrates so abundant in the vegetarian diet and the consequent excessive production of gases such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane.
Vegetarian nutritionists claim this phenomenon abates once the intestinal flora adapt to the new menu. However, I suspect high gas production is inherent in any diet consisting predominantly of plant products. Cows and sheep, for example, are marvelously adapted to all-veggie fare, yet they generate such prodigious quantities of methane-laden flatulence that some authorities regard them as major contributors to the greenhouse effect and thus to global warming.
A matter avoided studiously in most discussions of this subject, and to which I now must delicately turn, is odor. While it seems inarguable that a vegetarian diet eventuates in increased flatulence, the gases produced in greatest volume--the aforementioned hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane--are odorless. The noxious fragrance of which you complain is produced by minute amounts of other digestive by-products, typically containing sulfur, such as hydrogen sulfide, methanethiol, and dimethyl sulfide.
I pass no judgments, observing only that foul smells are likely to be associated with particular high-sulfur foods rather than with a vegetarian diet in general. I have it on solid authority, for instance, that if you pack in the garlic you will stink like a son of a bitch. Broccoli and cauliflower are also notable in this regard. Willpower and muscle control won't save you--if you don't shed the noisome molecules in the form of flatus, they'll be absorbed into your bloodstream and later waft from your breath or pores."
I thought I would try an over-the-counter gas reducing pill. After taking the first pill (which worked quite well), I read the list of ingredients. Besides including gelatin (made from bones, teeth and other animal bits), it contains "cod, flounder and redfish."
WTF???!! Why do I need fish to stop gas? Needless to say, Jeremy won't touch the stuff, and I'll only use it if I'm desperate (going out with friends after eating black bean soup, or something.)
I don't regret being a vegetarian, but damn, I sure hate the gas.
If anyone knows of a vegan remedy (other than fennel, which doesn't do squat for me), let me know.