Lasagna & Olympics

The good folks at Red Gold sent me a promo pack with their signature canned tomato products, a box of lasagna noodles, and a nice spatula along with recipes for "All-in-One Lasagna." I'm always up for a meal  idea that I don't have to think about, so it was helpful to have a night where I didn't much have to think about making a meal. I just had to add in some Mozzarella (which we always have on hand) and ricotta cheese (which we usually would just use cottage cheese, but I went ahead and picked up a carton of ricotta on my last shopping trip).

I just used the basic recipe--often when I've made lasagna in the past I add in vegetables since my wife is vegetarian, but then the kids don't eat it very well (no matter how hard I try to disguise the veggies). The basic lasagna--just the noodles, tomato mixture, and cheeses--was easy to make. I did it the night before; the noodles didn't require precooking or anything. Since we had a big pan of lasagna waiting in the fridge for us, and since the 2014 Winter Olympics were beginning, we decided to invite friends over for the night.

A co-worker from school who has children my sons' ages came over (her husband was busy with an audit, unfortunately). It went over fairly well. The kids all ate it (well, my youngest kind of had to be fed it, but that's how he is). It would have been easy to make it with some tasty add-ins (meat, veggies, etc.), but the basic one was quite tasty. I appreciate the recipes that Red Gold sent which are on their website and how it's easy to play with the recipe to change things up. I hadn't tried crushed tomatoes before, but they worked really nicely mixed in with some diced tomatoes--I'll keep that idea in mind with future meals. A nice salad and brownies accompanied the meal.

Then we watched some of the Winter Olympics. I don't normally watch much sports on television. The Olympics is my one indulgence. It's one of the few times our television is on several nights a week. This year the kids are old enough to start enjoying it, too. They both have worked with countries and their flags in school, so they're enjoying picking out the countries as identified by their flags.

Food and Olympics. Good times. Thanks, Red Gold.