Festival of Colors

Yesterday Peter and I went to the festival of colors with a bunch of our friends. For those who don't know, the festival of colors is a Krishna celebration. The story goes like this. There was a witch named Holika who was killing babies and children by taking them into the fire so they could get burned. One day she tried to take a boy into the fire who chanted a mantra about lord Krishna, so he was protected, and the witch got burned instead of him. To celebrate this event, they burn an effigy of the witch and throw colorful chalk into the air to represent the joy of overcoming evil, or something like that. Anyway, so we went to the Krishna temple, ate some awesome Indian food, watched some cool dances, and threw colorful chalk into the air and at each other. It was amazing. We got soooooo dirty from the chalk, and couldn't breathe for a little while because of all the chalk in the air. But it was a blast. We will probably go again next year if we're in town. And we will go EARLY so we can get a good parking spot. Pictures to come...

Comfort food

Today I discovered what my comfort food is: pasta and spaghetti sauce. I have not been feeling so great the past few days and have really not had a lot of appetite. So today, when I got home, I wanted to just go to sleep, but I knew if I didn't eat I would be miserable in the morning. Nothing sounded good until I saw the jar of spaghetti sauce in the refrigerator, and suddenly eating seemed like a good idea. A really good idea, in fact. And as I was eating, I realized that spaghetti sauce and pasta (although usually not spaghetti, ironically) ALWAYS sounds good, especially when I feel sick at all.

In honor of my discovery of my comfort food, I am posting one of my favorite pasta-and-spaghetti sauce recipes. Enjoy.

Ziti Casserole

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cook ziti (I use penne) pasta according to package directions.
Combine two 15-oz packages cottage cheese, one 8-oz package of mozzarella, diced, 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese, two eggs, one tablespoon chopped parsley, one teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Mix together with a wooden spoon until blended.

Spoon a little spaghetti sauce into a casserole dish. Layer noodles, cheese mix, and then sauce three times. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes. Top with extra parmesan cheese.

A week

A brief summary of my busy week: I went home last weekend for my Opa's funeral, which was wonderful and sad at the same time. I could say a ton more about that, but I think I'd rather not share it impersonally online. I had two tests yesterday, a paper and a presentation on Thursday, and my house has been a huge mess since I haven't had time or desire to clean. We worked on that today, it's much better than it was earlier. On Friday I also went to Sara's house in the evening, and we made french onion soup. It was super easy, cheap, and really good. Definitely something I will add to the list of meals to make more frequently. Today I went to the zoo to observe the monkeys for a class, and it was actually a lot of fun. The baby orangutan was way cute. She was doing somersaults-- I didn't know they did that.

Tomorrow is daylight saving time, so we lose an hour of sleep.