Making Dinner

Thanks to our recent care packages, I decided to make lasagna for dinner tonight since I had lasagna noodles in my cupboards. So I got out a recipe, made my shopping list and proceeded to the store. I was mainly getting my cheese at this store, plus a few other grocery items we were out of. For my mozzarella, I asked for one mozzarella, and the nice man behind the cheese counter fished it out of the bowl of water and placed it in a bag for me, along with some of the water. I then had to figure out what my 15 ounces of ricotta would be in grams; about 425 grams, but I asked for 450 just to make sure I got enough! It's great that they have ricotta here (at certain stores) and it is much cheaper than getting cottage cheese (which is at a store further away, providing they even have it in stock, and much more expensive than ricotta; a large container of cottage cheese is about $9, I paid about $3.50 for my 450 grams). I then proceeded to the butcher's to get my pound of ground beef, or minced beef as the sign says. There is no choice between regular ground beef, lean ground beef, or extra lean ground beef, there is just one bowl behind the glass filled with minced beef. Since I needed one pound, I asked for a little less than half a kilo and got about 0.42 kg, which is just shy of one pound, perfect! Since I was already at the butcher's, I also picked up some skinless boneless chicken breasts, or chicken fillets as the sign says. The two breasts are still connected, so you have to be careful with your request. One chicken fillet means 2 chicken breasts. I forgot this once and asked for four, forgetting that would actually be eight chicken breasts, luckily I realized my mistake in time and was able to change my request to two. Getting home I started the lasagna. I first brown the beef and then set that aside. Then, because there really isn't any bottled pasta sauce, I made my sauce from scratch. Then I of course had to shred my ball of mozzarella. Finally I was ready to assemble my lasagna. Although it didn't take too much time overall, it was certainly longer than the 15 minutes of prep time promised by the recipe! Right now I am waiting for Shauen to let me know when he thinks he'll be home so I can pop it in the oven. I am quite excited for dinner and am hoping it lives up to my expectations!  -Krista