It was one of my nights to make dinner - and I hadn't done a good job planning ahead. Whipped out a jar of arrabiata sauce I had and i knew i had some leftover hamburger from earlier in the week.... Then looked around for pasta and did not find good pasta candidates for the most part... Gnocchi and Tortellini - that I knew other people might want to tap on their dinner nights... And then I remember boxes of lasagna noodles that had been sitting there for months - and they weren't no boil noodles. (lets be real - the person who bought those hates cooking and there's no way on god's green earth do i see her making any kind of lasagna from scratch - let alone boiling the noodles first ok? ) So I was like - YEP , you're mine, you orphan lasagna noodles!

Broke the noodles ehhhh into relatively similar size pieces and then for good measure tossed cream cheese into the sauce - do not come for me. authentic? hell no. creamy and a nice balance to the extra red pepper i added to make the sauce spicier? yes. Also since I had sauteed onions and a whole buncha minced garlic before cooking the meat and sauce - it was niiiice. at least niiiiice for very little forethought.

(and i had made paul's pumpkin bars - like pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert - that cake is life ok. and i hadn't had it since my mom passed. that one was for you out there mom- and whoever the heck paul was - mom got the recipe from someone at work or the newspaper back in the day)

ANYWAY - when we sat down to dinner, someone looked at the bowl of pasta and sauce and asked, " So.... What is this exactly?

My response to this semi-saltily delivered query was," FOOD."

After letting the resulting silence sit for a nice little moment or three I then added, "But if you feel you need a fancy name, consider it as 'Deconstructed Lasagna served in a Creamy Tomato and Beef Ragout to be followed by Pumpkin Bars ala Paul."

The peanut gallery let me have this one.