Food, Glorious Food

I'm all about the food right now.

During my supercrazy, hyperbusy February/March, I lost almost 10 lbs.
Mostly because I was working 16-hour days and had no time to eat anything but transportable snacks (i.e., my go-to, fruit & nut trail mix).

Now I just wanna cook, and eat, and make aprons. 

So on Saturday, St. Patrick's Day, I celebrated my Irish heritage with the most brilliant Shepherd's Pie. With lamb, peas & carrots, a light gravy, and cheesy mashed potatoes on top, it was divine. I changed up the seasonings a little bit (I used thyme instead of rosemary, added garlic powder, and I left out the cayenne pepper in the mashed potato crust). The kids cleaned their plates, and I had two servings (I had basically skipped lunch on Saturday, prepping the evening repast, and it was worth it)! I even remembered to take photos!

the lamb mixture in the casserole

Good Irish cheddar and cream cheese... 

...added to the mashed potato crust

Fresh from the oven!

Sunday afternoon, I had a short amount of time to create something; I started to cut out an apron, using my favorite old-timey full apron as the pattern ( I made it a few years ago, using my granny's actual old apron as the pattern prototype - are you following all this so far?). As I was manipulating the apron on the fabric to cut out the pieces, I realized what I needed was an actual paper pattern for aprons. So I made one, using the newly-cut-out pieces traced onto paper. Now I can make many, many aprons; and once I get the new one done, I'll get to count that as another creation!

Monday was the start of spring break for the kids; we didn't do much. But I made Philly-style hoagies, with onions and green peppers, and a little au jus for dipping. My two oldest kids just did beef and cheese, so their sandwiches were more like French Dips, but the youngest happily put onions on hers. I sauteed mushrooms for my hoagie, and passed on the roast beef (I had shepherd's pie leftovers for lunch, so I didn't need the meat.). All in all, another successful, quick weeknight meal!

And today, Tuesday, I made lasagna. Without a recipe. I just layered meat sauce and noodles and al fredo sauce and ricotta cheese and more noodles and more meat sauce and more ricotta cheese, and topped it all with mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese. And it's just about ready to eat!

Bon Appetit!