PIZZA-NOODLE CASSEROLE FOR TWO

I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for a few weeks now. At first, the idea of it didn’t appeal to Frank, but last Monday night I decided to give it a try. I saw the idea for it in a recipe that proved to come from Taste of Home. This is supposed to taste like pizza. Taste of Home is based in Milwaukee. What do they know about New York pizza in Milwaukee? Their recipe had a ground beef sauce that wouldn’t have the necessary bite, and, along with the required mozzarella, cheddar cheese. Now, that’s the Wisconsin Dairy State’s idea of pizza – not mine. My recipe, except for the cooking time and temperature, which experience would have told me is just about right, is nowhere like theirs.

If I do say so myself, this dish was very good, and the Brooklyn-born Frank gave it two thumbs up. It has all the right bite in the sauce and pepperoni, and the proper chewiness and strings of the mozzarella. It certainly takes a heck of a lot less time to prepare than my pizza from scratch. Even having to make my own sauce recipe, if there’s none handy in the freezer, it takes only minutes to prepare. No cooking necessary for this sauce.

Give it a try - you may like it.

Ingredients

·         2 cups noodles, any size

·         ¾ to 1 cup pizza sauce – recipe follows

·         30 or so slices of pepperoni – sliced into 1/4” pieces

·         1 cup shredded mozzarella

Preparation

·        Preheat the oven to 350°

·         Cook the noodles according to the package directions.

·         While the noodles are cooking, get out the other ingredients, and grease a small baking dish.

·         Drain the noodles and return them to the pot. Mix in the sauce and sliced pepperoni slices. Pour the mixture into the grease baking dish.

·         Top the mixture with the mozzarella.

·         Bake for 20 minutes. Serve.

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Quick Pizza Sauce – in a large bowl mix

1 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp cider vinegar

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. salt

This recipe makes four two-person servings of just under a cup each. This is just enough for a two-person pizza or for the pizza-noodle casserole. 

One quarter of the sauce in this dish, freeze the rest for three other meals.

STILL WATCHING THE CLOCK

Even tech savvy kids must learn to tell time by an analog clock

I’ve not worn a watch since 1962. That was the year the bank where I worked began computerized accounting. Starting with the tellers’ work and the checking accounts, the big item we handled was checks. To read the checks, and deposit slips, and the other bank items, they had to go through a reader-sorter that had a huge magnet, larger and longer than a half-gallon of milk. If anyone went near that machine, their watch would go haywire. It pulled the hands off my boss’s watch, and really scrambled the innards. So, from then on, I never wore a watch.

I’ve had computers, desktop and laptop, for almost twenty years. I’ve had my cell phone for twelve years. They are handy. The cell phone, a flip phone, resides in my pocket. Do I consult them when I want to know the time? No, I look at the clock, any handy analog clock. I could bookmark or download an analog clock on my PC, but I think I’d still look up and check the clock in the room. Old habits die hard.

GEEEEZE LOUEEEEEZE!!

Geeeeze Loueeeze! In this morning's crop of emails, there's one from Hobby Lobby announcing: Starts Now: 40% Off Christmas Decor! It's August! There are four months and six days until Christmas. I've not yet even looked at fall decor this year. I think that what I have from years past will still look good. Is the Fall stuff already on clearance? Once again, commerce raises its ugly head. 

No wonder we're going into a recession. Perhaps folks like me are starting to realize they have enough stuff, and are not buying anything new, so the wheels of commerce - up and down the manufacturing and retailing supply chain - are very slowly beginning to falter.  

THE MOVABLE MONA LISA

I had to laugh this week when I saw the crowd collected in front of the Mona Lisa. Evidently. Because of refurbishing of the gallery where she normally hangs out, Mona Lisa has been moved to different quarters. To get there, 30,000 visitors a day, they say, have to go up several escalators, through a small door, and there she is. You have to pre-book a ticket just to see her.

Everyone there was taking a picture with their phone. Not one, it seemed, was looking directly at the painting, just studying it, They get just one minute to be in front of the painting. Thousands of people make the trip just to get the “definitive picture” of the picture and then have to move on to make space. Why would they put themselves through all that?

