Back to my BACK and Baked Spaghetti!

I'll start with the baked spaghetti because that's probably a whole heck of a lot more interesting than my back.  I think I'm like the only person in history to not like spaghetti.  I LOVE pasta dishes and I like meatsauce and other types of pasta and I love baked rigatoni and all kinds of other Italian goodness.  I'm weird.  Anyway, Matt loves spaghetti and instead of having cereal for dinner I thought I'd look up some recipes so I pull out one of my trusty Paula Deen cookbooks (they don't have much time to get dusty!).  There was a recipe for baked spaghetti that sounded interesting. It ended up YUMMY and made enough that I put it into two seperate smaller containers and froze one for later...love that!  I made a couple modifications so (for example, hers used only cheddar and monterey jack cheese and I just thought it needed some Italian cheeses so I changed that up) Here's the recipe for Paula Deen's Baked Spaghetti ala Robyn ;-)

BAKED SPAGHETTI
2 Cups canned diced tomatoes (I use the ones with garlic and onions)
2 Cups tomato sauce (I used 3 Cups and eliminated the water and I used Spaghetti Sauce-spicy basil)
1 Cup water
1/2 Cup diced onions
1/2  Cup diced green pepper
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 1/2 t Italian seasoning
2 t seasoned salt (like lawry's)
1 1/2 t sugar
2 small by leaves
1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef (I use 93/7)
8 ounces angle hair pasta uncooked
1 Cup cheddar cheese grated
1 Cup grated montery jack
( I used about a 1/2 C of each of the above and added 2 cups mixed Italian cheeses)
In stockpot, cook tomatoes and sauce, water, half of the onions and half of the peppers and half of the garlic, the parsley and seasonings and salts, sugar and bay leaves.  Bring to boil then reduce heast and simmer, covered for 1 hour.  Crumble the ground beef in a saucepan, cook about halfway then add the other half of the onions, peppers and garlic.  Finish cooking till no pink remains.  Drain off fat (if you use the 93/7 there usually is not any to drain).  Add the groundbeef mixture to the sauce and simmer 20 more minutes.  Cook pasta according to directions.  Cover the bottom of 9 x 13  with a little sauce. Add a layer of pasta, then half of the cheeses, repeat the layers ending with sauce.  Top with a bit of extra cheese to cover.  Bake till cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly about 25 to 30 minutes.  Cut into squares and enjoy!

Okay, about my back, if you are interested.  I haven't talked much about my back to you but I'm sure my real life friends are sick of hearing about it.  I sound like the grandmother that some of you may have who continually has a zillion illnesses or gout or something.  (I loved her but I had a grandmother like that...may she rest in peace ;-)  ).  So I'm STILL having pain.  A lot of  PAIN.  Like just as much as before the lumbar fusion surgery.  Yeah, so now I'm like totally WTH?  I'm on tons of pain meds still and we are talking 5 1/2 months post surg...um I didn't think it would be like this.  And  why YES, since you asked...I CAN predict when the weather will be crappy just like your grandma can!  I saw a new pain guy last week.  Today I'm going to have some procedure called a lumbar medial branch block.  Basically they are  temporarily numbing these little nerves that are near my facet joints (joints in the spine).  There is some evidence to suggest that a lot of people with spinal pain have their pain due to the nerves at the facet joints.  So if when they numb the nerves, if my pain gets better than they know that is part of my problem.  THen next time they would go in with somekind of high tech space age futuristic (I'm making all that up, I think) high radiofrequency needles and damage said nerves.  That way they CAN'T send pain signals to my brain.  This often helps.  Sometimes it doesn't but we are not thinking of that.  Sometimes it makes it worse, again banish THAT thought.  Eventually the nerve grows back and you could have pain again but it can take 6 months to a year or more! YEAH!!!!  That'd be cool.  So wish me luck today! ;-)

Come back soon for the cool project I'm doing with the old window...I'm gonna hang it in the powder room!  And the kitchen is looking gooood!  I love my husband!