Turkey Eggplant Parmesan Lasagna

Stacks on stacks on stacks

Finals are over! Commence the weekend-long bender. Joking, all I did after completing my last final was crash at home and take a long, satisfying nap. All I’m really looking forward to this break is sleeping, cooking, reading, and completing my transformation into an old, boring grandmother.

Yesterday, my roommate and I had our former roommates over for a mini reunion. Since my former roommates are three dudes, I needed to make something that could feed a pack of hungry animals. I tried to keep it relatively healthy, and with each serving coming in at 380 calories, it’s not too terrible! Whether or not you can stop at only one serving, that’s another issue.

Russian tea cakes

From Russia with love.

Jingle bells, batman smells, Robin laid an egg. It’s that time of the year. That time of the year when you bust out the ugly Christmas sweaters for ironic ugly Christmas sweater parties, cookie exchanges, gift giving, holiday cheer, etc. etc. When you gather around the fire place or Christmas tree, open a ton of presents while dressed only in matching footie pajamas, and are filled to the brim with that warm, fuzzy feeling.

Fact: I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas, and I still don’t really celebrate it. I partake in the cookie exchanges (read: cookie eating), and buy trinkets sometimes, but that’s about the extent of it. It’s not a traditional Vietnamese holiday, so my parents didn’t really know how to celebrate, nor did they want to. I remember they tried to celebrate once when I was in kindergarten or first grade– they put up stockings, and in each stocking, they put in a one dollar bill. I was so excited. A one dollar bill! A Christmas stocking with my name on it!! I then proceeded to go back to school after the break and boast to my schoolmates about the awesome present that Santa gave me. I had the misfortune of attending a snooty private school, so all of the rich kids made fun of me for my humble present. My parents refused to partake in the annual tradition of spoiling us with expensive gifts the way that the other parents at the private school did, so the Christmas tradition sort of died after that. At least we have Vietnamese New Year — we get envelopes full of money!