What really got to me was seeing the photo of everyone taking a picture of a picture. I’ve been guilty of that – once. In the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I took a picture of The Night Watch. It was almost automatic – I turned the corner into the gallery, and there it was – huge – facing me. I lifted the camera, without thinking, and took a picture. A picture of a picture I could easily find a picture of. What stopped me was my flash. The attendant there scolded me, and reminded my about no flash. Embarrassed, because I knew better, I turned off the camera and looked at the painting for quite some time. I really hadn’t thought of taking pictures there or in any museum we visited in Amsterdam - or anywhere else.

There have been times in our travels that I’ve been so fascinated by what I was seeing that I completely forgot to take pictures. I’d have liked a reminder or two to put in our scrapbooks. And I do like to take pictures to use with my greeting cards each year.

It just saddens me that the iPhones are everywhere and people seem more concerned with taking pictures than with enjoying the moment. Being there and actually enjoying the moment, not the picture, insures a lasting memory.

WHAT'S TRENDING?

The local NBC affiliate we usually watch airs six hours of local news programming each day, plus many more hours from the nation feed. “What’s trending” seems to be of vital interest on the local news programs. They pick all this up from the social media, of which I am not a part. (Unless you consider a blog social media? Maybe.) I think the reporting of such trivial nonsense helps the stations fill in the time spaces on otherwise blah news days. Contrary-wise, if some local crime or mishap happens, no matter how minor, they devote much too much time to the incident. Feast or famine, and that’s why I’d turn off the TV if it were just me here. I get my fill of news online.

I heard this was trending on Wednesday: a research group that had nothing better to do, discovered that if you don’t want sea gulls to steal your food at the beach you have to stare them down. Where and how do groups like this find such topics to research? And who is paying for this research? I want to know because I want to get a cushy job like that one where I could hang out at the beach and challenge the sea gulls.

Here’s my one sea gull story. Years ago, we lived next to a restaurant that occupied a large corner lot just across from Long Island’s Manhasset Bay. The gulls would get into the over-full dumpster and pick out the stale rolls. By instinct, these birds will grab something like a clam, fly with it, and drop it on a hard surface to crack it open. Rolls seemed to be like shells, and the gulls would drop them all over the parking lot. They were accurate though, none were ever dropped in our yard.

I found out later that the sea gull study was done by researchers at Britain’s Royal Society. Yes, that Royal Society, officially, the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. It is the society whose members, fellows, if you will, have included Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren, James Cook, Charles Babbage, and Stephen Hawking.

I do think that, if they could, those esteemed gentlemen would be rolling in their graves.

NOTHING TO VIEW HERE

When I'm all caught up with the emails and have sorted everything to its proper file - it's mostly trash these days once I've read it - a notice pops up and says "Nothing to view here."
This morning I went to my blog files of "In Progress" and "Ready to Post." Nothing in either file - it might as well have read "nothing to view here."

I am running out of material. Oh, sure, I have my opinions on what's happening in the community, in the country, and in the world, but my brain doesn't want to contemplate putting my opinions in writing. I've done enough in the recent past. 

I'm not young and physically active and able to report on all our daily doings. No, I'm old, and mostly mentally active, especially with my reading, writing, and magazine editing. For the most part, my physical activities are limited by a set of wonky knees, and we have few "daily doings" worth reporting.

The only thing on my mind this morning is peaches. I had a fairly good one for breakfast. A few weeks ago we went down to McBee and bought luscious peaches at McLeod Farms. Having exhausted the supply, last week we went over to York to try the peaches at Black's Peaches. They were fine, O.K., but not worth the hour trip in the future. Next week we'll try the local place again - Springs Farms' Peach Stand, just over in Fort Mill. We've had peaches from them many times over the years we've been here - they're very good. South Carolina grows more peaches than Georgia, the state with the peach on their license plate. California has us all beat for production, but I don't think their quality compares to the deliciousness of our own picked perfectly peaches.

TGIF - have a lovely weekend.