I Love My Readers #1: A Meal for Moms

Jump to Comments

Note: Ok my lovely readers. I realize that not ALL of you are Moms. Many of you may be Dads, for all I know. But in this day and time, I’m pretty sure that most of you are tired at some point. So if the “Mom” allusion offends, I beg a thousand pardons. The recipe will still “work”.

If you are a Mom, then you are automatically tired. I know this because I am one, and I am. It’s not that I don’t love what I do – I love it. It’s that between errands, cleaning, playing, cooking and reading Who’s Hiding at the Zoo? ad nauseum, I barely have time to eat, much less rest. Ok – perhaps I exaggerate a little. But still, being a full-time cook/cleaner/playmate/nurse/handyman is exhausting, and I don’t work full-time. I can’t imagine what I would do if I worked full-time outside my home, which a lot of you amazing women do as well.

The aim of this post, in view of all this rampant fatigue, is to provide you with a recipe that won’t take a lot of time or brain cells to assemble, in the event that you don’t have either left on a particularly trying day. It also has to actually taste good to a typical 2 year old, since the last thing you want to do at the end of a long, exhausting day is to make meal-time long and exhausting. Let me clarify something though – since this is a cooking blog, and since I assume that most of my readers read it because they enjoy the cooking process in general, the recipes I post will have at least 3 steps. I mean, honestly, to really have “Quick Meals for Tired Moms” I’d just type: D-O-M-I-N-O-E-S and be done. But the recipes below are mind-numbingly easy, astonishingly tasty, and fun (Because Moms get extra points for being exhausted AND fun. It’s part of the rules.)

I’ve included something for Dinner, and something for dessert if you want your kids to sing your praises and kiss your feet. But if it’s a “dinner or nothing else” kind of day, stick with dinner and hand them a container of ice-cream and a spoon. The foot-kissing will still apply.

Simple Sausage Lasagna

This is, by far, the best lasagna recipe you will ever make. My “homemade” lasagna used to come in a Stouffer’s box until I found this gem in A Taste of Home Magazine – mainly because the homemade versions were too dry. This one uses cottage cheese instead of ricotta, making it very moist, and it doesn’t require you to cook those infernal noodles prior to everything else. You can make it the night before, if it saves you time, and it makes ALOT which (unless you are my Mom with 3 teenage boys) spells leftovers. And leftovers spell “No cooking”, which would make any tired woman, aspiring chef or not, happy. Enjoy!

• 1 pound bulk pork sausage
• 1 jar (26 ounces) spaghetti sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 cups (24 ounces) 4% cottage cheese
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 to 2 tablespoons dried parsley flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon each garlic powder, pepper, dried basil and oregano
• 9 uncooked lasagna noodles
• 3 cups (12 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Brown sausage in a skillet and drain off the extra fat. Add the marinara sauce and water and bring to a simmer, cooking for 10 minutes. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, cottage cheese, parmesean, parsley and seasonings. Pour 1/2 cup of the sauce/meat mixture into the bottom of a 9X13inch pan. Lay 3 lasagna noodles on top of the sauce, and then layer with 1/3 of the cottage cheese/egg mixture, 1/3 of the remaining meat sauce, and 1/3 of the Mozerella. Repeat layers twice.

Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes at 375 degrees. Uncover and bake for 10 more minutes, or until noodles are tender. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving. Yield: Serves 12.

This recipe was taken from www.tasteofhome.com. The link to it is here.

Jello Cookies

Has anyone ever heard of these before? I first had them when my husband and I spent a summer in Uganda, where a missionary-mom made them for us. They are perfect for kids because they can pick any color of Jello that strikes their fancy, which is fun. Plus, they’re covered in sugar. You will win Mom of the Year.

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 small package of Jello – any flavor.
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Cream shortening and sugar. Add dry jello, eggs and vanilla. Blend dry mixture into creamed mixture. Shape into balls and place 2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Press flat with the bottom of a glass that has been dipped in sugar. Bake for 6-8 minutes at 400 degrees. Do not brown.

2 Comments

Filed under Desserts, Dinner, Reader Appreciation