homosassa – Page 113

Baked Penne Fun!

July 18, 2012July 17, 2012 by KTgreen

I’ve had this recipe “pinned” for months on Pinterest and never made it. It’s from marthastewart.com. I’m not that great of a cook, but how could I screw up Baked Ziti? Let me tell you how!

Click here to see the recipe: Baked Ziti

This probably shouldn’t be on my “Fit for Life” Tuesday but I had originally thought that this would be a healthy vegetarian dish. But I messed it up.

First, it called for “best-quality” tomato sauce. What is that? I bought a can of tomato sauce with a fancy Italian name brand on it. But when I started making the dish I realized that since it didn’t call for any spices–perhaps Martha meant a “best-quality” pasta sauce. All I had was Ragu and Prego. Not the best-quality. And also not fitting into my “Fit for Life” non-processed food living. Sigh.

Then I realized I had purchased penne, not ziti. At least it was whole wheat. And I had intended to get fresh mozzeralla and slice it into the ziti. Forgot about that. So all I had was Kraft. More processed food.

Ingredients — Here’s some of the ingredients. Lots of “processed” food which I’m not supposed to be using anymore! The wine is for the chef, not the penne.

Grating Parmesan — Terry always does the grating. We like to call him the faux chef. Even though he’s a better cook than me.

Ouch — Oh no, accident in the kitchen! Grate the parmesan–not the knuckles!

Dishes — The recipe called for 8 ounces of ziti, but the box was 13.25 ounces. We both decided that we shouldn’t waste those 5.25 ounces of penne! Now that I made the entire box, it didn’t fit in the casserole dish. So we dug out a bigger dish.

Terry — Since we made all of the penne, we needed more sauce. No more Ragu so we mixed in some Prego. That’s the faux chef’s other important job, opening jars and bottles of wine for me.

Spoon rest — Okay, this has nothing to do with the recipe, just wanted to show you the cutest spoon rest ever.

Me, trying to pretend that I have a clue about cooking.

Oven — Casserole just fits into the upper oven. Hmmm, since I made more than the recipe called for, do I need to cook it longer?

Finished Penne — Wow! That looks remarkably yummy!

Yum — And it was yummy! Despite all the changes, even I can’t screw up baked penne!

Scalloping

July 18, 2012July 16, 2012 by KTgreen

County Boat Ramp in Old Homosassa — Public boat ramp in Old Homosassa on the second Saturday of scalloping season. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait in that craziness since our boat is on a lift in our back yard.

Crystal River Power Plant — Our very own nuclear power plant!

The catch — This was the catch on Saturday. While 8 gallons is the legal limit for 4 people, Cap’n Terry stayed with the boat for safety reasons and I’m a swimming wimp. The waves were too big for me and all I got in my scalloping endeavours were several mouthfuls of salty water. Waah! So the scalloping was left to the two experts who were exhausted after four hours of diving and swimming to the boat with their booty.

Cleaning crew — Scallops now have to be cleaned.

Cooked scallops — Cooking scallops with a slice of bacon