It's a Pajama Day...

...it's raining nice and steady.  Thick cloud cover.  Fire building weather.

My brain is in a list mode this morning...lots of little thoughts.  Not in its usual paragraph form.

1. I'd really like to stay in my jammies all day today.

2.  We really need groceries - like for dinner.

3.  And toilet paper and cat food.  That makes 2 to 3 stores.  In the rain.  Can I go in my black flannels with all the bright polka dots???  I think my daughter knows too many people in this town for that anymore.  She'd be mortified.  Maybe it's time to move?

4.  Does anyone know why the enter button on my keyboard doesn't doesn't just move the cursor down on Blogger?!

5.  At the beginning of this year I really hoped and wished, actually I demanded, an easygoing 12 months to make up for the insanity of 2009.

6.  The thing about demanding things from the universe is that it likes to chuckle back at you and say 'Oh yeah, good luck with that.  Try this on for size.'  All freaking year long.  It's okay.  We ain't dead yet as someone said to me once.

7.  But the universe made up for it in a BIG, gracious way.  For years...I'm talking a decade probably...my best friends, the ones who could tell me something was a bad idea and I would actually pause to consider what they were saying...have moved away.  Physically, busily, just life taking over our lives.  But in the last 6 months they are returning in droves.  Some have moved back within driving distance, some have simply gotten back in touch, and some I have good old facebook to thank for.  So despite the trials and tribulations of 2010 (and they have been numerous and intense), I am going to always think of it as a Really Good Year.  I need my friends man!

8.  It's only Thursday.  Up until 3 minutes ago, I really thought it was Friday.

9.  I found out Henry is a whisky.  Not a man.  Which is a good thing because my friend is married.

10.  I feel like Christmas is too easy this year.  What are we forgetting?

11.  I think I'll make this lasagna for dinner...which will totally require shopping...in clothes... but it will be worth it and the house will smell so very good when the man graces our doorstep after fighting the good fight all day.  I like that he likes my cooking.  It's a good thing about him.

This Lasagna started out as my friend Kelli's recipe.  Hi Kelli!  The one she put in the church's cookbook.  But since I didn't read the directions right the first time, or remember the exact ingredients as I shopped the first time, I made it this way instead.  If you're a purist and don't think that cottage cheese has any place in a real lasagna, then you should stop reading now.  Because there is cottage cheese and we like it that way. Ricotta just sort of grosses me out from the moment I open the package.  Sorry purists.

1 lb. Sweet Italian Sausage
1 clove garlic, chopped or use 2 cloves if you use a garlic press
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
1 Tablespoon basil - the dried stuff, but remember to crush it up in your hands to release all the flavor.  Emeril demands it.  Or you could use fresh, more of it, but I don't have any fresh basil right now.
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large can tomatoes or 2 cans diced Italian tomatoes) - I use whatever is in my pantry at the time.
2 - 6 oz. cans tomato paste
1-10 oz. box lasagna noodles
24 oz. carton large curd cottage cheese - get the low fat and save a few calories.
2 beaten eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 Tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese  (huh, did you know your spell checker will capitalize Parmesan?  Who knew.)
4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

Assemble this in the morning and you will thank yourself later in the day.  I'll be making mine just before I bake it, which just doesn't feel like the same sort of time saver.  It's okay.

Preheat your oven to 350 F if you'll be baking it right after assembling it like I will be tonight.

Start the water to boil for your lasagna noodles.  I always forget to do this and then have to wait around watching the pot that never boils. Save yourself the heartache and start your water NOW.

Break the sausage out of its casing and brown it, draining off any fat.  Add all the ingredients from the garlic to the tomato paste and simmer for 20 minutes.  Boil your noodles according to the directions on the box they came in.

In a bowl, mix all the ingredients from the cottage cheese to the Parmesan cheese plus 1/2 (that's 2 cups for those of you who flunked fractions in 5th grade) the mozzarella.  Your noodles should be done and drained by now and all that wonderful sauce will make you wish you could eat right now because it smells so good!

Spray a 9x13 baking dish with oil.  Spoon a bit of sauce onto the bottom and begin layering noodles, cheese mixture, sauce.  I usually use 8 to 10 noodles and only make 2 layers.  You want to end with sauce.  Top with the remaining 2 cups of mozzarella.  Cover loosely with foil and bake about 45 minutes.  Disrobe the dish of its foil and bake 15 more minutes until the cheese is all melty

Kelli says this freezes really well (before baking) so go ahead and make a double batch.  I've never been that industrious.  But I think I'd use a disposable foil pan for the freezing.  Be your own Stouffer's frozen lasagna.

12.  I want one of those triangle cowboy bells to use to call my family for dinner.  They always so NO when I tell them that.  Pshhh.

Happy not actually Friday!
~S