Make-Ahead Lasagna

Today was one of those days. It was rainy and gloomy and I felt it all day.  On most mornings during the week, Noah and I walk to the bus stop that's around the corner from our house. When it's sunny out, the sidewalk on our side of the street is in the sun and the sidewalk on the other side of the street is in the shade. We walk on the sunny side - I always tell Noah that I prefer the sunny side of life. This morning, Noah wanted to know where the sunny side of life was. It was nowhere to be found.

Since it was still rainy and drizzly this afternoon, I drove to the bus stop to wait for Noah's bus so that he wouldn't have to walk in the rain. (I did the same for Emily, but she gets home about an hour earlier than Noah.) When we pulled into the garage, Noah asked me if there was anything he could help me with. Even though it was a gloomy day, he still wanted to help. So, Noah helped me make a lasagna after school this afternoon. 

This lasagna recipe is super easy to put together. It uses no-bake lasagna noodles, jarred spaghetti sauce, and ricotta. 

I thought Noah did a great job helping. We made quite a bit of a mess but it was worth it to spend some time with Noah and learn some valuable life lessons. 

Want to know my secret to using jarred spaghetti sauce and getting a homemade taste? Have you ever heard of McCormick Perfect Pinch seasoning? It's a combination of classic Italian herbs like oregano, thyme, and basil. You can find it at any grocery store. I add a little to the sauce then shake a bit more over the top. I also add a little more Parmesan cheese on the top before baking. 

I thought Noah's lasagna turned out just wonderfully. I think he was even impressed with himself. 

Look at how handsome and proud he is! He likes his lasagna with a slice of cheese toast. 

Here's Noah's recipe. If you try it, Noah wants you to let us know how it turns out for you.

Yield: 12 servingsAuthor: Jennifer SmithPin it

Make-Ahead Lasagna

Having guests over for dinner? You can make this recipe in advance and just pop it in the oven before your guests arrive. It's delicious and hearty and a sure crowd-pleaser. Serve with breadsticks and a side salad.

prep time: 30 MINScook time: 1 hour and 15 MINStotal time: 1 hours and 45 mins

ingredients:

• 2 lbs ground beef
• 2 jars spaghetti sauce
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 20 ounces ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 12-15 no-cook lasagna noodles
• 6 cups mozzarella cheese

instructions

1. In a large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until browned; drain. Stir in spaghetti sauce. In a large bowl, combine eggs, ricotta, Parmesan, and pepper.
2. Spread 1 cup meat sauce into a greased 13X9 inch baking dish. Layer with 4-5 noodles, half the ricotta mixture, 1 cup meat sauce, and 1 cup mozzarella. Repeat layers. Top with remaining noodles, meat sauce, and mozzarella. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.
3. Remove from refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour. Uncover and bake 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting. 

notes

Lasagna can be baked immediately.

http://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2018/02/make-ahead-lasagna.html

Do you prefer lasagna with ricotta or cottage cheese? Clearly, I'm in the ricotta camp. 

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Dark Chocolate Mousse

Dark Chocolate Mousse Recipe

Easy Make Ahead Chocolate Mousse Dessert Recipe

Last night, I whipped up some dark chocolate mousse for our lunch today. This mousse is lightly sweet and very chocolatey. It's thick and creamy and quite delicious.

It's not a one-bowl recipe but it doesn't take long to whip up this mousse recipe. One thing to keep in mind is that the mousse needs to chill at least a few hours or overnight in the refrigerator before serving.

I thought the dessert cups that I got at Pier 1 were perfect for the dark chocolate mousse. I think they would be great for ice cream or pudding cups or maybe even fresh fruit. And they were on clearance! Can't beat a deal.

Here's the recipe I used for the mousse. This recipe is enough for at least 8 servings. It's so rich that the servings can be pretty small and still be satisfying. Emily likes to mix more whipped cream into hers, but I think it was almost too much for her stomach to handle

Yield: 30 mini dessert cups or 8-10 larger servingsAuthor: Jennifer SmithPin it

Dark Chocolate Mousse

Such a contrast - a light, airy texture with rich, dark chocolate flavor. It's a perfect make-ahead dessert for any special occasion, just make it the day before and let it chill in the fridge until it's time.

ingredients:

