Mountain Rose Herbs!

HOLY CRAP! So I found this website for herbs and spices about a year ago and fell in love with it! Their company practices sustainable organic growing and producing of every imagineable herb or spice. Their website is the next closest thing to sleeping with Mother Nature herself! Check out the website and their YouTube videos! They have step-by-step video instructions for making herbal honeys and home-remedies. YAY!

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/mountainroseherbs

BAKED ZITI!

If you ask anyone from my Dad's side of the family what their favorite dinner is, they will say "Grandma's Baked Ziti." So since I've been trying to break the redundant dinner problem in my house, I had the amazing idea of making this old family favorite. To my great pleasure, the finished product tasted just like Grandma's and was devoured by all. Please enjoy the step-by-step directions below...

Hopefully, my one blog follower will break free from making stews to try this recipe!


INGREDIENTS:
(may be halved)


1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground Italian sausage
1 medium white onion, chopped

1 pound ziti noodles (I used Rigatoni because I like the ridges)

2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons garlic, finely crushed
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 pound mozzarella, shredded

salt
pepper
oregano
basil






1. Brown the ground beef and sausage together. When the meat is close to being finished, add the chopped onions. Strain the meat of it's fat and set aside.










2. In the same pan, add the butter, bell peppers, chopped mushrooms, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and basil. Saute until the peppers are soft, but not mushy.









3. In the meantime, cook the noodles as directed on the package and then set them aside.













4. Add the cans of diced tomatoes and the can of tomato sauce and the browned beef and sausage. Let simmer on low heat, stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes.








5. In the meantime, in a greased 9X13 inch glass baking dish, add a thin layer of the cooked pasta noodles.








6. When the meat sauce is done simmering, stir it well and then add a small layer over the top of the first layer of pasta. Liberally spread the shredded mozzarella on top.








7. Add another layer of the cooked pasta and top with more cheese.








8. Add another layer of meat sauce until the baking dish is full. Then spread another generous layer of shredded cheese.






9. You will need to cover the baking dish with aluminum foil, but you don't want the foil to get stuck to all the cheese while it's baking, so you can stick several tooth picks in the casserole and then cover it with the foil.



10. Place in the pre-heated oven and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.



11. Remove aluminum foil and bake for another 10 minutes to somewhat brown the top.



*All casseroles turn out better when they are allowed to sit and cool slightly for about 10 minutes after baking. This enables you to scoop out servings without it falling apart.



Here is the final product...



BUON APPETITO!

7 days...

They say that it takes 7 days for a physical addiction to dissipate, leaving only the metaphysical addiction...

It has been 7 days since I last smoked cigarettes. Sigh..... I can't say this has been an easy week. I have wanted to smoke pretty badly a few times and I have resisted.

I have been smoking on and off since I was 13 years old. It pains me to think of all the damage I have done to my body for such a small amount of pleasure...

Last year, I decided I would quit smoking on my birthday. I made it a couple months before I even smoked one. And then.... I started again. Why?

A little part of me is convinced that I'm going to die of cancer at a fairly young age...

But I have seven days. That is approximately 40 cigarettes I have not smoked!

Passion...

I was laying in bed and my thoughts and feelings were finally materializing out of the crazy fog in my brain... Something has been upsetting me lately... Perhaps, I should say THINGS have been bothering me lately and I haven't quite known how to put them into words until now. And even now, I'm not sure how this will all come out....

So, passion. Passion to me is so many things. It can be worse than an addiction; leaving you with cravings that you can't shake unless you are able to act freely upon your instincts. Passion is both in the heat of the moment and the slow-burning embers of everyday life... It is what makes a person feel alive and beautiful and free and swaddled all at the same time. Passion makes everything sweeter, for it is the sugar in your tea and within your deepest convictions.

Basically, I'm feeling like I am going through life lately, with no passion. I don't know where it went and I don't know who I am without it. Each day, I live my life within the walls of my home. I do what is required of me as a mother and wife by keeping the house clean and cooking and paying bills, all the necessary, but mundane parts of life. All the while, I keep getting the same nagging feeling I have been getting since I left high school. That is, that I am not living up to my full potential... Besides not going to college or being amidst a career at this point, I don't have much of a social outlet.

