From The Studio 8-9-08 (Terry)

I just started trying to reply to all of the emails from all of the people wishing the band and Jordan well… there are so many that I would be typing all night! So, I have decided that I would just send out a big thank-you in the form of a blog. We really appreciate all of your kind words and are lucky to have such amazing fans!

Jordan and his wife are expecting their third child soon and as sorry as I am to see him leave, I can totally understand it. There is a lot to be said for some stability and benefits, not the least of which being good health insurance! I know that Jordan will make a great music teacher and wish him and his family nothing but the best.

In other news (other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?), the record is coming along really, really well. There are only a couple of songs that still need lead vocals and then we will spend a week or so adding back-up vocals and all of the extra herbs and spices: percussion, weird guitar sounds, keyboards, accordions, didgeridoo, tuba, steel drums, etc. Things have been a bit slow for the last couple of weeks because our producer, John, has been on vacation in Canada (hence the lack of studio up-date blogs).

While we were on break, we enlisted the help of computer wiz Shannon Forrest to help edit down some of the billion tracks that we have accumulated. Shannon lives in Nashville and he worked on Love Loss Hope Repeat with us. While we were working on LLHR, Shannon fell in love with my lasagna. I know that it sounds weird, but it’s true. Anyhow, as a thank you for helping us out on the record too, I decided to Fed-Ex him a couple lasagnas. These suckers were mammoth. I froze them and then packed them in an Igloo cooler with as many of those little blue ice thingies as I could fit in. The lady a Fed-Ex thought I was crazy when I brought in a 52-pound cooler of lasagna to send to Nashville.

Take Care,
Terry

PS – For anyone who is interested, here is my recipe:

Basically, it’s the Barilla Three Layer Lasagna recipe on steroids (5 layers):

I used the biggest foil pan that I could find… I think it was a turkey-roasting pan.

Ingredients:

1 Box Lasagna noodles
¾ - 1 Pound hot Italian sausage
¾ - 1 Pound Ground beef, cooked and drained
3 Jars (26 oz. each) Sauce
I used one jar of Barilla Arrabbiata Spicy Pepper sauce, one jar of Barilla Tomato
& Basil sauce and some leftover generic sauce (Walmart marinara?). I added a
bunch of fresh basil right at the end of the simmering.
2 containers (15 oz.) ricotta cheese
To stretch the ricotta, I added a cup or so of plain yogurt and some leftover 3
cheese Mexican blend
4 cups (16 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup (6 oz) grated Parmesan cheese
3 Eggs, lightly beaten

Preparation:

- Preheat oven 375º F.
- Cook noodles according to package instruction; drain and separate
- In a large saucepan, combine cooked meet and sauce, simmer 5 minutes.
- In a large bowl, combine ricotta, 3 ½ cups mozzarella (and Mexican Blend), Parmesan
and eggs.
- Spray 13x9 baking dish with cooking spray.
- Spread 1 cup meat sauce over the bottom of the baking dish.
- Place 3-4 lasagne noodles over the bottom, slightly overlapping
- Spread a layer of cheese mixture over noodles and cover with a layer of the meat sauce.
- Repeat Layers as many times as you can fit in the pan
- Cover last layer with remaining noodles and remaining sauce.
- Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese.
- Cover with foil and bake for 50 minutes.
- Remove foil and bake for additional 10 minutes.
- Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Comments

[Shanti Suttin]

I just discovered you guys and love your music and lyrics.My favorite song is Comfort.I will spread the love. Shanti