• 9 ounces high-quality bittersweet chocolate, like Ghiradelli 60% cacao baking chips
• 4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter, diced
• 4 teaspoons boiling water
• 2 cups cold heavy cream
• 6  large eggs, separated
• 2 tablespoons sugar

instructions

1. Melt chocolate and butter carefully in the microwave, or use a double boiler. Add boiling water and set aside to cool slightly. 
2. Whip cold heavy cream until soft peaks form. Place in refrigerator. 
3. Whip egg whites and sugar in a separate bowl until soft peaks form.
4. When the melted chocolate has cooled to approximately 100 degrees F, stir in the egg yolks.
5. Fold half of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. Fold half of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture.
6. Fold in the other half of the whipped cream and the other half of the egg whites.
7. Spoon or pipe into serving dishes.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

notes

Serve with freshly whipped cream and a raspberry on top.

http://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2018/02/dark-chocolate-mousse.html

Be sure to save this recipe so that you can try it. And if you try it, please come back and let me know how you enjoyed it. I'd be happy to answer any questions about it.

Do you prefer dark chocolate or milk chocolate?  Have you ever made mousse?

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Snow Day #1 and a Chocolate Pie

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Meringue Pie Recipe

Chocolate Pie Recipe in Microwave

We got some freezing rain and sleet yesterday and again this afternoon so the kids were out of school today. We found out yesterday evening that they were going to be out so we knew that we were going to get to sleep late in the morning.

Mike went ahead and went to work but the rest of us slept in. I had to log in to work at 8 am but I stayed in bed as long as possible. Noah is a morning person and I'm pretty sure he was awake for quite a while but he stayed in his bed until I came out of my room at about 8 am.

We had breakfast and then Emily and Noah played on the computer while I handled some work calls. I told them that there would be absolutely no fighting, fussing, or arguing while I was in my office but they could come to the door if there was an emergency.  They were good and I didn't hear them arguing at all.

Mike's office closed at 11 am so he came home and they hung out until lunch. I hadn't planned for everyone to be home so it was peanut butter and honey sandwiches for the win!

Early afternoon, the precipitation kicked up again and the hard surfaces were covered with sleet and snow and ice. I wasn't willing to go outside but I took a picture out the window.

For supper, I made smoked bacon-wrapped chicken breasts, mashed potatoes and green beans. Then we had a chocolate pie for dessert. We're all spoiled! We get good food like this all the time. I make this smoked chicken quite often and freeze the individual breasts. Whenever I want a healthy meal, I just pull one out and defrost it and put it with some veggies. 

The chocolate pie was just a snow day surprise. I'd had some pre-made pie crusts in the freezer for a while that I'd been meaning to use. I figured what better day than this?

I meant to get really fancy and take a picture of a slice of pie for you, but we ate it when it was still warm and the slices didn't come out pretty at all. The other issue that I have to think about is that we always eat on paper plates and that doesn't make a very pretty picture. Where can I get a selection of inexpensive but pretty plates/saucers/dishes? Or should I just do simple white plates for my blog pictures?

Well, the schools have already announced that there is no school again tomorrow so we'll have to figure out something fun to do.

Yield: 1 deep dish pieAuthor: Jennifer SmithPin it

Microwave Chocolate Pie

Whip up this thick and delicious chocolate pie filling in less than 10 minutes in your microwave

ingredients:

For pie filling

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 5 Tbsp cocoa
• 3 Tbsp flour
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 stick margarine
• 1 tsp vanilla

For meringue

• 4 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup sugar

instructions

1. Stir together sugar, cocoa, and flour together in a microwave-safe bowl.  Add in egg yolks and milk then stir until combined. 
2. Cook in microwave on full power 2 minutes. Stir. Cook 3 more minutes. Stir. Continue cooking in 2-minute intervals until thick and pudding-like consistency. Stir in margarine and vanilla then pour into baked pie shell. 
3. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in a glass bowl until foamy, add in sugar 1 Tbsp at a time. Beat until stiff peaks form. Spread on top of pie filling. Bake in 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes until browned.

http://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2018/02/snow-day-1-and-chocolate-pie.html

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Happy Valentine's Day

New York-Style Cheesecake Recipe

The Best Cheesecake with Graham Cracker Crust

Happy Valentine's Day! 

Did you have a wonderful day? I definitely did. There is just something about the day of love that makes everything exciting. 

I remember when I was a kid and we'd be super excited to get those little paper Valentines from all our friends in our class at school. Things are different now. The kids give each other candies or snacks with pinterest-worthy Valentine greetings attached to them. 

