On Monday morning, President Obama released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2011. Embedded in that budget were changes for NASA, including the termination of the Constellation program begun in 2004. With the space shuttle program coming to an end after the last shuttle flight this fall, the Constellation program was the next big thing: designing a new vehicle to carry astronauts to the space station, and eventually beyond. That program has now been cancelled. By the end of this calendar year, NASA will have gone from three major programs (space shuttle, space station, and Constellation) to one. NASA will not be designing or building anything to replace the space shuttle under the President’s proposed plan. Instead, NASA will focus on developing new technologies, while we will rely on commercial companies to develop new ways to take humans into orbit.
This is bad for NASA. Very bad. Career-altering. Life-altering. Many people will lose their jobs, and many people who still have jobs will wonder what they’re supposed to be working on. If you had asked me on Friday if I would still be working for NASA in 2 years, I would have said “yes, certainly.” On Monday, my answer changed to “I highly doubt it.”
I’m still formulating my thoughts and will post them soon. But on Monday night I needed to distract myself. I did that by cooking a lasagna.
I’ve never cooked a lasagna before, and let’s face it — it’s far easier to buy a frozen one from the store. They taste good and involve a lot less work and a lot fewer dishes. But I’ve been enjoying cooking much more lately, and for some reason I just really wanted to be able to say that I made lasagna. It seems like something that would be hard to make, and I wanted to see if I could do it. (FYI, this was another recipe from The Pioneer Woman’s cookbook, but the same recipe, slightly simplified, is also on her website.)
It turns out that it’s not difficult to make; it’s just time-consuming, i.e. we didn’t sit down to eat until 9:00 pm, at which point I was pretty dang hungry. I knew it would need to bake for 45 minutes, but I didn’t read closely enough to realize that making the meat sauce also required simmering for 45 minutes. I REALLY need to learn to read the full recipe first, but alas, I didn’t.
It was delicious. I love eating something delicious for dinner and knowing that I made it. Totally cool. This recipe made a TON of lasagna, so be warned. Next time I might consider cutting it in half. Fortunately, lasagna stills tastes great as a leftover. We’ve already enjoyed some for lunch yesterday, and I may be having it again tomorrow!
I learned how to make lasagna at Breakers! You’re inspiring me to make it again.
Lasagna usually freezes well too. We just take it out the night before and reheat in the microwave. Looks delicious!
The whole thing is terrible. A year ago, airlines were laying off and NASA folks were looking really good. Now its come full circle. I thought the new administration was about creating jobs, not subsidizing billionaires’ pet projects.
Lasagna looks super. And no matter how early we start dinner here, we always eat after 9 PM. Even if it’s hamburger helper.