When in Doubt, Make Lasagna

This doesn't happen very often, but I made a crappy spaghetti sauce the other night.

The inspiration for this came when I was walking by the meat section in the LOGS (local overpriced grocery store) and there were some nice sausages on sale. They were pork souvlaki sausages. There were four of the suckers there for under $3! How could I resist? Thinking of the flavours in souvlaki, I thought these would be great in spaghetti sauce. When I unwrapped them, the smelled of garlic & oregano and no lemon; I thought I was safe.

Ugh. I didn't like the sauce. I had one meal from it with pasta and wondered what to do with the rest of the pot. I certainly didn't want to waste it at all. I am too cheap to do that.

Would this be any good in lasagna, I wondered? I had ricotta cheese left over from cross-border shopping; all I really needed was some mozzarella cheese. I went for it.

Thank God this worked out! The sauce made a far better lasagna than a spaghetti sauce, which was a huge relief. I guess you can add ricotta cheese to anything and it'll turn out (right Palidor?). Or maybe the flavours had some time to mellow. I don't know, but it was a kick ass lasagna, and 7 out of 8 pieces of it went into the freezer! Woo-hoo!

Lunch at The Hume Hotel

Another week, another trip to Nelson to take advantage of Save-On Foods' weekly specials. Which also means a lunch out with my most constant dining partner nowadays, my dad.

This week, I suggested the Hume Hotel, which has a salad bar I was interested in. My appetite being what it is these days, I needed the flexibility the salad bar had to offer. That, and I really wanted some soup. The salad bar comes with soup of the day, which that day happened to be white bean & chorizo. Not my bag, so I subbed in the French Onion Soup.

Now, if you read this post, you'll see that the Hume has a history, and part of that history for me, involves a spectacular French Onion Soup I had there when I was a kid that had beer in it. To this day, it is the yard stick against which I measure all other French Onion Soups! In fact, my dad is the same - he still rhapsodizes about that soup. I knew, however, from our last lunch there that the recipe had changed and the beery soup was no longer on offer, but the current soup is supposedly made with sherry, as specified in the menu's description.

After having a sampler from the salad bar, my soup finally came. And...
...Well, it was good, but not that good. A bit weak, and not tasting too much of the sherry. It also didn't have very many onions in it. Also - they hadn't taken the bay leaves out and had used small bay leaves, so twice I took a spoonful and chomped down on bay leaves. I was a little annoyed.

My dad had ordered the lasagne, which came with garlic toast and a surprise Caesar salad. The salad was a surprise because the night shift had just come on and they put salad with their dinner entrees, so Dad got lucky.He said the lasagne was really good and enjoyed it very much.

The shift change might explain the slowness of the service. Because it was S-L-O-W.

Dad was full, but I wanted dessert, and I knew that the Hume has a great dessert list. I opted for the lemon meringue pie and was not disappointed at all - except, once again, it took forever to come out. But it was delicious and I realized I hadn't had lemon meringue pie in ages. Yum!
So, while the food was good, the service was iffy. Perhaps they were having an off day. It happens.

Life is a Box of Chocolates, and Father's Day Dinner & Updates

So, one weekend my cat gets sick, the next weekend I get sick. There is obviously something in the water up here. Yesterday, I had to bail on work, but I was feeling well enough to go in this morning and bake, so that's what I did.

Technically, what I do at this place is categorized as volunteering, though I do get a supplement to my disability pension that makes life a lot easier for me, but the organization itself doesn't pay me. They are always telling me how well I do my job and how good the kitchen smells when I'm in there baking, and today I was presented with a lovely gift from the staff as a token of their appreciation. I got a really nice card, a huge box of chocolate, and a gift certificate to a store I regularly haunt. I was so surprised - even more so because I was up to my elbows in muffin batter at the time of presentation!
Nice, eh? It felt so great to be so appreciated. I can't tell you what this meant to me!

Sunday was Father's Day, as many of you might know, and my family & I celebrated with a dinner I held at my place. I made this chicken lasagne, which my father had been nagging me for since my article containing the recipe came out. My brother brought some focaccia bread from Safeway, and for dessert I served a selection of desserts: spicy molasses cookies, snickerdoodles, and sour cherry loaf.
And here is Juno, the cat who caused me so much stress a couple of weekends ago! She loves to roll onto her back, tuck up her feet, and show me her belly. I don't know why, because if I try to tickle the belly, she bites me. I always find it funny when she assumes this position; it reminds me of a seal!
FYI, I talked to the cook today about last week's Hawaiian Rice adventure, and he said it was great and that it was very much like a rice pudding! He really liked it, and said the residents did, too!