And can we talk for a second about the Valentine boxes that kids need every year? When did they start this? Every time I get on Facebook, I see these fancy handmade monster boxes or princess boxes or heart-shaped macrame boxes. This morning, Noah and I were sitting in the car drop off line and a mom was carrying her daughter's 3-foot tall glitter unicorn box into the school for her. This is insanity! Noah had a gift bag with hearts on it and his name in glitter letters and he was super happy with it. AND he could carry it to school all by himself. #winning

Anyway, I digress ... my Valentine's Day was good. My family got me some beautiful double delight roses. They are white with red tips and they look so fancy!

All the blooms are fresh and beautiful. They are on my kitchen counter right now, but I might have to move them into my office tomorrow so that I can enjoy them all day. I don't see why not!

I made a delicious dinner with cheesecake for dessert. Nanny came over and joined us and we had a good time talking and visiting. 

The cheesecake was really good tonight. I've used this cheesecake recipe a few times and it always turns out great. 

Yield: 1 9-inch cheesecakeAuthor: Jennifer SmithPin it

New-York Style Cheesecake

Cooking this cheesecake in a water bath will result in a beautiful, thick and creamy cheesecake with no cracks. Serve with cherry pie filling, chocolate sauce, or caramel sauce.

prep time: 30 MINScook time: 1 hour and 25 MINStotal time: 1 hours and 55 mins

ingredients:

For graham cracker crust

• 12 full sheets graham crackers
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

For cheesecake filling

• Four 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 2/3 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup heavy cream

instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Crush graham crackers (or use food processor), add sugar and melted butter. Mix together and press into 9-inch springform pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until crust is lightly browned. 
2. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese, sugar, and cornstarch together on medium speed, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl several times. 
3. Add vanilla and eggs, mix well.  Add cream and mix until completely blended. Do not overmix! 
4. Increase oven temperature to 350°F. Wrap the bottom and sides of springform pan in foil. Pour batter into prepared crust. 
5. Place the foil-wrapped pan in a large shallow pan. Pour in hot water until it is about 1 inch up the side of the springform pan. Bake until light golden brown and the center barely jiggles, about 1 hour and 25 minutes. If the center still jiggles, bake an additional 5-10 minutes. 
6. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath, transfer to a wire rack, and let cool for 2 hours. Refrigerate at least 6 hours or overnight.

http://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2018/02/happy-valentines-day.html

What did you do special for Valentine's Day?

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40 is the new 30

So, while I was away from the blog, I celebrated one of those milestone birthdays. Let me tell you, baby, age is just a number and it doesn't mean a thing at 40. 

We had some friends and family over for supper and I made this delicious tuxedo cake from Sally's Baking Addiction.  

Emily helped me decorate it. The inside is white chocolate ganache and the cake and frosting were both dark chocolate. 

It was really delicious - so much so that Mike requested it for his birthday too. We decorated his a little differently. He didn't want sprinkles and I don't blame him - the ones on my cake were really hard!

I got some new decor for my office for my birthday. I put them on top of my desk in my office. Not a great photo, but I just love my new vases and I'm very happy with the way they look on my desk. 

Here's to 40 more years!

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Happy 7th Birthday Noah!

Sunday was Noah's 7th birthday. We celebrated with family and friends on Saturday night with cake and ice cream.

For the last several weeks, Noah has been telling us the wanted a specific Willy Wonka cake that he found on YouTube. It was a really fancy and complicated cake, but Mike kept saying that if anyone could make this cake it was me and Emily.

I think it turned out pretty good. The cake was a nine-layer white chocolate mud cake with vanilla buttercream between the layers. It was covered with chocolate ganache then decorated with colored fondant. 

Front of cake

 

Back of cake with the chocolate waterfall

Inside of the cake with nine rainbow colored layers. And all that delicious buttercream. I mean, it was really delicious, homemade, decadent buttercream. 

We also made some fizzy lifting drink. At first, Noah wouldn't drink it because he didn't want to be lifted. But he finally tried it and he loved it!

Isn't he sooooo handsome??

And of course we had to have plenty of candy at a Willy Wonka party.  It was a fun party and Noah was so excited to have his family and friends with him to celebrate.

Noah got a lot of fun presents. He loves art and he got a lot of art supplies. He also got some Lego sets that he and Emily have already been working on building. I wish I had some pictures of him with his presents. Mason got him a pirate belt and sword that he loves wearing every day. He also got his very first piggy bank with Noah's Ark painted on the side.

Sunday was Noah's birthday and he was also baptized at church on Sunday morning. What a special event to happen on his 7th birthday. We are so happy for him and proud of him!

