Zucchini Lasagna

I got this recipe from The Italian Dish blog that I love (see the side bar on my main page for a couple other blogs I also like) - I haven't made a bad recipe following her instructions, and this Zucchini Lasagna is one of my favorites. I changed a couple things - her original recipe calls for cooking the zucchini first and I just use it raw, and she uses 1 cup of bread crumbs but I scaled it back to 1/2 cup. It is usually watery after baking it (haha it's probably because I don't cook the zucchini and reduced the bread crumbs!) but I just carefully tip the dish over the sink and drain some of the water off. This is really, really good - a perfect easy summer meatless recipe.

• 3 lbs. zucchini, sliced into long thin strips
• 1 quart spaghetti or thick tomato sauce
• 1/2 cups bread crumbs
• 1 lb. ricotta
• 4 eggs
• 2 T. chopped parsley
• 1/2 t. dried oregano
• 1/2 t. dried basil
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup grated parmesan
• 1 cup coarsely grated mozzarella

Combine ricotta, eggs, parsley, seasoning and half of the parmesan cheese and half of the bread crumbs in a bowl. Set aside.

In a 9x13 pan, spoon a thin layer of tomato sauce. On top of the sauce layer 1/2 of the zucchini,   1/2 ricotta mixture, half the mozzarella cheese, the rest of the zucchini, layer more tomato sauce and the rest of the bread crumbs and top with remaining ricotta mixture. Top with remaining mozzarella and parmesan.

Bake 350' for 1 hour. Let stand 20 minutes before serving.

Note: This time I made it in an 8x8" pan and did 3 layers instead of 2 - either way is yum!

click here to see the original post from The Italian Dish. 

Card Holder (from re-purposed junk!)

This is a totally jerry-rigged odd thing I made for Ronda's display table using stuff that was just laying around - but it turned out pretty cute and Ronda didn't make fun of it, so I'll share. Not since I made the travel jewelry pouch using a potholder and plastic baggies (click here for that post) have I created such a totally made up thing that could potentially be lame but turned out ok, hahaha.

So - this is an unfinished wood candleholder, an empty ribbon spool, hoop earrings, beads, a wine cork, and some twine. First I covered the top of the spool with some Stampin' Up patterned paper. Cut a slit into the top of the cork, put it thru the spool, and stood it up in the candleholder. Then inserted a cute flat card into the slit and hot glued some twine along the edges of the spool. That looked pretty good but it needed a little more jazzing up so I punched four holes in the spool, threaded the earring hoops thru and added a bead on each one.

The finished display table ~ click here to see how to make the popsicle Adirondack chair and paper hat; click here to see how to make spider mum paper flowers; and click here to see how to make k-cup twine and starfish garland: 

Paper Umbrella

While making things for Ronda's seasonal display I thought I needed to make paper umbrellas, 'cause that seems pretty beachy. 

I took the glass stones out of the mesh
bag before putting it on her table! 

Found some patterns online (click here for the source and pattern I used), cut them out using different Stampin' Up papers and whipped them up in no time. I made a couple different sizes but the instructions are the same, just scale the original pattern up or down to make it the size you want. I originally had a small one in the beachy scene in a box that I showed you yesterday (click here for that post) but then I moved it to a clear glass decorative box along with some sand and shells. The large umbrella looks perfect in a big chunky footed glass filled with small clear glass rocks - I think they look like ice cubes. Cute, right? Try them, they're easy and fun - these would be cute for all kinds of events and parties!

pattern is on the top right, finished umbrella
top is next to it. Cut out 8 "petals" in whatever
paper you want - I mixed them up but just
one or two colors would be cute too!

fold the tabs as instructed on the pattern

glue to each other forming the umbrella. I don't have a picture but you then
stick a skewer thru the little hole in the top of the umbrella where all the
pieces come together in the middle, add a drop of glue to hold.
Then glue a small bead to the tip of the skewer to finish. 

click to see how to make the popsicle adirondack chair, paper hat, fish marbles:

Beachy Scene in a Wood Box (popsicle stick adirondack chair, paper umbrella, paper hat, fish marbles)

Look how cute this little scene turned out - I made a popsicle stick adirondack chair, paper umbrella, paper hat, and a fishy background (note I used Stampin' Up paper for all the paper projects); filled the chalkboard box I made a while ago (click here for that post) with sand and some fake long grass, and set up the cute scene...