This lifestyle leaves me to count mostly on my husband to feed my social needs. Sometimes, I would really love to trade sleeping in late and taking care of our kid just to get up early in the mourning and go off to work where I could have someone to talk to all day, something else to stimulate my mind...

It's unrealistic to expect my husband to be capable of completely satisfying my social needs... But lately, I'm wondering if he satisfies them at all... Generally, the first thing he does when he gets home is tell me how HIS day went. Which is something I really care about, but when he doesn't bother asking about mine, it just further nails in the fact that I really don't have much of a life to talk about in the first place...

Enclosed within these walls, it becomes more difficult by the day to become inspired. Life is becoming really predictable. Inspirations lead to the greatest of passion! But it escapes me...

These are my young years. These are the years of my life when I'm supposed to be the most beautiful, have the most sex and enjoy life the most, for my youth and health are in-tact. I am beautiful now and worthy of passion in my life.

But instead, I sit here and brood about all these things inside that are bothering me about a lot of different aspects of my life. Analyzing and over-analyzing and then feeling like a huge complaining whiny asshole... This is not good for my marriage, it's not good for my soul... It's not the person I want to be.

I know I am responsible for taking this problem into my own hands, for seizing the day and that I will be the only one to blame if life passes me by while I'm complaining about it. I am going to a meeting on Tuesday to see about Financial Aid and the process of signing up to take college courses to keep me busy for the next year while my husband deploys again. Will that be enough?

Moving deeper, to more difficult issues, I just feel like I am losing my own identity and that we are loosing who we are as a couple. It's like I've forgotten who I am as a person besides being my child's mother and my husband's wife. I am forgetting what it's like to be alone with my husband. We hardly spend any time alone. The time when we dated each other has become such a distant cluster of memories in the back of my mind...

And I have changed as a person since he's been gone repeatedly for longer periods of time than any couple should have to endure. As I've changed, I realize lately that my standards and expectations are changing. The way I want to be talked to, touched and communicated with, is different these days; more appropriate for a woman my age...

I like my hair to be black, it's what makes me feel like myself and I guess, he doesn't understand that, he only sees the girl with the brown hair that he first met. She was only 15 and I've come a long ways since then, gained a nose piercing, a bunch of tattoos and grown into my skin, become more myself while being the same person I've always been. He's changed too and become someone I love and dislike all at the same time.

So here again, another part of my life is in dire need of passion. I thought women started complaining of this when they reached their 40's, not now, not while I'm this young woman, still on the verge of the rest of her life....

Something stark, stabbing, painful and true was written to me in a message from a friend of mine that has remained in my mind ever since...

She said that the small amount of time that our men are actually home with us should be the most passionate of times to remind us of why we are sticking around in the first place, waiting for them to come home....

I know all of this seems incredibly negative. It is. These are my mind's thoughts lately. They are just a few of my deepest feelings that have had me all dull lately. I am without my shine....

It doesn't mean that I am completely unhappy. I hate sounding like the woman who is impossible to please, the one who complains about everything. This is my outlet....

At the Market...

Tiny little pastries with cream and fruit. They are delicious!

Pre-made pizzas

Harmony and the basket. They don't really have shopping carts here...

Some amazing cheese!

Packaged lentils and beans and different seeds and stuff.

They don't refridgerate their eggs. This is their egg section, just sitting on a shelf. Most likely, the eggs are really fresh and they probably throw out whatever is left at the end of the day. I dunno, just a guess.

Gnocchi, it's squishy potato pasta. They have an entire refridgerated isle of it.

Asiago cheese, from Asiago, Italy

One of the many isles of packaged and sliced meats. They have all sorts of different kinds. Some of them look kinda scarry!

This is some of what I came home with. Look at that awsome loaf of bread! I got some croissants and bread for making bruchetta too.

And this little guy is my new sunflower plant to go in the pot that my dead tomatoes used to live in. I gotta dig up all the roots before I can plant it.

