Layers

This must be our year to host our friends and family from Illinois, and we LOVE it. Our house is getting cleaned up so often, it actually feels like this is the normal way we live. As if.
One of my favorite things about having houseguests is that I have a reason to cook, and I get to make stuff way too large for just two people, one of which is always on a diet. OK, the truth is I crave this stuff and love having to go off the diet for any reason at all.

Our friends Bob-O and Renee are here with Sandy, their poodle. The additional dawg made for plenty of entertainment. Our boys behaved well, so far.

Our first meal was Ravioli Lasagna, which is easier than regular lasagna, and it is a layered dish.
And for dessert Chocolate Cherry Trifle. I made this when Dave's sister and her husband were here, and Dave got to eat it afterward, for days.
It's another layered dish, made with chocolate fudge cake (to which I added dried cherries to the mix), broken into chunks, topped with chocolate fudge pudding, cool whip and cherry pie filling. Repeat until everything is gone. It is delicious and quite decadent. I stole this picture from Google images. Mine was lots mooshier.
My jeans are a lot tighter this morning.

For breakfast I am again making Egg Strata, another layered dish.
What's with the layering? I don't have a reason, it is just coincidence. My version has homemade bread slices, then a mixture of sauteed onion and green pepper, very finely minced, ham chunks, eggs and half and half. This is all topped with Swiss Cheese and a bit of Cheddar.It sits overnight in the fridge and then I will bake it off in the morning.  As it bakes I top it with chunks of porkie links. Yes, I also lifted this image from Google.

It's so nice to have people in the almost finished-being painted-house, and while the painting isn't quite done, it still looks good. This Saturday my brother Cary is threatening to visit too. O my!