Another "Dairy Good" recipe!!

This recipe for lasagna has been in my family for as long as I can remember.  All my siblings make the same recipe - "Mom's" and it's often requested for parties.  The first couple times it seems tricky, but I think I can get it in the oven from start to finish now in 20 minutes.  We even had it at Christmas this year!  Typically on Christmas Day most of us spend time with our spouses families, and whoever doesn't have plans gets together for a VERY laid back Christmas dinner.

Here's the recipe - should you make it, please share your comments!!

Lasagna - Bakes 1 hour @ 350 degrees

Ingredients:  1 1/2 pounds ground beef

                    1 tsp. garlic

                    1 Tbls parsley

                    1 Tbls basil

                    1/2 tsp salt

                    28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

                    12 oz. can tomato paste

                    1# box lasagna noodles

                    16 oz container small curd cottage cheese

                    2 eggs, beaten

                    2 tsp. salt

                    1/2 tsp. pepper

                    1 Tbls parsley

                    1/2 c. Parmesan cheese

                    2 pounds mozzarella cheese

Brown meat and begin boiling noodles.

Once the meat is no longer pink, add the next six ingredients.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Cook noodles for 8 minutes or until tender.  Drain noodles and cool with cold water to allow you to handle them.

Combine cottage cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, parsley and Parmesan cheese.  You now are ready to assemble the lasagna.  In a 9" x 13" cake pan, sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, layer the following:

1/4 of meat mixture
2 layers of noodles laid out 3 noodles across (you use 6 noodles in each of the noodle layers)
1/3 of cottage cheese mixture
1/3 of mozzarella cheese

Repeat 3 times, ending with a top layer of meat and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese on top.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  If you make it in advance and bake from the refrigerator, increase baking time to 90 minutes.

Enjoy!!

"What did you do today?"

Often times at the dinner table, I get some strange looks from my family when I answer the question "What did you do today?".  Recently, they were quite astonished by the fact that I spent several hours cleaning cows ear tags!

You see, record keeping is very important to our dairy.  While we have over 1000 cows, each one is on a separate schedule in terms of pregnancy, vaccinations, needing a vet check or needing a hoof trim...just to name a few.

So on any given day, when one of the above tasks requires certain cows to be found, it is imperative that we do without error and of course no one wants to spend a huge amount of time searching.  The task of "cleaning ear tags" is not something we've done before and perhaps the need to do it was perpetuated by the fact that two of us are now in our 40's - perhaps are eyes are not what they used to be.  Anyway, tags get dirty and fade, making them hard to read.

This girls tags are very difficult to read.  Not only because they are somewhat dirty, but also the ink tends to fade over time.  Since this girl is 8 years old it certainly was time to freshen up the paint on her tag!

That's me using a quarter to scratch the dirt off the tag.  This day we did a couple hundred cows - I sorta felt like I was playing the lottery after a while!!

The finished product!  Now when we sort through this group of cows, looking for her we should have no problems finding No. 2741!

Another cow before...

And after...

Celebrating Cheese!!

January 20th is National Cheese Lover's Day.  For all of you out there like me who can't resist good cheese, I toast you with a serving of one of my favorites which include; Land O Lakes Sharp Cheddar, Pine River PrePack Port Wine Cheese Spread served on Roasted Garlic Triscuits, Saxon Cremery's Big Ed's or one of the many others!  Let's celebrate with Cheese!!

Basketball Season!!!

Since my last post (Thanksgiving - really??) time has flown by.  A crazy schedule, along with some problems uploading pictures have resulted in not getting anything new on here...sorry that I haven't posted in soooo long!!

For the Fitzgerald families, basketball season means that most nights one of us is running to Kiel to pick up or drop off kids for practice.  It also means that on most Tuesday's, Thursday's and Saturday's there is someone to watch playing a game.  Last Satuday and Sunday we had 10 games between the 4 kids involved in Kiel Raider's basketball - that's a lot of bleacher time!!

The 4 Fitzgerald sisters with 3 of the next generation watching the Big Game!!

My daughter Kelsey (#3 center back row) and her 5th grade team.

Kelly's daughter Brooke (#32 shooting) who starts on the Kiel Raiders Varsity team.



Go Raiders!!!