Noodless Lasagna Anyone????

Okay so yesterday evening I lost my footing. Slipped down into the dark Hell that is buried in my soul. I just wish it was buried deeper. So although I am exhausted from the climb up to normalcy I am going to sit here and try to let my creative juices flow and look at the world with a bit of optimism. How will I obtain this??? I do not know completely, but comfort food is always an option. Right?

Comfort food of the day.... ooh YES lasagna. As you can tell I love Italian food. It is a glorious love affair we have. Yes, I mean we, because that saucy and smooth Italian loves me right back. It loves my butt, belly, boobs, (the 3 "B's") and those ever so loving, love handles. You know that place on your lower back where people love to grab and hold on to when they hug you. I wonder if that is why they are called love handles, because no one I know loves to have them. Actually that analogy just gave me a funny strange thought. We have love handles that we hate, funny bones that really aren't that funny and beauty marks that end up growing hair out of them and aren't so pretty let alone beautiful. Who made this stuff up???
So back to my Italian romance. I am making a totally vegetable noodless lasagna (As you have probably have surmised by the title). In place of the noodles I am using .... THAT'S RIGHT YOU GUESSED IT... ZUCCHINI!!! (Zucchini really is a wonderful vegetable. It can be used to make so many things from side dishes to breads, and cakes, and really who knew; a noodle????) I take my potato peeler and strip the zucchini making long strips. Then my other needs are pasta sauce, ricotta and mozzarella cheese, carrot (shredded), spinach (fresh or frozen. If using frozen squeeze out to drain it well), mushrooms, onion, and garlic (sauteed) and broccoli crowns (chopped). Okay so now that we have all the ingredients we must put it together. spray your casserole dish with cooking spray. Put a little tomato sauce on the bottom of pan then make a layer of zucchini. Again sauce, but this time on the noodle and make another row of zucchini noodle. 3rd Layer spinach and broccoli and carrot add mozzarella cheese (shredded) to help glue the veggies together. 4Th row zucchini, ricotta (for the ricotta mix in 1 egg white salt, pepper, and rosemary. Stir together and then you have a nice cheese mixture) Now it is time for the mushroom and onion blend. Last row !!! zucchini, sauce, mushroom and onion and mozzarella cheese. Now if I wanted too I could add meat to this. Ground turkey, or chicken are some healthy low fat options.

As you know, if you have been keeping up with my blogs, yesterday Chad and I took Kylann Ocean Kayaking for a field trip at Kealakekua Bay. I packed a picnic consisting of water, diet soda, chef salads and granola bars. Grabbed the snorkel gear, towels and suits. What more did we need. AAAhhhh nothing you say??? A kayak!!! the most important item for our trip. Our friend Peg offered hers to us. She is a doll. I am so lucky to have met such an angel. She is one of those friends that is true. You know the kind Im am talking about because I am sure you are either one of them or you know one. The kind that you don't have to spend much time with or call all the time but when you see each other it is like you never have been apart. That is the sign of a true friend. So back to the story... we picked up that kayak and after fastening it down to the roof of our car we were on our way. We were told to launching from Minini Beach was the best spot, because the waves would come in and just lift the kayak and take us out to sea. That information proved to be most useful and true. We paddled and paddled and paddled and (yeah I am sure you get it)...finally 1 mile later "All Ashore"!!! In the bay we could see spinner dolphins jumping and dancing. we had missed them on the way over. Bummer! Snorkel gear on and down we went. The coral reef went down for miles and looked like giant brains piled up on top of each other. Urchines, enenemies, hawaiian puffer fish, yellow tangs and butterfly fish, eels, and pin noses,and the hawaiian state fish (try this one out for size. get ready) the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa (its name is bigger than the fish itself). To give this underwater world justice is impossible for me. All I can say in comparison is this... It is kind of like a giant fish tank and you become one of the fish. They are just swimming around you going about their life of survival. They are constantly looking for sharks or danger. They forage for their food, and for some such as the Butterfly fish they find that one true mate and stick with him/her for life. They build homes and have children. They even have schools (okay not the same as the schools we have but they too travel in groups for safety just as I tell my kids to do). The only real difference between their world and ours is air. If you think about it we spend each day looking out for our own sharks and dangers, we head down to the store or go to our gardens to get our food, if you look in cities or in any school womans room you will see groups of people everywhere and if we are lucky we find our own 1 true love to stay with forever. I am Lucky

Getting out of the ocean was difficult since we were fighting the currents and watching not to step on any wana. Wana is an uchine that has a venom in its spikes. Wyatt had this happen once to him when we first moved here. It hit his hand and was painful. He asked how was he going to get the spikes out. Well unfortuatly for him he had his first experince with Hawaiian medicine. Pee on it. Yup Pee. He went into the porta potty and treated it like a man and then to the hospital we went. After that a good week of soaking it several times a day in vinagar water. Finally we were back on land and sat down by the sea and had our picnic. There was much laughter and story telling of what we had seen. Soon we were back on our way to our oringinal launching sight. We sang Harry Belafonte songs (very tropics appropriate) just to get our minds off of the burning not only on our backs but in our bicepts. We sang loud, proud, and joyously. It was kind of sad when it all ended and getting back to the real world was upon us. I am sure that, that day will be a day Kylann will remember forever just as I remember my Dad putting me into the Brady mobile of a car we had and driving lickity split up to the train tracks just to watch the train go by and then enjoying my first Coke a Cola at the old "A&W" resturant (Now known as the Hardwick House of Pizza).

Yes good memories and comfort food.... medication to treat depression without chemicals; But if I want my "b's" to remain as "b's" than I need to make sure I make the modifications to keep my food delicious yet healthy. "Mangiare Bene"!!!! I will.