No Power

When we woke up this morning, our cable wasn't working and neither was our phone which is run from cable.  However, we still had internet.  Larry called Time Warner (on his cell) and there was a recording that said there was an outage and they were working on it.
So, not to waste time, I was able to listen to a book on my iPhone and decided to make banana bread.  I had enough bananas to make two loaves which was perfect since I wanted to take one to NH.  I got them all mixed up and put them in the oven at 11:00.  At 11:10 our electric power went out.  Did it have anything to do with the cable?  It seemed rather strange since we weren't having any bad weather, no thunderstorms, heavy winds and it wasn't excessively hot for air conditioners to blow out the power what else could it have been.  I called RG&E immediately and they had a recording saying that there was a crew working on it,  990 homes were effected and it should be back on by 12:30.  Sounds like it wasn't a surprise outage.

The BIG question - - What to do with the banana bread?  I could take it out of the oven and wait for the power to come back on or leave it in and let it keep doing it's thing and then see what it looks like when the power came back.  After looking at it, I decided to let it keep going since it had already risen and I didn't know what would happen to it if it went back to room temperature.  The power came back on after an hour, earlier than planned, and surprise, surprise the cable came back too.

Once again I looked at the bread and decided to give it another 20-30 minutes.  After 20 minutes I did the toothpick test and it seemed done so I took it out.

The results:  The top was completely smooth, usually it cracks, but the bread itself came out delicious.  It was very moist and I don't know if it was because of the way it was cooked or because I used frozen bananas and when defrosted measured, one cup of previously frozen bananas was more than one cup of room temperature bananas.  I also used one cup of walnuts per bread rather than the 1/2 cup which I liked too.  This is the link to my recipe --> Banana Bread.

Lasagna

I couldn't believe that I didn't have a posting for Lasagna when I looked for one so now here it is.  It's so much easier for me to just have to look in one place whenever I want to find a recipe and this is also so transportable.  If I'm on vacation, or visiting I can always find what I want, as long as I remember to post it.The basic recipe for the filling comes from an old Betty Crocker cookbook

(27th printing - 1976)  but of course I've made adjustments.  Since I wanted to make enough so I could bring a small one to Katie, who is suffering through radiation now (she already did chemo) I doubled the recipe and it makes enough for 2 large or 1 large and 2 small.  Since it's pretty time consuming to make lasagna it's a good idea to make more than needed at one time and freeze the extra ones.  I love leftovers!!

It looks like I could be doing an ad for Wegmans products based on the ingredients.  The only thing that isn't Wegmans is the Friendship cottage cheese.  The sea salt shouldn't be part of the ingredients but I had just gone shopping and it was still on the counter and wormed its way into the picture.

The ground beef needs to be browned

and then the sausage.  I don't always use sausage but it gives it some more flavor.

I find it's just as easy to cook the lasagna noodles as to soak the non boil kind.

I started with the cottage cheese mixture (above)

and then added the spinach to it (below)

A layer of sauce goes in the baking dish

Then a layer of lasagna noodles

Now the cheese mixture

followed by some sauce and mozzarella cheese

The recipe made all that is in the oven.  I wanted one of the small

ones to be vegetarian so I used all the meat mixture in the other two.

And this is how it looked when it came out of the oven.

 
Lasagna (single recipe)
12 Lasagna Noodles, cooked and well drained
large jar Spaghetti Sauce (you can make your own if so inclined)
¾ pound shredded Mozzarella Cheese
1 lb Ground Beef
½ lb Italian Sausage


  Filling
  3 cups Cottage Cheese or Ricotta (24 oz)
  ½ cup grated Parmesan Cheese
  1 Tbls Parsley Flakes
  ¾ tsp Salt
  1 tsp Oregano Leaves


Heat oven to 350°.  
Cook lasagna noodles and drain.
Brown ground beef and sausage and set aside.
Mix together filling ingredients in a bowl.


In ungreased baking pan, 13x9x2 inches, put some sauce.
Layer the following:
lasagna noodles
cottage cheese mixture
meat mixture
sauce
mozzarella cheese


Finish with layer of noodles and sauce.
Sprinkle with ½ cup parmesan cheese
Add some shredded mozzarella if desired.


Bake uncovered 45 minutes.  Let stand 15 minutes after removing from oven for easier cutting.
If desired, lasagna can be frozen or refrigerated to cook later (allow an additional 10 - 15 minutes of cooking time if refrigerated).

Good drive

My drive on the 9th hole went past the Purple Martin house again but further than the last. This time I noted the distance - 156 yards.


- Posted from my iPhone

Cancun Photobook

After two months of on and off working on it, I finally finished my Cancun photobook.  Feel free to browse through by clicking on the arrows under the book.  After I get my book I'll give my final decision on the site.  I bought a variety of photobooks from various sites from Groupon over the past few months so now I have to use them.  Many of them give you a year to create your book.  Inkubook just four months and I bought two of them so one down, one to go by September 24th.  I was happy with the options available for designing the books.  A lot of page layouts, backgrounds, and fonts.


Note; 2/19/2020  This website doesn't exist anymore but this is the cover of my book.

Golf Scenes

We played golf yesterday and I finally got to see a frog.  When we're at the 4th hole we're always hearing them but this was the first time I actually could see one.

The next day I played golf with the ladies at Shadowlake and I had a really good drive right onto the green on a par 3.

 We got some much needed rain while we were playing but not for very long and not anywhere near what we need for the brown lawns.  Below, Sherry is waiting for Helen to finish playing so we can put our clubs in the car before going to lunch.

Laura's Visit

Laura came to visit on Friday, July 15th but we didn't spend that much time together until the following Friday because of her other committments with friends and her Dad as well as some work stuff. We did go out for dinner Saturday night and to the Y on Sunday. Laura was going to do aerobics and I was going to do Yoga, but she FORGOT her SNEAKERS!! She did work up a sweat on the eliptical doing it with her flip flops.

It was really hot the week Laura was here so of course we had the air conditioning on.  When I went

into Laura's room I saw a big lump under the bedspread.  Do you think Sydney was trying to keep warm because she was the lump under the cover.

But on Friday, we had a mother daughter day. I started the day by going to Yoga at 6:30am and then at 9:30 we went to a Step Combo class. Later we went to Pier 45 for lunch.

 We each had a chicken sandwich with a side salad in place of fries.

Then we went out to the uncovered section and posed for some pictures because the setting was so perfect.

From there we drove down to the other side of the O'Rourke Bridge where we parked and did the River Walk (3 miles roundtrip).

On Saturday we went to Karen and John's "cottage" for dinner

On Sunday I said goodbye to Sydney and Laura.

Hot, Hot, Hot

On my way home today I looked at the thermometer and noticed that the temperature said 100. I was on 104 on my home so I pulled over to take a picture. Usually it's colder the closer you get to the lake so I wanted to record this moment.
A little while later I looked down again and it was 101. Oh well, 100 isn't that great, I better get a picture of this one too. A little while later I looked again. 102!! Good thing I didn't live any further away because the temperature was going up a degree every mile.

A Good Golf Day

I played golf with Larry today for the first time since June 25th. Not because I didn't want to but between all the neck and shoulder pains I've been having, the thought of swinging a club and moving my head was not too appealing.

The last time I played with our ladies neighborhood group I pulled something in my shoulder. But I was feeling relatively pain free all week so thought I could give it a chance. The first 2 holes I was a little cautious with the swing but after I didn't hurt myself I loosened up a bit and got a little more aggressive.

That swing doesn't look bad

Larry came so close to getting a hole in one on the 8th.

For the first time I hit the ball past the Purple Martin house on the 9th.