A little introduction

I'm not a great cook. I'm not a particularly bad cook, but not the type of cook I'd like to be. My mom is the type of cook I aspire to be. The things I make I make just fine but nothing spectacular. Follow a recipe and out pops a meal. But I'd like to be a really good cook. One who can whip up brownies or a pie in no time flat. Who can sauté and dice and fry and roast and bake like the best of them. Learning how to blanch and can and pickle and stuff a turkey. Okay, I'll have to work up to the turkey- touching meat gives me the willies.

I see people online like bakerella and The Pioneer Woman and canning blogs and think "well, if they can do it, so can I" so today I set out to buy canning supplies. I'm going to learn to can. I came home with two 12-packs of mason jars, a can of pectin and pickling salt and a jar lifter. Only when I got home did I realize that I also should have purchased the water bath and wire basket. So perhaps canning will start tomorrow, or next weekend. Whenever I can get to the store to get those two things.

In the meantime I'm going to make spinach, mushroom and ricotta lasagna. Yum! I use the Moosewood Cookbook recipe for the lasagna:
12 lasagna noodles, partially cooked, drained and rinsed in cold water
1 lb chopped spinach. It calls for raw, but I couldn't find any so I'm using frozen. (I thaw mine in the microwave)
1/2 pound chopped mushrooms
2 cups ricotta cheese
1 lb mozzarella cheese- shredded
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 eggs beaten
2 TBS Wheat Germ
dash of nutmeg
Tomato sauce (I use two 15oz cans and have a little left over)

Cook the lasagna noodles half-way, drain and rinse in cold water. Mix the eggs, ricotta, mushrooms, spinach, wheat germ and nutmeg together. Get a 9x13 pan, cover the bottom in a small layer of sauce. Put down 1/3 the noodles (4). Then add 1/2 the stuffing, cover with sauce, add half the cheese, then 4 more noodles, the rest of the filling, sauce, the other 1/2 of cheese, the rest of the noodles, the last of the sauce, top with parm and done! Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.