A puzzling injury

Birthday Lasagne

Every year for my birthday, Dale makes Sausage and Wild Mushroom Lasagne with Red Pepper Tomato Sauce. We don’t always have it exactly on my birthday. I wanted to wait until my food-borne illness had passed and maybe until the weather was a bit cooler. We got both, so today’s the day!

This is not a quick meal you throw together. We split up the duties. I’m the sous-chef and clean, chop and weigh everything in advance. Dale cooks and assembles. I suspect we’ll run the dishwasher twice.

If you love mushrooms, this is your dish. The recipe calls for 1.5 ounces of dried porcini mushrooms, but we use 2.5 ounces.

Rain

I got rained on twice this week during golf. The weather report said 0 percent chance of rain, so go figure. I have rain gear and such but left it all in the car. That will not happen again. My question is about weather forecasts. Is any of it real or are they just making it up as they go? Has anyone ever measured their accuracy in predicting weather?

Climate Change

Speaking of weather, I continue to be amazed by the Trump administration and their efforts to roll back anything we ever did good for the environment. I mean, these people have children and grandchildren, right? Do they not care what happens to them?

My guess is it’s a combination of trying to undo anything Obama did and pandering to those who are against government regulation of any type.

The news that really put me over the edge was after Trump’s visit to California. At the same time he’s saying California can’t have stronger emissions standards for cars, he wants to fine San Francisco for allowing homeless people to pollute the environment.

While I do agree we’ve got to come up with a solution for homelessness, and certainly human waste and drug paraphernalia is a problem, Trump doesn’t care about the environment. It’s just that homeless people are an eyesore.

And don’t get me started on his comments about Cokie Roberts. She wasn’t nice to him! I hope there’s joy in the afterlife for those who went down in history as someone who wasn’t nice to Trump.

A Puzzling injury

I’ve written before about my love of the NY Times puzzles. I enjoy the mini-crossword, Spelling Bee and Letterbox. I wrote the puzzle editor a note and was pleased to get a response!

Hi there!

I love Spelling Bee and Letterbox. I especially love how Spelling Bee has a goal, and you are awarded genius for getting there. And yes, I know that is pathetic. Can you do something similar for getting Letterbox in two words? I feel so unrewarded.

Thanks,
Donna Pekar

Hi Donna,

Thanks for taking the time to write in, glad to hear that are enjoying the Bee! That certainly is an intriguing idea, I have logged it for our developers to consider as we move forward.

Thanks again, and happy solving!
John

While I believe the puzzles are good for my retired and aging brain, they are apparently not good for my wrist. I thought my wrist was sore from a previous break, but now I’m thinking it’s carpal tunnel from holding my phone hours at a time in an effort to reach genius level. Is it possible I’m not really a genius if it takes me all day to get there?

A puzzle injury? Who gets that? I am a little obsessive about puzzles and had to go cold turkey on Word with Friends. I’m not going to stop doing the puzzles, but I’m no longer doing them on my phone.

I did the mini and Spelling Bee this morning on my laptop, which I think will be better for my wrist. Dale has never been a fan of me doing the puzzles in bed, but he was kind enough not to say, “I told you so.”

6 thoughts on “A puzzling injury”

    1. I would say the red pepper is subtle — if I didn’t know it was in there, I might have to guess the secret ingredient. I think it brightens up the sauce, which is also not as heavy as a traditional tomato sauce. You’ve got all that cheese and bechamel, too, so it’s plenty rich. Every bite is a flavor bomb. Worth the effort. We’ll be freezing it in individual portions today. You just have to be careful and do a gentle defrost, so as not to scorch the mushrooms.

  1. A radio personality used to say after giving the weather report – and if you want to know what the weather is in your area, don’t be afraid to step outside the door and see for yourself! I used to enjoy the weather forecast while vacationing in Costa Rica – it will rain somewhere in Costa Rica today. Now, that was accurate for that season.

    1. All true! I’ve been remarkably unobservant and need to pay more attention. Although I do like, “It will rain somewhere today.”

  2. Lasagna is a lot of work, but always worth the effort.
    Your recipe sounds delicious! The pasta in the recipe is just soaked, I’m gonna try that.
    When cooking time consuming dishes like this, I always cook the salsa the previous day.

    1. Yes, it’s special “no boil” pasta. I think it took three dishwasher loads to finish cleaning up the mess! But so worth it.

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