Foodie Friday: Lasagna Pinwheels

With our busy lifestyle, I always look for shortcuts and easy meals. My family loves pasta, but I tend to make WAY too much, and we eat leftovers until everyone is sick of pasta. Lasagna is one of their favorite meals, but it takes a lot of effort. Since I can no longer access my personal Facebook page, I have been scrolling Pinterest for recreation. Of course, I have a never-ending board of recipes that I would like to try. Lasagna pinwheels are at the top of my list of must-try recipes from my Pinterest board. However, I cannot find the perfect recipe.

Many of the recipes I have pinned sound delicious in theory, but I know my family well, and they will not think adding hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, or large bits of onion to pasta is acceptable. So, I do what I do: take a good idea and put my spin on it. In my mind, creating lasagna roll-ups will be much easier than layering pasta, cheese, meat, and sauce. I hope I am correct.

We will have lasagna pinwheels for dinner tonight and a simple salad and garlic bread. This will be my first attempt at making pinwheels, and I am hopeful they will turn out well. I have decided to apply my lasagna recipe to pinwheel making. Although I have never made it in pinwheel form, my family enjoys my tried-and-true lasagna recipe. Today, I will share my recipe and put a pinwheel spin on it.

Lasagna Pinwheels

Ingredients:

-One package of lasagna noodles, cooked following package directions

Cheese Filling:

-One 46 oz. container of ricotta cheese

-2 cups of mozzarella cheese, set aside a 1/2 cup for topping

-1 cup of parmesan cheese

-2 eggs

-4 cloves minced garlic

-3 TBLS. dried oregano

-2 tsp. each dried basil, salt, dried parsley

-1/2 tsp. black pepper

-2 quarts of marinara sauce (I like GramBarb's home-canned recipe, but store-bought will also work well. I prefer Luigi's canned sauce if using store-bought sauce).

-1 lb. ground beef or loose Italian sausage, browned and cooked thoroughly. Drain the excess fat. Crumble the cooked meat and set aside.

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

-Prepare a 9x13 baking dish with olive oil or nonstick cooking spray.

-Mix all ingredients for the cheese filling well.

-Lay the cooked lasagna noodles flat on a large cutting board or clean counter. Spread each noodle with four spoonfuls of cheese mixture.

-Roll individual noodles into pinwheels and place pinwheels in the prepared baking dish, end side down.

-Top the pinwheels with ground meat, then mariana sauce, sprinkle with parmesan cheese, and top with mozzarella cheese.

-Cover and bake for 40-50 minutes in the preheated oven.

-Enjoy with a side salad and garlic bread or Italian bread.

We will have lasagna pinwheels for dinner tonight. I am looking forward to this easy meal with my family. I hope you enjoy it too, dear reader. On this overcast Friday, stay safe, be smart, enjoy good food with good people, and keep washing your hands.

Laughter Really Is The Best Medicine

Working with my husband has its perks. Not many, but there are indeed a few. One of the best perks is the endless entertainment and comic relief he provides. Now, mind you, dear reader, there are a lot of factors to consider when acknowledging how entertaining and humorous he is on any given day. My mood has much to do with how funny I find him. If he has not broken wind in my general direction, turned off the hot water in my shower, thrown a cup of ice over the shower door, scratched something gross, and then stuck his finger under my nose, kept bum thumbing to a minimum, and refrained from insulting my beloved big red dog, my mood is pretty good. However, those days are few and far between. It is a constant battle to stay ahead of his wit, wry humor, and overactive imagination for tormenting me. Sigh.

I find the man genuinely entertaining on the rare days I am not completely exhausted and exasperated by his constant barrage of shenanigans. I am always impressed with his quick wit. The other day, we sat together, labeling moisturizer. I was reticent last week. When I don't feel well, I don't feel like talking, listening to his "angry music," or engaging in any unnecessary activity. My only goal was to complete the task at hand and then take a nap. My darling husband finds my quiet moods disconcerting and feels the need to fill the quiet with small talk. I hate small talk.

After several futile attempts to engage me in conversation, he sat quietly, and the only noise was the satisfying zip of the labels being pulled off their waxed paper backing. I was content with the quiet. I was laser-focused on ensuring the labels were straight and content thinking my own thoughts. Inside my head is an interesting place to be, and I quite enjoy languishing in my thoughts. As I sat quietly, thinking about this and that, my bib overall-wearing buddy cleared his throat, didn't look up from the moisturizer jar he was labeling, and randomly threw out the fact that he read a high percentage of geniuses like to wear the same outfit day after day. Mildly annoyed by the intrusion of random facts, I responded politely, "Oh, that's interesting. Why is that?" He did not miss a beat, his timing was impeccable, and he replied matter of factly, "I don't know. It's just what we do."

