Sqashy in body, squashy in mind, one woman attemts to shape up, firm up, and not loose her marbles in the process.
Because I was tagged 
I:
don’t wear denim, like This American Life, think I look better with nappy hair, never make the bed, love the fact that I’m married to a guy with a beard, have three dogs (all mutts), and love video games more than I should.
I had a major panic attack when i realized that i had grabbed the “no boil” noodles to make my veggie lasagna. i’d never heard of such a thing, and i was 100% convinced that, should I use them without boiling, I would have dry, icky pieces of cardboard-like pasta between the (expensive, labor-intensive) layers of organic veggies and cheese that I had whipped up , my dinner party would be ruined, my guests would laugh, and we’d have to order pizza.
This lasagna recipe I found was NO JOKE. It called for pepper, pesto, tomatoes, broccoli, and carrots, ricotta, mozzarella, noodles of course, and a host of spices. I also had to make a milk+butter+flour+garlic sauce to top it, and I had to be careful not to burn it.
The entire thing weighed about 30 pounds (possibly due to my FABULOUS lasagna pan that my mother in law bought me. It’s an Emile Henry, in sunny yellow, and I love it. It’s from last year, when she was doing the scalloped edges on her pans, instead of the plain she’s doing this year.)
Anyway, as I layered the hard noodles I prayed that they would soften up. (I literally prayed, too. If His eye is on the sparrow, surely He cares about my lasagna, too, right?) I was using the frozen broccoli that the recipe called for, and those have tons of water by way of ice crystals, so I was pretty sure that I had enough moisture… and I did. I did not, however, have enough mozzarella. I was supposed to have one layer of 1 cup of shredded mozz. somewhere in the noodles, and another 2 cups on top. I only had two total, so my top was a little lacking, but you wouldn’t know that by looking or tasting. I also skipped the added salt (the pesto I bought seemed to have a lot in there already… i didn’t make my own pesto!) and used two green peppers instead of one red and one green (I could only find organic green peppers; the reds at the grocery store were not, and I wasn’t going to drive all over in search of one organic red pepper. Because, come on.)
Another mod. I made was that I ground my veggies up when the recipe said to “chop”. I don’t like veggie chunks galore, so the broccoli and tomatoes were chunky, and everything else was mushy-mashy veggies. I’ll bet kiddos will like it better that way.
So, the no-bake noodles? They rocked! I checked it when it was supposed to be “done” by stabbing it with a steak knife, and met a little resistance. I left it in the turned-off-but-still-hot oven and let it stew a bit more. When I pulled it out it was perfect, and everyone liked it! I have a new favorite dish to make… but not too often! That was a lot of work.
We’re moving and this means open houses to sell our current house. I never thought too much to the level of cleanliness. It’s never, ever perfectly clean, but it’s not so bad, and I’ve gotten a lot better at keeping it neat since I’ve stopped working and been a full-time housewife. Still, the knowledge that folks are coming over makes me look at the place in a whole other light, and I’m seeing dust bunnies, falling stacks of paper, and crumbs. We did a massive cleanup and took care of all those things “we’ve been meaning to do”, and I’m thrilled. I wish I had done it a long time ago: halls in the walls are fixed, bad paint jobs have been smoothed over, and “clusters of crap” have been reorganized in cute baskets. I kind of wish we did it for us, not for selling, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson. In my next house, I’m not going to “let things go”.
I’ve purchased pomegranate juice, cranberry juice and apple juice to mix with the seltzer, wildberry seltzer and tea I just bought. I’m looking forward to trying out good, less sugary alternatives to soda.