Moby Dick

I've been reading Moby Dick, or the White Whale by Herman Melville lately. Generally, I devour books, but I am finding this one slightly more difficult. I think it's a book that is meant to be slowly read and enjoyed. I've decided to post some of my most favorite exerpts from the book thus far....

Chapter 1 Loomings


Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos* get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off-- then, I account it high time to get to the sea as soon as I can.

* hypos is a short word for hypochondrias, more like neuroses or nonorganic phobias and anxieties...


More to come...

Things I Love About Living in Italy...

In the interest of being postitive, I want to write a blog about the things I love about living here. There are a lot of great things about this place.

1. Everywhere I go, I am emersed in hundreds of years of History. A five minute walk from my house leads me to five hundred year old Catholic cathedrals with beautiful statuary and overgrown with ivy. This place is beautiful.

2. The endless possibilities to see places I could never have dreamed I would visit.

3. The beautiful mountains that make me feel at home.

4. Venice. An absolutely magical place. Carnivale is the Mardi Gras of Europe.

5. My dear, cute little Italian neighbors that live below me. They are precious people.

6. La Pergoletta, the little coffee shop I adore, with the best white hot chocolate ( Bianca ciccolatta calda) I have ever had. It's seriously, "joy in a cup."

7. The ease of taking the train. There's something so relaxing about watching the world go by from a comfy train seat.

8. Seeing people's laundry hanging everywhere on sunny days. I can't help but laugh when I see someone's giant granny panties hanging on a clothes line in the sun.

9. Recycling. It's the law here and when I participate, it makes me feel like a better person.

10. The abundance of quil pens, leather bound journals and parchment paper and little shops devoted to the art of writing and drawing.

11. The fact that dogs are allowed in most restraunts and shops here.

12. Seeing some of the most adorable little oldschool Fiats and Minni Coopers on a regular basis.

13. My house. It's gorgeous.

14. Monte Berico, the best view of Vicenza, hands down.

15. The coolness of living in the city again. So many things are within walking distance. Corner caffes and pizzerias, flower shops, cheese shops and boutiqes...

16. Gypsies on the sidewalk playing accordians for coins.

17. "Squatters" the little porcelain holes in the floor of many of the bathrooms here. It reminds me of camping and comes with the added bonus of not coming into contact with something everyone else's butt has touched.

18. The abundance of cheese, proscutto, bread, polenta and seafood.

19. The fact that my popular american car is quite unique here.

20. Pear juice. It has become my life force... I can't get enough of the divine liquid!

21. Being able to order beer and wine at McDonalds. Not that I have, but I think it's cool that I could.

22. Chocolate and Bananna Crepes....

23. Mario the hair-dresser, Leno the Waiter, Peno, my coffee guy and Aughustiani, my pizza man...

24. The awkward conversations I end up having with people because of the language barrier. There is beauty in awkwardness.

25. ROME!

What's for Dinner?

This subject has been quite the headache in the Ellender household lately... Michael is his own breed of picky when it comes to what he puts in his mouth, I will try just about anything and Harmony is someplace in between, but mostly hard to please. Generally, it is my sole responsibility to feed this family and I have been in a rut... Apparently, nobody wants to eat spaghetti and tacos all the time...

So, My goal with this particular space in my blog is to start a collection of easy recipies that I can refer back to later when I don't know what to make...

Last night, I improvised and made Shepherd's Pie. Though, that meal is (go figure) not Michael's cup of tea...

Without further delay, my Sheperd's Pie recipie...



Marlena's Easy Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef (or lamb if you want to get fancy)
1/2 a white onion, chopped
4-5 medium carrots, sliced into bite-size
3 large potatoes
teaspoon of butter
4 teaspoons flour
2/3 cup of beef broth (sub. beef bulion and use 1/2 cup of water)
About 10 dashes of Worcestershire Sauce

You can also add peas or other vegetables...


Season with:

Pepper
Garlic Powder
Salt


First, boil water and add potatoes. Mash them and set aside...


