Whoo, it's after-work scrapbooking day! I don't have any hope of getting completely caught up with the family album, but I'll get a little closer.

And Elizabeth's coming today, so I won't be working alone. Yay!

And she's bringing me some supplies I ordered, whee!

Yeah, I'm a bit giddy.

Yesterday morning, I was making up a shopping list for the cookout this weekend, and it hit me: a desperate desire for lasagna.

I told Matt. He said, "I guess that's not what's on the plan for tonight?"

"No. I was planning on tortellini."

"That's sort of like lasagna! It's pasta!"

"Sort of. But not really. Not nearly as much cheese."

"Mmm. Cheeeeeeese."

So when I went to the store after work, along with all the stuff we need for the cookout, I picked up lasagna noodles and sauce and ricotta and mozarella.

In concession to the diet, I used low-fat ricotta and replaced the meat with spinach and mushrooms. It worked out to about 400 calories per serving, which is actually not too bad, considering the huge heaps of cheese that go into it.

I was quite pleased with the oven-ready noodles, too. No boiling before you lay them in the pan; you just have to make sure that they're completely covered with sauce so they get enough liquid while they're cooking. I was worried they'd taste rubbery, but once we started eating, they were just like their boil-first cousins.

The whole thing turned out very nicely, actually -- I was quite pleased. And now that it's done, I have a confession to make: I've never made lasagna by myself before.

(Actually, I didn't make it by myself this time, either. I assembled it and put it in the oven, but as soon as Matt and Penny got home, Penny demanded to go visit Ray-Ray, so I took her next door, and since Ray-Ray had just started watching Aladdin, Penny plopped down on the couch to watch TV with him. So it was Matt who actually finished the cooking.)

And now we have a lot of leftovers. At least I won't have to think much about what we're eating this weekend!

Yeah, I think I'll be doing that again.

--Liz