Fun Friday Date Night

On Friday when I picked Quinn up from school she asked to go to the Cafe and get an ice cream. I would usually say no and find a reason we needed to go home but I have really been wanting to spend more quality time with the kids and less time doing house things, chores, etc. so we went to the cafe! I am so glad we did, it was a great time. Leo went to the daycare on base today while I went to a painting and lunch event on base (it was a great time even though I can not paint!) and refused to eat lunch so he was starving. The kids got ice creams, I got a cafe macchiato and Leo and Finely split a "toast" (meat and cheese on bread without crust that is heated up, actually pretty good!). We hung out, enjoyed our treats and everybody laughed. It might have to be a Friday tradition.

 

I do think these two are going to be a dynamic duo!

Also on Friday we had a super fun date night. We went with a group of friends to a cooking class and learned how to make traditional Italian lasagna (that does not have ricotta cheese in it! That is an American thing). We all loved this map of Italy that showed where the different shapes/types of pastas are from. I want to get one. Richard was a great volunteer. 

We learned about what ingredients to get and where to get them. All of the ingredients we needed to make 3 pans of lasagna, from the Italian store, was only 32 Euro. Some things  here are more expensive and then other things are so much cheaper (i.e. lasagna ingredients). Evelyn is cutting up the mozzarella. 

 

Pre-cooked lasagna sheets are my new favorite thing! It was super easy, we just had to layer them on and no need to boil or anything. 

Everybody was having a great time until Shannon used the spoon to mix her sauces! We were cracking up because Teresa (the chef) got on her about mixing her sauces with the spoon and we laughed about it all night. There is a white sauce (not really like alfredo at all) and a red sauce in the lasagna plus we put layers of ham in it as well. 

She was telling us the ingredients for the red sauce and we all had a good laugh because she uses that much celery. So she wasn't sure how to write how much she used, she just showed us about the size. 

It was so delicious and I really want to try and make it at home. It really isn't that complicated just takes a little time with making the different sauces and then layering it up. 

Enjoying our creation and having some laughs. 

 

Dave is always a member of the clean plate club. 

Our group with Chef Teresa. It was an absolute blast and we had so much fun. I think we should do frequent date night cooking classes. It was a great way to spend the evening learning something new and spending time with friends. 

Cooking is good, new friends are good, life is good.