1. Brown the beef with chopped onion. Don't drain.
2. Add sliced carrots, Worcestershire Sauce, butter and beef broth to browned beef.
3. Heat the mixture up on medium until it simmers lightly.
4. Reduce heat add flour until mixture is desired thickness, but not too much!
5. Lightly season the mixture and then pour into a baking dish. (9x9 square)
6. Top the mixture with the mashed potatoes, cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 25 min
7. Remove foil and set oven to broil to lightly brown the top of the potatoes.

More to come....

This mourning....

Check out these pictures of my poor tomatoes! I have put in a lot of hard work on three tomato plants this summer. I lost two of my three plants to little parasites and these pictures show my third and last surviving tomato plant with a type of rot. I couldn't figure out what was causing it, until I started studying into it. Aparently, my tomatoes are growing in like this because they experienced periods of dryness (Like when I kept going out of town for 5 days at a time every other week for Michael's foot surgery and then vacations) Anyway, I have over 19 tomatoes growing from this bush and almost all of them are growing with this brown spot on the bottom that continues to look worse and worse as it grows larger. I think I'll try and grow cherry tomatoes next summer....

"At least my roses are doing okay," I thought as I was inspecting them. Then, I discovered millions of little worm-like caterpillars all over mu beautiful roses, munching away at the leaves! Just the other day I was marvelling at how wonderful plants and flowers are. I will sit outside at night and look at them and when I wake up in the mourning, just in a few hours, I discover a new development. It's like flowers just bloom out of nowhere. But this seemingly overnight develoment is less than welcome! I had to cut off a bunch of little leaves and branches to save the plant from it's worms....

My lemon trees really are doing well... Approaching them, I take a huge wiff of the air around them and am always delighted by their fragrance...

This is my beloved Garden Gnome and his friend, the snail. Both of them still need names. But I adore them both.

Here, my strawberry plants are coming back. I thought they were going to die after they produced only a couple berries and then seemed to wither a little. But they are actually working on about 4 new blooms and are looking good!

And finally, just because I feel like it, I took a picture of my neighbors canopy of grape vines. They are producing grapes right now and they will be ready in the next couple of weeks...

Should I?

I have all this stuff pent up inside me... Should I really write freely, or should I keep my personal thoughts and mind off the internet for random people to read? As usual, I am split down the middle... On one hand, I think it would be bad for me to leave my feelings in a position to be exploited here on the internet. I am a private person. On the other hand, I feel like I shouldn't have to worry about what people will think and say about the things I write here. I should not make excuses for the person I am. I should be myself. How freeing that would be! I'm going to sleep on it...

Things I Miss About Living in the States...

This is my on-going list of shit I miss about the states. These are the things I took for granted before. America really is fucking fantastic!

1. Being able to pull into a gas station, pump my own gas and then go in and buy snacks at the convenience store.

2. Buying pants that say I'm a size 4 or 6. Not a size 40. WTF is a size 40? By the way, they have some of the world's ugliest and most unflattering jeans I have ever seen here!

3. Not having to order everything on the internet and hope it fits.

4. Being able to understand people.

5. Smiling at someone in passing, and getting smiled at back.

6. Not feeling abnormally tall and out of place.

7. STARBUCKS! or at least a cup of coffee that is larger than a thimble.

8. American versions of Italian food. They taste WAY BETTER.

9. Flipping people off while driving and knowing they understand the gesture. Their version of giving the bird is by sticking up their pinkie finger. It's weird.... Like I said, everything is smaller here, even the "F-You's"

10. Knowing what to expect when I order something at a restraunt.

11. Drive-thru atm's, pharmacies, food, and coffee shops. (If your in Louisianna, you can even get daquries at drive-thrus)

12. Places being open after 10:00pm. (Not just the shady places)

13. American television. Not AFN (Armed Forces Network) By the way, I haven't seen a comercial since I've been here. Some people would think that's great, but now I have no idea about new movies coming out, or what they are supposed to entale.

14. Being able to go places in my sweatpants. That's a major no no here.

15. The cute little asian girls that used to paint my toenails for $15.00 and do a full set of gel nails for $35.00.

16. Friends that actually give a crap about you. Everyone you make friends with here is a new friend and you both know that both will be leaving this place eventually. Kinda keeps you from getting too close...

