Family visit, good lunch, squirrels ejected 6WS

Today good news on the squirrel front: my neighbor announced he has caught the last of the squirrels which have been plaguing our building for weeks.  No wonder I thought it was peaceful today.  They are now transported to woodland far from here, unhurt, but ejected.

Son came over for lunch, and it went well:  carrot and pumpkin soup, lovely color. The soup was part of a big batch I made incorporating an Indian spicy vegetable dish with tendli I'd been given.  It was thick, very filling on a cold day

carrot, pumpkin and tendli soup

and a giant lasagna. I hadn't made lasagna in decades, so I thought it was time. 

Lasagna ready for the oven

 This is the before pic. After assembly, before baking today.


Good thing I set aside yesterday morning for the shopping and assembly, since it took an amazingly long time to make and assemble. There was the shopping for good cheese that would melt -- I used fontina --the making of the meat sauce (never use hamburger, don't trust it, used vienna sausage), and the endless simmering of that with the onion and garlic and spices of all nations, and the boiling of the pasta, and the assembly of the cheeses, then the organization of it all into the dish, ready to refrigerate. Then another 45 minutes baking today.

 I forgot to take a pic when I served it, and shortly after that our inroads made it look a shadow of itself. It looked very sizzling and appetizing, though.  But there are still several meals there for me.  I might freeze a couple of them.  Good thing it went over well after all that intensive work.  If I ever make it again, in the next decade or so, I will make more meat sauce than this recipe said. And I'll use Italian sausage.

Dessert was a plate of those southern dropcakes I showed you, which went over very well. In fact the whole thing did: son requested caraway seeds to try in his own baking plans, since they were good on the dropcakes.  He then began to plan how to make his own lasagna, since he has a lot of the ingredients for a kind of facsimile, even has a glass pan he was given years ago.  It's a good sign when people want to recreate a meal they had.  At least I think it is.

Maybe he thinks he could do it better..being a pretty good cook himself. 

I need a couple of ready meals for the next couple of busy days, what with art commitments, then a trip to a quilt collector's home, and all kinds of other things going on on the home front. And prep for the first afternoon of the artist in residence series, which is almost upon me. So cooking will, pardon the expression, be on the back burner. And  soup and lasagna at the ready will be a Good Thing.