I looked online for how to make a popsicle adirondack chair - found a few things to give me an idea but ended up just winging it. I think you can see from the pictures how I did it  - I cut the sticks to length with my craft wire cutters (they get used for everything - not just wire cutting!) and used Elmer's glue to stick it all together. It isn't perfect but come on, it's a popsicle stick chair and doesn't really need to be ;).

Here's how I made everything except the paper umbrella, come back tomorrow and I'll show you that!

-Cut 5 popsicle sticks to different lengths to make the back, glue to a small stick across the back to hold together.
-Cut 2 sticks in half to make the seat, then glue to the chair back.
-Cut 2 sticks to make the back leg supports, I used 2 little scrap pieces for the front legs and the pieces on the top of the seat. Glue all together.


The hat was very simple but adds a little beachy touch I think is cute - cut out 2 circles from card stock, a 2" for the brim and a 1" for the top. Then cut a strip from the same paper about 1/2" by about 4" or however long you need to go around the 1" circle to make the side of the hat. Curl the strip up to form a 1" circle and glue (I used a gluestick) to hold it's shape, then glue to the 1" circle that is the top  of the hat. Then glue that to the 2" circle to make the hat. I tied a piece of ribbon around it to make it even cuter.

my glue stick is an inch around so I used
that as a guide. see the strip around the top
of the glue stick, that's the side of the hat. 

I glued the strip around the glue stick and
then glued the top on and tied with ribbon
before removing it from the glue stick and
attaching to the 2" bottom circle. Just helped
hold everything in place doing it this way. 

For the background I cut out fish shapes from patterned Stampin' Up paper and mod podged large flat glass stones on top then glued them to a background paper cut to fit inside the box. I also cut some random flowy shapes to look like seaweed and put them along the bottom of the background.

Jam Filled Muffins

Wanted a quick light summer read and picked "Red Velvet Cupcake Murder" at the library - this author has a whole series of books about a baking/mystery-solving sleuth  - and since I enjoy "who-done-it" mysteries (with recipes!) I gave it a go.  I didn't love the book (sorry Joanne Fluke) but the recipes all looked pretty good so it was a no-brainer to quickly be done with the book and want to bake something. These "Jamboree Muffins" fit the bill, I had all the ingredients on hand and it only makes 12 - so if I didn't love them as much as I didn't love the book I wasn't out much! I made half with strawberry jam, and the other half are apricot - and they are really good, I definitely like them better than the story haha. If you read her series let me know what you think - should I try other ones and give her another shot? 

Jamboree Muffins

Preheat oven to 400'. Grease or spray the bottoms of 12 muffin cups (or use cupcake paper liners). 

-1 large egg, slightly beaten
-3/4 cup whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
-1 T. baking powder
-1 t. salt
-approx. 1/4 cup jam of your choice (you can make different flavors if you want, good way to use up those almost finished jars of jam!)


In a medium sized bowl beat the egg with the milk until they are well combined. Stir in the oil and sugar. Measure out the flour in another bowl, stir in the baking powder and salt with a fork. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture in half-cup increments, stirring after each increment, but only until the four is moistened. The resulting batter will be lumpy, it's supposed to be. Fill the muffin cups half-full with batter. Drop 1 teaspoon of jam into the center of each muffin, cover the jam with muffin batter until the muffin cups are 3/4 full. Bake at 400' for 15 minutes or until the muffins are golden brown. Let them cool in the pan for 10 minutes before serving. 

Makes 12. 


The author's notes are that these are good warm or cold, and with or without butter. We only ate them cold and no butter was necessary - although it's butter, and you know everything's better with butter :) ha! 

Spider Mum Paper Flowers

Remember the paper fireworks I posted before the Fourth? Well here's what I was making when I decided they would be good fireworks - spider mums. I wanted a simple airy flowery filler for Ronda's display table, saw these here and really liked them - and since I'm using Ronda's Stampin' Up  double sided papers I thought they'd be perfect.

So you make the flower part just like the fireworks, only I cut the paper into 3" x 12" strips so they are a little thicker than the fireworks. I copied the directions I posted before, click here to see the instruction pictures and that post...

for the fireworks: 3.5"x8.5" strip of cardstock, fringe one long edge with fringing scissors (or just make thin cuts the entire length with sharp scissors). Tightly roll up the strip, run some glue (I used a glue stick) along the last one inch of end so it'll stay coiled up. Pull the fringe down, slightly curving it with your fingers as you go so it pulls apart and looks like a paper pompom. Add a drop of glue to the underside of the coil then insert a wooden skewer.

