Another married first!!

So there are a lot of firsts in a marriage, or any relationship for that matter, and Aaron and I have had another first. For that matter, it wasn't just a first in our relationship, but for each of us individually. Now, it wasn't a major first, but it was a tasty first!! You might be thinking, "What the heck is she talking about?!?" Obviously, we made lasagna!! It was darn good lasagna too, and it's from http://www.eatingwell.com/, so it's not horrible for us. The recipe follows:

• 8 ounces (we used 9 noodles) lasagna noodles, whole wheat if you have them
• 1 pound spicy lean Italian turkey sausage
• 1/2 cup chopped onion (the recipe calls for 4 cups mushrooms, but I don't like them, so we added some onions for flavor and texture instead)
• 1 pound frozen spinach, thawed
• 28 ounces canned, crushed tomatoes
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (we used 1 1/2 T dried Basil)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pound, part-skim ricotta cheese
• 8 ounces part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese (we probably used closer to 16 oz...I love cheese!!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9x13 inch glass baking dish with cooking spray. Put a large pot of water on to boil.
2. Cook noodles in boiling water until not quite al dente, about 2 minutes less than package directions. Drain, and rinse with cold water.
3. Cook sausage in a large, nonstick skillet. Add onions, cook until tender and drain grease. Squeeze spinach (we strained it first, then squeezed - or is it squoze??) to remove excess water, then stir into the pan and remove from heat.
4. Mix tomatoes with basil, salt and pepper in a medium bowl.
5. Assemble lasagna: Spread 1/2 cup tomatoes in the prepared baking dish. Arrange a layer of noodles on top. Evenly dollop half the ricotta over the noodles, top with half the sausage and spinach mixture, 1/3 of the remaining tomatoes and one-third of the mozzarella. Continue with another layer of noodles, the remaining ricotta, sausage, half remaining tomatoes and half remaining mozzarella. Finish off with a final layer of noodles and remaining tomatoes.
6. Cover the lasagna with foil and bake bubbling - about 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes. Remove the foil and sprinkle the remaining mozzarella on top. Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted, but not browned. Let rest 10 minutes before serving.

It takes a while to prepare, but lasagna always does. And it's totally worth the wait!!

I'm trying to shrink my feet.

I don't mean I'm actually trying to shrink my feet, like this:

I mean it in a more representative sense. I'm trying to shrink my carbon footprint. Unlike Al Gore, I don't have a couple million dollars to make my mansion more green. For that matter, I don't even have a mansion. However, we are trying to make some smaller changes that we hope will have a big impact over time.

• Since this fall, we've been trying to carpool to work as much as possible. It was a little difficult when I was working in Nevada, but we still tried to carpool 3 or 4 days a week, with me dropping Aaron off on my way. Now, carpooling is super easy!! We work the same hours at the same place, so we're able to carpool 99% of the time!!
• We have a programmable thermostat and keep the house fairly chilly in the winter and warm in the summer. (This one has as much to do with us being cheap as it does lowering energy use!!)
• We now have 3 canvas grocery bags, which fit about 3x as much as plastic grocery bags, so we rarely need to use plastic bags. We're still getting funny looks from people at a few stores, but we're used to that :-D
• I'm constantly trying to figure out ways to save paper at work. I've come up with several ways to reduce the amount of paper needed for certain projects by at least half.
• We've switched all of our lightbulbs at home over to compact fluorescent bulbs.

I know there's probably a lot more we could be doing, but this what we've managed to do so far. We're hoping to get a hybrid car someday in the future...a girl can dream at least!!