17. My dance classes. Wednesdays especially! Those were better than therapy...

18. Buisnesses that aren't closed beween 12:30 and 3:30 in the afternoon and on Sundays.

19. Getting my utility bills once a month. Not every two months or in some cases, every six months.

20. Toilets that are not designed to get shit streaks so you can check your poo for worms and that all flush in basically the same way. I'm not kidding.

21. Having all of my appliances work correctly without extra attatchments and adaptor plugs.

22. Being able to run my dishwasher, washer and dryer and various other appliances simultaniously without blowing a fuse in the house.

23. Seeing movies as they come out in the theatre, not three months later.

24. The need for only a cell phone as a means to keep in touch with my loved ones. Not a home phone, a pre-paid cell phone and a skype account.

25.Squirrels. I haven't seen a single one since I've been here. They must have all gotten eaten during the depression here, along with the cats...

26. Taking beverages and food "to-go". I have figured out how to ask to take them to go, (Aperto Vio) but they think I'm crazy for even suggesting that I want to walk and drink my coffee at the same time.

27. Barnes and Noble.

28. Not having to take toilet paper with me in my purse everywhere I go, for fear of having to take a coffee shit and there not being any toilet paper. They aren't real big on toilet paper here....

29. Beth's cafe, The Hurricain, Denny's and Shari's... I can't even begin to explain how much I miss crappy, greasy diner food at 3am.

30. Playing Pool. Another thing I haven't seen around here...

31. Washington girls..... A unique breed....

32. Kareoki. Haven't done that in a while.

33. Comfortable toilet seats.

Croatian Vacation

Our latest vacation was to the city of Bol on Brac Island in Croatia. I can't seem to shake the desire to go back there. We drove North through Italy and then through Slovenia and into Northern Croatia and on down the coast. The landscape reminded me of the dessert in Texas as it was dry and rocky and the only vegetation was some sage bush.

I was particularly excited to be going to the nude beach. They call them "Naturist Beaches"

Though there were a lot of old people on the nude beach, hanging out in all of their nude glory, I was happy to be there because of the freedom I felt. How wonderful it was to be at my most natural state, swimming in the most beautiful, Adriatic Sea.

There were families with mothers, fathers and children of all ages practicing "Naturism". There were people of all ages and sizes and all were accepted. It made me think of how prude we really are in America...

When in Rome...

The Spainish Steps, a popular meeting point in Rome. At the top, the french church.

An awsome statue on the way to the Colosseum.... I liked the expression on his face.

Fontane di Trevi, or The Trevi Fountain

Harmony at Fontane di Trevi, we spent a while there....

Here sits a gypsie woman that was begging for change. I made sure to drop several coins in her bowl before I stole the photo of her. I know she probably didn't want me to take her picture, but there was something I found so beautiful about this woman.... She sucked me in, so I had to capture her.

The Commune di Venezia building. In between the soldiers is the tomb of the unknown soldier. This building was massive in size and it was really difficult to capture the way I would have liked. There is probably no way to accurately capture it's true size and majesty. Inside is a gorgeous museaum and architechture to feast your eyes on, as well as an elevator on the back side to hoist you up to a level where you can see all of Rome.

These are the ruins of the palaces ruled by Ceasars of Ancient Rome. They are amazing to see from such a height.

Of course, the great Colosseum. It was my favorite!

Here, you can see that the floor over the basement no longer exhists. What you can see at the bottom is actually where they would keep the gladiator slaves and the ferocious animals they killed.

Harmony is amazing!

Here, is a small view of the inside of the Vatican walls. It was emense and strange and wonderful to be there...

In June of this year, we took a trip to the Eternal City. These are a small few of the photos we got while we were there. The feeling of being in such places is truly indescribable. None of the photos I got could really capture the size and beauty of everything. It was one of my favorite trips that I have taken in Italy thus far. The entire time we were walking around the city and through the sights, I kept telling myself that I can't allow myself to ever forget what it's like to be there...