To make them into flowers is a tiny bit trickier. You need to wrap the bottom of the flower onto a piece of floral wire using floral tape, but the bottom of the flower is way bigger than the wire so there needs to be something between the flower and the wire so it tapers down more like a real flower would. I was unable to just tape the flower to the wire. The instructions I followed said she uses pieces of tissue paper wadded up to fill in the gap, that worked pretty good - I thought maybe cotton balls would work but the tissue paper is better. I struggled getting the flower, filler, and wire to stay together while I was wrapping with the floral tape so played around with better ways to go about doing that - I found that if you wrap regular clear tape around first it's so much easier to then wrap the floral tape around the bottom of the flower, around the filler, and then down the wire a few inches

To shape them, run your finger and thumb down each strand and bend slightly.

Fishnet Wrapped Mason Jar

When we decided on a beach theme for Ronda's seasonal display table I immediately thought about those cute net wrapped mason jars I see everywhere - in fact when I showed my sister the one I ended up making and told her she needed one she replied "yep, I own that. except I bought it". Well where's the fun in that haha? So I wanted to make one - did a little internet searching and ended up sort of following the directions I found here. Wasn't hard at all, you only need twine and a jar (and scissors) - I took lots of pictures to show you the process, if you need more directions click on the above link and see if her instructions help.

Directions:

1. Wrap a piece of twine around the top of the jar with a little extra to tie off. Lay it out on the table.

2. Cut 10 lengths of twine that are 32" each. Fold in half, put the loop under the short piece of twine that will go around the top of the jar, then feed the two ends thru the loop and pull tight. Repeat with all ten long pieces, space them out on the short piece, then tie the short piece around the top of the jar.

fold 32" piece in half and put under the short piece

bring the two ends up over the short piece and thru the loop, pull tight

repeat with all 10 long pieces, space them evenly 

then tie the short piece around the top of the mason jar. with the 10 knotted pieces hanging down

3. For the first row, knot two lengths of twine together about 1" down from the top. Repeat the whole way around. For the second row continue knotting 2 lengths together making a diamond pattern. Repeat each row until you get to the bottom of the jar - note you are creating a net of sorts and it will stretch, once I got towards the bottom I turned the jar over and stretched the twine to see how many more rows I needed. Once you have created enough net to cover the jar tie all the little ends together underneath the jar, try to make them somewhat even so the jar will sit straight when upright.

 

take two lengths and tie them together about 1" down from the top

 repeat around the jar to make the first row.

repeat for each row

stretch the net a bit until it looks right and is long enough to be able to wrap around the bottom

then start knotting all 20 of the ends together to hold the net in place.

try to space the knots so they aren't all on top of each other in one place so the jar sits flat and not all wobbly. 

4. Trim off any tails - you could finish this with additional twine wrapped around the top of the jar if you want. 

For Ronda's table I filled them with paper spider mum flowers; sand, shells, a candle, etc. would look good too!

I found some instructions here at itallstartedwithpaint.com

Knock-Off Topopo Salad

There is a little Mexican restaurant here in town that makes a stellar salad - it's so good I don't think I've ever ordered anything else. And it's HUGE so sharing is a must, it isn't a salad that's going to hold over very well but it's too delicious to waste...so if you go there bring a friend! I have adapted this salad to make it more user friendly (and smaller) at home by skipping a couple steps and changing a few things.

The original salad has a base of mashed pinto beans and cheese on tortilla chips, then spread with guacamole, and topped with (a LOT of) salad. Here's how I make it...

For the salad, mix together in a large bowl:
-4 cups shredded iceberg lettuce
-2 1/2 oz. diced tomatoes
-2 1/2 oz. shredded chicken
-2 1/2 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
-2 1/2 oz. shredded monterey jack cheese
-2 1/2 oz. thawed frozen peas
-2 1/2 oz. scallions, chopped
- 1 diced avocado
season with oil and vinegar, salt and pepper to taste

Chip layer:
Spread tortilla chips on a baking sheet, spread mashed, whole, or refried beans on top. Sprinkle with a big handful of shredded cheddar and bake until the cheese is melted (you can also microwave this if you use a large plate instead of the baking sheet).

To serve: you have two choices - either put the chip layer on a large serving dish and top with all of the salad (then everyone helps themselves) or divide the chips onto individual plates and proportion out the salad on top of each one. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top of the salad.

Serves 4.

Note: I eyeball these ingredients - too much work to measure 2 1/2 ounces of each of those things, just wing it! It'll be good (and messy) I promise! Oh, and this is the place that only serves margaritas, beer, and tequila that I told you about, and the waitress recommended tequila over a ton of fruit - yum. Click here for that post.