I have a confession to make. I have absolutely no sense of direction. There I’ve said it.
The first tiff Steve and I ever had was on the second day of our honeymoon. I remember him asking me to get the map out of the glove compartment and find a particular highway he was looking for. I looked like a deer caught in the headlights. When I just handed him the map, he said he couldn’t drive and read a map. I told him that he had better pull over. Most of the week, he had the map opened and was reading it, while I manned the steering wheel. Where were GPS systems when I really needed them?
The only times Steve has ever listened to me about directions were the times I have been wrong. Occasionally I have been right, but he never listens to me then. I can’t blame him. When someone gives me a direction, I don’t want to hear north, east, south or west. I want to hear left or right and a landmark that I will recognize, such as Walmart or the mall, etc. The simpler the direction, the better.
Whenever I exit an elevator or escalator, I immediately go to the right. Many times, I have been headed down a hallway chatting away and suddenly I realize that I am all alone and normally I am heading in the wrong direction.
Steve has always loved to tell me how to drive. Since I am older than he is, I always tell him that I have been driving longer than he has, but that doesn’t usually work. Many times I have pulled the car over and said, “Why don’t you just drive.”
Several years ago, Steve had to have oral surgery. He decided to go to his friend, Dr. George May, in Jackson. George and Steve played football together at Mississippi State University under coach Bob Tyler in the late 1970s and have remained friends since then.
We left early in the morning for his appointment. Steve received twilight sleep and needed to have someone drive him home. Luckily, I knew where I was going. A few minutes into our trip home, I looked over at Steve in the passenger’s seat. His eyes were closed, his seat was pushed all the way back and he was enjoying his twilight sleep. Then, all at once, he began to point and tell me what lane I needed to be in and how I should drive. His eyes weren’t even opened, and he was still telling me how to drive! All I could do was laugh.
When our son, Steven, was a freshman at Mississippi State, he decided to take a fall road trip to the University of Alabama for an away football game. He had never really been away for a weekend by himself, and I was rather nervous. His cousin, Elizabeth, was a student at the University of Alabama, and they had big plans for the weekend. The night before he left, I called to find out what all the plans were, if he had enough money and where he would be staying. He let me know that he was in college and didn’t need his mama to take care of him. He was old enough to take care of himself.
After our conversation, he said, “Oh, Mama, just one thing, how do I get to Alabama?” Steve just shook his head, because he realized that Steven had his mama’s sense of direction.
I had all of our family over for Christmas night dinner at our house. After deciding not to do the whole turkey and dressing dinner that night, I chose to make lasagna. I also did something that I rarely ever do — try new recipes for company.
Today’s lasagna and stuffed mushrooms were the new recipes I tried, and they were delicious. The marinated tomato salad was not a new recipe but is what we call at my house “a keeper.”
I hope you will give these recipes a try. Thanks for reading.
STUFFED MUSHROOMS
2 pounds large fresh mushrooms
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound ground sausage, hot or mild
6 green onions, mince white and green parts
4 cloves garlic, minced
2/3 cup panko crumbs
1 (8-ounce) carton cream cheese, softened
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
¼ cup minced fresh parsley leaves
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Clean mushroom caps. Remove stems, and finely chop. Heat olive oil in a skillet, and cook sausage until no longer pink. Add chopped mushrooms, onion and garlic, and cook an additional five minutes. Add panko crumbs, and all other ingredients. Mix well. Fill each mushroom generously with sausage mixture. Arrange mushrooms until they all fit snugly in a single layer. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until browned and crusty.
To freeze: Prepare mushrooms and filling as directed. Once filled, arrange the mushrooms in an oven- and freezer-safe baking dish. Cover, and freeze. When ready to serve, preheat the oven to 325 degrees, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. There’s no need to defrost. I made my mushrooms in advance to freeze, and they turned out perfectly.
(This makes a lot of stuffing. You may want to pick up a couple of extra packages of mushrooms so you won’t waste this delicious stuffing. Pop the extras in the freezer for later.)
MILLION DOLLAR LASAGNA
12 lasagna noodles, cooked according to package directions and set aside
1 pound ground sausage, hot or mild
1 pound ground beef
1 (24-ounce) jar spaghetti sauce
2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce (I used the sauce with basil, garlic and oregano.)
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 (24-ounce) carton cottage cheese
1 (8-ounce) carton cream cheese, softened
1 (8-ounce) carton sour cream
2 beaten eggs
2 tablespoons dried parsley
1 pound shredded Mozzarella cheese
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brown sausage, and ground beef in skillet over medium heat. Drain. Stir in spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce and Italian seasoning. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and set aside. In a bowl, combine cottage cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, eggs and parsley. Set aside. Lightly spray a 9-by-12-inch dish with cooking spray. Spread 1 cup meat sauce in bottom of pan. Top with six lasagna noodles, lengthwise and overlapping to cover. Top noodles with half of the cottage cheese mixture and one-third of the Mozzarella cheese. Spoon half of the meat sauce over the cheeses, and sprinkle with ¼ cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers, starting with the noodles and ending with meat sauce and the remaining Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil, and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil, and sprinkle with remaining Mozzarella cheese. Bake an additional 30 minutes. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.
(This can be frozen before cooking, but let thaw completely before baking.)
MARINATED CHERRY TOMATO SALAD
1 pint red grape tomatoes
1 pint yellow grape tomatoes
½ red onion, thinly sliced
¼ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 heaping tablespoon jarred prepared pesto
½ teaspoon sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
1 head iceberg lettuce, cut into chunks
Halve the tomatoes, and place them in a large Ziploc bag along with the red onion. Add the remaining ingredients to the bag, except for the lettuce. Seal the bag, getting all of the air out and place in the refrigerator for at least four to six hours or overnight. Place the lettuce in a large bowl, and pour the tomato mixture over the lettuce. Toss and serve.
(The dressing from the tomatoes becomes the salad dressing. I sometimes use the bags of prepared lettuce varieties, or romaine works well too.)
• Contact Lee Ann Flemming at lafkitchen@hughes.net.
