Pea- Sized Hail and a Good Comfort Food Dish!

If you have a chilly day, you must eat comfort food. It really and truly is a must. Agreed?

Hopefully my new nutritionist isn't reading this post. He might be a bit disappointed seeing as how we just met to discuss my nutritional plan last week. Since he hasn't officially given me his designed plan yet, I gave myself the go-ahead to make this comforting dinner over the weekend: Baked Penne with Italian Sausage.

This recipe comes from Cook's Illustrated's cookbook The Best Make Ahead Recipe. I really have come to trust recipes that are generated by Cook's Illustrated. They know their stuff, and since they test the heck out of their recipes- they never disappoint.

This dish incorporates both sweet and hot Italian sausage, and all other basic lasagna ingredients- ricotta, Parmesan, mozzarella, marinara, & basil. I lightened it up a bit by using low fat ricotta. I also halved the recipe for my little family (and still had a ton.) Make ahead instructions are included... and you may wish to eat half and freeze half for later. It's a perfect recipe to take to a new mom or someone else in need. In this case, we were in need... of good comfort food.

And it WAS good! Comforting too. And it made great leftovers.

This recipe can be found HERE.

You may have read my post last weekend, where I was bragging about our terrifically sunny weather here in San Diego. Well, this past weekend, winter returned (temperature in the 50's) and we got some pea-sized hail. Hail is super unusual for San Diego, and the pea-sized hail was quite a surprise! We were hanging out watching TV (big time fun for old people on a Saturday night) and started to hear clinking noises outside.


Here's the accumulation on our patio furniture of the closest thing we'll ever get to snow. Very exciting for us since we don't get much variety in terms of weather!

Not to worry... we were back to sunny weather today, and I was able to go for a morning jog in shorts and a tank top. Ok, maybe if my nutritionist read that part about the jogging then I'll be forgiven for eating that good comfort food!

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