Happy Birthday Noah!!!!!!!!!!!!

Links:
YouTube Tutorial for Willy Wonka Illusion cake
Instructions for Willy Wonka Illusion cake
White Chocolate Mud cake recipe
Buttercream Frosting recipe

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4th of July Recap

I don't know why it's so hard, but sometimes I fall behind on blogging and it's hard to catch up. It's been a week and I haven't even mentioned Independence Day.

Can I talk about a holiday without talking about food? How about just some pictures of the sugar cookies we made? We had so much fun baking and decorating together.

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Vacation Bible School

Our church had Vacation Bible School last week. Emily was too old to go as a student, but she went a a helper. She assisted in the preschool music area. I think she really enjoyed it. 

Noah was in one of the second grade classes and he really had a good time. He liked the music and all the crafts that they made. During the praise and worship time in the auditorium, they throw out t-shirts - I can't remember what they call it. Toss out? Or something? Anyway, Noah really wanted to catch a shirt, but he never did. 

On Thursday at VBS, Noah accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior and asked Jesus into his heart! We are so excited for him and so proud of him. I know that he understands the decision that he's making and he's excited about too. I'm so happy that all of my family will be with me in heaven some day. 

Thursday night was Family Night. I loved seeing Noah singing and doing the motions to all the songs that they sung. They threw some more shirts, but we couldn't catch one. After the worship service, went to the atrium where they had snow cones, cotton candy, hot dogs, inflatables, and games. It was a lot of fun!

Since I had to work and couldn't go up to the church to help at bible school, I decided to make treats for the workers. 

The first day, Emily and I made some brightly colored cake pops. Emily and I put colored sanding sugar on most of them. A few of them, we just put sprinkles. They were Devil's Food on the inside. So good. The workers really loved them. 

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Memorial Day Patriotic Cake Pops

Emily and I made some patriotic cake pops to take down to Magnolia for the Memorial Day weekend. I've posted about my elephant cake pops, the blue sprinkle cake pops, the red apple cake pops, and even the ones I made for the piano recital. So I knew my family was going to want to try some. 

The cake was red velvet with cream cheese frosting. I thought that was perfect for a patriotic cake pop. 

For the drizzle, we just melted a little bit of the candy coating and put it into plastic storage bags the snipped off the tip. With the white candy coating, we snipped a hole that was a little too big and it didn't squeeze out smoothly.  We did better with the red and the blue. It didn't reheat well in the plastic bags though so you're going to have to work fast and probably use one color at a time. 

We used red sanding sugar on a few of the red cake pops. I thought that made an interesting look. We also used red, white, and blue nonpareils on a few cake balls for variety. 

I don't know if you noticed, but I laced red and blue ribbon around the cake pop stand this time. I thought that was cute, but I don't know how noticeable it is. 

We're going to be making more of these next week for a bake sale at Mike's work. 

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Red Apple Cake Pops

I know that school is out for the summer, but I wanted to share another thing that Emily and I made for Teacher Appreciation week.

One of the PTA special activities as a treat day for the teachers where people could bring sweet treats and baked goods. Emily and I searched the internet for some teacher-related goodies and we ended up finding these red apple cake pops. They are so cute! I know I say that all the time about the stuff I make, but look at these! They are sooooo cute!

The stems are broken pretzel rods. My tip is to break the pretzel rods pretty small and just lightly place them into the red candy coating, don't try to jam them down into the actual cake ball. If you press the pretzel rod pieces into the actual cake ball, you'll likely get some of the cake ball showing through around the "stem". My cake was a nice dark chocolate so it looked like I had some bad apples.

The green "leaves" are green Tic Tacs. I used wintergreen Tic Tacs. They looked cute, but they were not great to bite into when you're eating a cake pop. If I make these again, I will probably find something different to use for the leaves, maybe some large leaf sprinkles. 

A lot of my apple cake pops cracked. I think it's because I inserted the sticks then put the tray of cake pops into the refrigerator for about a half hour. I think cold cake pops are a problem and they should be dipped at room temperature. 

I individually wrapped the cake pops and then put them into a little cardboard tray that I found at Hobby Lobby.

Then I wrapped the whole tray of apple cake pops in cellophane and tied a nice red shiny bow on it. Ya'll, I need serious help with my bow tying. They never end up straight or pretty. 

I've appreciated Emily and Noah's teachers so much this year. They have done a lot of the kids and I hope they have a great summer. It will probably take them that long to recover. Ha ha.

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