I paused momentarily, processing his response, then guffawed like a hyena at his wit. Sometimes, his quick wit catches me off guard. I found this perfectly timed comedic response hilarious. I sat and laughed at his comment for several minutes, breaking my concentration and interrupting my taciturn mood. He seemed genuinely confused by my giggling fit, which made me laugh even harder. Sigh, he always gives me exactly what I need, and I appreciate that. With that one off-the-cuff comment, my mood improved. I made a few Steve Jobs jokes, and then we chatted amicably the rest of the day. I love my co-worker.

On this overcast spring day, stay safe, be smart, enjoy your co-workers, get out of your own head, laughter is the best medicine, and keep washing your hands.

It's Just Not Worth It

The Bibbed Wonder and I follow quite a few goat farmers, soap makers, and goat-related pages on the Internet. In the goat farming world, we are newbs. There is a lot of information out there. Some of that information is accurate and useful, and some is well, not so much. We enjoy reading about what other farmers do, how they utilize their land, and how they keep their family farm/business relevant and productive in this fast-paced world.

During the pandemic, we became intrigued by a goat-farming family that makes goat cheese. This family practices removing baby goats from their mamas and bottle-feeding them until they are eight weeks old. While the babies are on the bottle, the family offers the public the opportunity to make a reservation to come to their farm and feed a baby goat a bottle for a fee of $25. They take their "baby goat experience" one step further and offer the public the opportunity to spend one hour alone in the baby goat pen, giving "snuggles" to baby goats. They charge a fee of $75 for their goat snuggling hour. This family also has cameras set up throughout their barn, and they sell subscriptions to a closed channel where one can watch adult and baby goats at any given time for a small monthly fee.

Initially, The Bibbed Wonder and I thought, A) This is ridiculous, and B) This is so ridiculous that it is genius. This ingenious practice led to a solid income for the farmers. Their reservation list was booked months in advance. It seemed people could not get enough baby goat time and were willing to pay for the experience. Who would have thought? Eric and I often say we don't understand people or how this world works. If I'm being transparent, we contemplated offering the same experiences on our farm. However, there were several deterrents. First, one needs reliable internet service to run a live feed subscription. That is something we do not have here. Secondly, we would have to open our farm to the public and have a constant rotation of people coming in and out of our home. We are far too introverted and enjoy our peace and quiet to do this. Third, I am sure it would be an insurance nightmare. Last and most importantly, we worry about the health of our herd. All it takes is one live microorganism to be brought in on someone's shoes, clothing, or person, and our herd could fall seriously ill. Sacrificing our herd's wellness is not worth any dollar amount.

Sadly, dear reader, the latter is what those ingenious goat farmers experienced. After a few years of offering baby goat experiences for a fee, their entire herd became seriously ill. They lost kids and goats, had weeks of doctoring, and had exorbitant vet bills. I'm sure it was a heartbreaking and painful lesson to learn. Suddenly, those fees and that income don't seem so important. Their herd being down affected their entire operation. While the goats were being doctored and taking antibiotics, their milk could not be used for cheese production. It wreaked havoc on their whole life. I'm sorry, but in my simple mind, it isn't worth it.

Sometimes, the lessons we learn from others are invaluable. For this reason, we are careful about who enters our fields and interacts with our goats. We have a lot of friends and family who would love to come and feed our bottle baby, hang out with our lovely ladies, and sit with our littles while they climb and play. However, we are unwilling to take that risk. It isn't anything personal; it's just responsible farming practices. When my nephew was young, he had sheep. I would take him to other sheep farms to look at potential sheep to add to his herd, or we would visit. It was a common practice to have us dip our boots and scrub them in an antibacterial/antimicrobial solution before we entered the barn. At that time, I thought this was a bit over the top, but when one is a guest at someone else's farm, one does what is asked. Now, I understand entirely why these sheep farmers were so diligent about cleanliness and hygiene. In the blink of an eye, an entire herd can be decimated.

For this reason, we don't offer access to our herd during our events here at the farm. Visitors are welcome to view the goats from outside the electric fence, but the fence is a strong deterrent to keep people at a distance. People have asked us if they are allowed to feed treats to our goats. The answer is always a firm but gentle: No, I'm sorry. Not only can disease be introduced to our herd from people's hands, but many treats can upset the delicate balance of the goat's rumen. Truthfully, most of our girls don't take treats because they are treat snobs. We offer apples, licorice, tobacco, and, of course, goat treats, but only a few of the girls will partake. Our billy goats and wethered boys can develop urinary tract crystals if given too many treats. They seem like hardy animals, but their digestive tract is delicate. I don't want to kill my sweet goats with treats given in love.

We hope you will join us for our Springtime At The Farm event on Saturday, May 4, from 9 to 1. You are welcome to enjoy our "goatsies" from a distance. However, because we love our herd, we keep them away from the public. Please keep your fingers crossed that we have nice weather. On this overcast spring day, stay safe, be smart, protect your herd at all costs, and keep washing your hands.