{bright birthday daffodils}

Friday Five… on a Wednesday.  With only a month of school left, I’m finding in the midst of the end-of-semester hecticness I rarely know what day it is anyway (joking…partially), a theme I am quite sure echos through my sporadic writing here.  Over the past few weeks, I turned another year older, drilled about 100 ivorine teeth preparations, and studied far more gross anatomy than I care to admit.  Clearly, my life is burgeoning with excitement…

Thankfully, spring break brought its obligatory dose of relaxation, leaving me with a stack of relished hardbacks and a lesson in effectively bating a fishing hook.  Here’s to a week of (finally) no-jacket-required weather and leftover Easter candy!

{fish beware}

{celebrating seester getting her white coat!}

{lake time : his + hers reading material}

{surprise birthday weekend in Chattanooga with my favorite guy}

{making chocolate-covered strawberries for my cute Valentine}

This week was lovely for many reasons.  A surprise visit from the baby McCormick sis, celebrating my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary, and an improptu camping trip with my favorite guy all made me feel full and happy.  Another culinary highlight of the week was experiencing my first authentic oyster bake, complete with 200-pounds of seafood goodness cooked to perfection under steamy burlap sacks. Although impending anaphylaxis prevented me from sampling any of the little gems, the way the other party-goers raved let me know they were fabulous.  Here’s to a wonderful (halfway-over, oops!) week!

{coming home to a box of perfect homemade petit fours on my counter}

{aquisition of my first set of dental tools at school}

{enjoying my first authentic South Carolina-style oyster bake}

{Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, Alice and Tobias}

oh hey there!  just popping by with my seemingly bi-yearly blog post… as broken record as I (always) sound, please forgive my blog-ish inattentiveness and accept this delicious lasagna as a token of my apology.

Life has been on fast-forward lately, full of lots of excitement and hectic-ness, just the way I prefer it… Over these past few months of dental school, my life has seemingly been on autopilot, leaving little time for cooking/baking/shenanigans, so over Christmas break it was nice to slow down for a minute and concoct some stuff to share in this little forgotten corner of cyberspace! As of last week, I am back in full school mode again, but am crossing my fingers to be more diligent in my writing… please forgive me in advance for the impending 10-minute dinners in lieu of anything remotely resembling gourmet.

Among the many changes I experienced over my first semester of dental school, one random development is my newfound propensity to cook the night before tests: so far this semester I’ve paired homemade lemon bars with histology, salted caramel cheesecake with biochem, and carrot soufflé with renal physiology.

This particular gem was prodded into fruition by a skull osteology test, prompting Laura and I to declare it “Pterion Tuesday”, finding it oh so ironic I had made this vege-”tarian” dish while studying the p-”terion” suture.  While the humor in this was obviously conjured by our late night academic stupor, the delicious factor remained staunch the following day (and maybeee even the day after that, too… #leftovers)

This dish is fast, ridiculously easy, and a perfect supper even when you aren’t surging with procrastination – I hope you like this la-zag-nuh (I know that’s how you say it in your head, too…) as much as we did. Happy dinner-ing!

Vegetarian Mexican Lasagna

- 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 (10-ounce) bag frozen corn kernels
- 5 green onions, chopped
- 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
- 1 box no-boil lasagna noodles
- 16-ounces shredded Mexican cheese
- Hot sauce

Preheat oven to 400. Grease a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. In a large bowl, combine black beans, corn, green onions, cilantro, oregano, garlic powder, salt, and cumin. In the bottom of your baking dish, spread 2/3 cup of the crushed tomatoes (about 1/5 of the can) and top with 5-6 lasagna noodles, breaking them to fit the pan if needed. Next layer about 1/3 of the bean mixture, another 2/3 cup of tomatoes, and a heavy drizzling of hot sauce. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of cheese.

Repeat the layering process two more times (noodles + beans + tomatoes + cheese) and finish with a layer of noodles + tomatoes + cheese. Cover the pan tightly with foil and bake for 45 minutes, or until the noodles are fully cooked. Remove the foil and bake an addition 10 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

Remove from the oven and let stand for a minimum of 15 minutes before serving. Garnish with sour cream and more cilantro!

{serves 8 to 10}

Source: Annie’s Eats