36 Hours

I had thirty six hours to get from here ...

Monday morning, 8:00 a.m.

... to here.

Appetizer, melon with prosciutto and marinated mozzarella cheese.

Main Course, Lasagna. If you haven't learned the secret to lasagna, listen up:   
Put. The. Noodles. In. Raw. 
Cross-my-heart, it works. Regular, store-bought, dried lasagna noodles. The kind you could shingle a roof with. NOT the no-boil abominations. You need to add some extra liquid in the form of sauce on the bottom and more than you typically would between the layers, but honestly, it works. And it's so much easier than cooking the noodles and then finding out for the last layer all you have are the little broken bits left because you dropped a couple on the floor when you scalded your hands getting the noodles out of the pot. Admit it, we've all been there. Some people bake the lasagna covered with foil, but I find a heavy dose of grated mozzarella on top provides a perfectly sufficient seal.

Desserts: Hazelnut mocha marble cheesecake.
(The cracks add charm. That's my story and I'm stick to it.)

Almond cookie Christmas tree. 
Funny story. Assuming the pound of butter called for in the recipe was sufficient, I did not butter the pans. This was a fatal mistake, ruining the entire batch which only came out of the pans in chunks. So I started over, but now with 8 egg whites on my hands (the recipe called for four egg yolks), what else could I do? Pistachio and chocolate mint meringues, of course. 

And yes, that's Bo Obama in the background. 
They're not calling and emailing me like they did this past fall, but clearly they can't quit me.

 

Oh, yeah. I didn't use the lemon.

Nailed it! Holiday greetings to all, and here's hoping we all have a healthy and happy 2013!