today's dinner.....and some old memories

I've been thinking about my past for a LONG time now - mostly about one person who really influenced my life, my Nonna.  Nonna was one of the most influential people in my life.  She passed away when I was 20, so 13 years ago --- WOW, crazy how time flies.  I spent so much time with this woman and Grandpa growing up.  I was closer to them then my own family I think at times.  They weren't even blood relatives, but I guess sometimes blood doesn't matter to make someone your family.  Espresso at all times of the day - summer, winter, spring and fall - sometimes with milk but my favorite with anisette (liquor) in it -- YUM!  And her cooking.....I miss it SO much!  She did teach me a few of her recipes and I do have a couple of the recipes still written down....but I wish I learned MANY more.  One of my Summer favorites was when she had her HUGE garden in full bloom.  She would make a layered Potato, Zucchini, Green Pepper dish.  This is one of the ones that I miss the most.  Recently on Allrecipes.com I found a similar recipe come to me in my inbox of my email.  I've been dying to try it and today was the day.

Here's the Allrecipes recipe:

Zucchini & Potato Bake



Ingredients


2 medium zucchini, quartered and cut into large pieces
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 clove garlic, sliced
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup olive oil
paprika to taste
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste


Directions


Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). In a medium baking pan, toss together the zucchini, potatoes, red bell pepper, garlic, bread crumbs, and olive oil. Season with paprika, salt, and pepper.
Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender and lightly brown.


And this is what I did:
 
I bought some already cut up rounds of zucchini and put about 3 packages in my HUGE roaster, added a whole bag of quartered baby red potatoes then largely chunked up green, red, yellow and orange peppers and an onion to the mix.  I forgot to add the garlic but did the remainder of the recipe the same as Allrecipes.  DELISH is what I have to say!!!  Next time I will just toss the zucchini in the bread crumbs AND remember the garlic, LOL.  I also remember my Nonnas recipe having cheese in it, SO i'm going to have to research that a little more. 
 
I will have PLENTY of leftovers for the entire week and thats great for me because i LOVE it!  I've been thinking ALOT about home and the past lately and this is just a little taste of it.  Maybe I'll bring some of my ponderings about home and my base family to the blog in the future.
 
Happy Eating!  Ciao.

Monday, Monday

Yet another Monday and another day closer to meeting the new little bundle! It certainly has been a wierd day today. I woke up and actually felt rested but after getting the locos ready for school, it was like a train hit me! Oh and my maternity pants just won't stay up anymore --- i'm SO not liking this! Just a few more days until our Spring program at school. I'm really hoping not just Dominic and Gabriella do well, but my class of 24 4's do well too. We have 5 new kids between this week and last and then two who come part time and we are hoping that we sound somewhat decent WITHOUT anyone falling off the risers. Oh and speaking about my work, i'm SO SO excited! We planted as Cosmo seeds last week as gifts for Mother's Day and some of them started sprouting already! I was really worried that it wouldn't be a positive outcome for the small groups but i'm really pleased with myself and the children's hard work so far. Into week 3 of school for me and I'm struggling to keep up. I'm SO tired and when I start homework, other distractions get in the way. I need some motivation people!!! Today for dinner I reinvented our leftover rice and beans from last night. We had TONS of beans left with very little rice left....SO what I did was take the beans, little bit of rice and added some ditalini pasta to it and it was AWESOME! The kids have asked to eat rice and beans like that more often! I have also been splurging and buying more dessert type foods for the house and we finished up some Strawberry Jelly Rolls. My brain is fried and my eyelids are getting heavy and its still early, but I'm going to sign off for today....