Really good lasagna

This spinach lasagna freezes well & tastes great. It uses less cheese than most lasagnas. I leave out the garlic and throw in a little extra spinach.

2 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
Garlic to taste (recommend fresh cloves chopped)
1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
1 28-oz. can whole tomatoes crushed by hand, with juice (important -- & fun! -- to crush by hand!)
1 6-oz. can tomato paste
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 c. chicken stock or water
1 egg
1 10-oz. package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, as much moisture squeezed out as possible
1 c. ricotta cheese
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 lb. lasagna noodles, cooked until firm, drained
1/2 lb. mozzarella cheese, grated

Heat 1 Tbs. of the oil in a sauté pan over medium heat, and sauté the onion and garlic until they begin to soften. Add the mushrooms and continue to sauté gently until they lose most of their moisture -- about 5 minutes more. Stir in the tomato sauce, canned tomatoes and liquid, tomato paste, salt, oregano, basil, and stock or water. Simmer 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat the egg and combine with the spinach, ricotta, Parmesan, and remaining Tbs. of oil.

If you plan to freeze the lasagna, line the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with heavy-duty aluminum foil, with enough foil hanging over each edge to cover the top.

Assemble: noodle layer in bottom of pan, 1/2 tomato mixture, noodles, spinach mixture, noodles, rest of tomato, mozzarella.

Wrap the foil around the entire top of lasagna and cool in the refrigerator. Freeze overnight and remove from the serving dish, then cover with an additional layer of plastic wrap. (This way you can use your pan for other things.) To reheat, thaw SLIGHTLY in fridge, remove all foil and wrap, and place in the original baking dish to thaw completely.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

One week

One week ago, Luke and I were getting settled in the hospital. Now I'm sitting here with this angel baby on my lap, unable to believe how much has happened in 7 days! Scott has learned so much: how to breathe, cry, eat, and make us fall apart with happiness and laughter. What an excellent addition to Team Wagner!

Thank you to sister/aunt Karen for posting early pictures and news on baby Scott for us and thank you for all the family and friends that have visited and helped us. We're looking forward to seeing the rest of you soon! For the first few days, we were pretty much holed up in our little nest, doing a lot of resting:



Last night we watched the presidential debate at Kelly's house, and lately we've been taking walks with Scott in the sling (which both he and I love). Today we took our Freebird's gift card (thank you Alex!) and went out for lunch and a stroll.

Our first non-family visitors -- Jeff, Shanna (with a little baby bump) and family -- stopped by on their way to the football game this morning. Scott was dressed for game day.



More soon!

Scott Alfred Wagner

Scott Alfred Wagner was born on Saturday, September 20th at 10pm. He weighed 7lbs8oz and was 19.25 inches long. He's already scoring high on his tests (how could you not with parents like his?) - his performance on his APGAR test was an outstanding 9/10!

He is absolutely precious - and I'm not saying that just because I'm related to him. Apparently he gets a bit fussy during the nights, but he put on an excellent show for grandparents, aunts, and uncle that got to visit him. We were there a few hours and he opened his eyes, wiggled around, and slept. The closest he got to crying was a few chirps.




They come home from the hospital today and Jenn is healthy and both parents are extremely happy! They even got naps earlier today.


Uncle Ben (aka Rice) already named Jennifer "Mother Nucleus" and Luke "Father Computer". :)

-Aunt Karen

Starting new things

I enjoy checking the Teutons blog and thought I'd start one for our family, too. We're enjoying a very calm, rainy weekend here as the rains from Hurricane Ike kept us inside most of the day. We took a walk around campus and everything looks to be in good shape: we saw a couple traffic signs blown over and one tree down (which seemed to have a damaged root system already), but very little standing water.

We're expecting the baby to be born any day now (2? 10? 20?), but no news yet. Here are some pictures of how he and I have grown!