B-b-b-baking: Layered with Love

Tonight, I made dinner for my parents. It happens every now and then, and today was one of those days. My parents had stuff to do until 9:30 tonight, giving me ample time to put something together. I decided to tackle homemade lasagna from scratch.

What I learned tonight about lasagna:

- Humidity matters. It was wayyy easier to roll pasta manually when I was in London. Here, I had to do the chill and rest trick, and my arms got tired. I think I want a pasta roller...

- Be careful when cooking with wine. I actually added too much red wine to start with, so when I tasted it before assembling the lasagna, it was rather boozy. Surprise! I managed to even it out by adding beef broth and reducing it again afterwards...
- Tomato paste probably makes for a better sauce. It's not to say that this one didn't turn out, but it was not very tomato-ey. The red pepper was likely a factor too, because the flavour of bell peppers is quite strong. I was trying to use whatever was in the fridge.
- It only took me about 2 1/2 hours to make, although, I did skip the bechamel. Curse my stomach and its inability to deal with milk things!
- It's probably not a good idea to fill your baking pan to the rim. The cookie sheet that I put underneath helped, but I had to scrub off burnt overflow after dinner :/ 
- Making this makes you feel super accomplished. I'd highly recommend giving it a try!

Clearly, I need to work on my serving skills, but yay! Lasagna was made!

3-Layered Meat Lasagna from Scratch (Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Half-Baked Harvest)

*Makes 8 servings*

Sauce

1 medium onion

4 cloves of garlic

1 lb. ground beef 

6 white mushrooms 

1 red bell pepper

1-28 oz. can of peeled, whole tomatoes

2/3 cup beef broth

1/3 cup red cooking wine

Basil

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Pasta

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

4 eggs

Assembly

1 1/2 cups sliced or shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Add 1 tbsp olive oil into a medium pot over medium heat.

2. Chop garlic and onion, and saute in the pot until fragrant. 

3. Add ground beef, and stir until the meat is no longer pink, adding about 1/3 cup red cooking wine half way through.

4. Empty the can of whole tomatoes into a blender and pulse a 2-3 times with basil, salt, and pepper to your discretion.

5. Add the tomato mixture into the pot with the beef, and stir until combined, then bring to a boil.

6. Slice mushrooms and bell pepper, and add into the pot, bringing the heat down to a simmer. Allow sauce to reduce to desired consistency, stir, and remove from heat.

7. In a medium bowl, add flour and salt, and make a well in the middle.

8. Break 4 eggs into the well, and stir with a fork until roughly combined. Knead until it comes together.

9. Divide into 4 portions. Keep other portions in the bowl covered with plastic wrap while you work with each one. 

10. Individually roll each portion of dough into a flat rectangle to fit the bottom of your baking pan (the pan I used was 7 x 12 x 2"). If you find that the edges of the dough begin to spring back when you are trying to flatten it, it's being overworked. Loosely roll it up, wrap in plastic wrap, and allow it to rest in the fridge while you work on another portion. After at least 5 minutes of resting in the fridge, take the dough out from the fridge, unroll, and continue to roll it out to your desired size. 

11. Use a paper towel to grease the inside of your baking pan, preheat your oven to 375 F, and begin layering. 

12. Start by spreading about 3 cups of the sauce in the bottom of your baking pan. Lay 1 sheet of fresh pasta over it, cover with a layer of cheese, and repeat these steps until your baking pan is full. The last layer should be a generous amount of cheese. I found that for the pan that I used, I had 1 sheet of pasta leftover. I plan to slice it into tagliatelle to have with the leftover sauce.

13. Place the baking pan on top of a cookie sheet in case any of it spills over (mine did a bit ._.). Cover with foil, and bake in the oven for 1 hour. After 45 minutes, remove the foil, and bake uncovered for the remaining 15 minutes. 

14. Remove from oven and slice into 8 squares. Serve with salad and/or bread. (I opted for a salad with romaine lettuce, mandarin oranges, sliced almonds, and a balsamic-honey vinaigrette.)

15. Enjoy!

Saucy! I had probably 2 cups leftover of sauce. Good enough for the leftover sheet of pasta! 

Preparing to get messy...

The first layer of meat sauce, pasta, and cheese. This was probably my best looking pasta sheet of the 4. One of them resembled a large oven mitt.

All assembled and ready to bake! Spoiler alert: It's also too full.

The finished product - this is what it looks like when you're too lazy to grate all of the cheese and/or when you need to spread the cheese sparingly. And when you fill the baking pan too high so that stuff overflows when it bubbles in the oven, and you have this mixed combination of feeling accomplished for finishing your masterpiece, relieved that you can finally eat, and reluctant to do the dishes afterwards.

I love having lasagna once in a while, and it's good for serving multiple people. I've gotten so accustomed to making enough food for 1 or 2 people, that I'm somewhat limited when it comes to making food for other people that isn't dessert. Thank goodness for stews and casseroles!

Until next time, Christmas baking is soon to come...

-M