Lasagna? Lasagne? Lazanya? Whatever.

Another week, another dinner. Lasagna was on the menu this week, a classic dish that has been on my list of " things to cook" for some time. My BFF Leah met up with me in Shaws and together we spent about $25 on groceries. Back at Linden street, we began with making the dough, as we had to let it sit for an hour. Making the dough was reminiscent to making gnocchi with my Nonna - mixing the dry ingredients together, digging a hole in the center of the mixture, then pouring the beaten eggs in the center of the mixture and mixing it all together. 

Doughgirl.

While the dough sat for an hour, we cut up he mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, and began cooking the tomato sauce. I think we took a wrong turn when the recipe called for "several glugs of red wine"- I definitely put more than that in the pot and the tomato sauce remained a liquid consistency despite lots of boiling. To thicken up the tomato sauce, we made a "roux" - a mixture of butter and flour That cooks to a doughy consistency and can be melted into the sauce. That trick miraculously worked, and we were left with a delicious large quantity of tomato sauce. 

Roux!

I rolled out the dough with my trusty rolling pin, getting more precise with every new piece. We used a small baking dish, but quickly realized that we could make another batch with the leftover ingredients. 35 impatient minutes in the oven, and we had ourselves two beautiful lasagna dishes. Leah wilted some spinach as we forgot to add it to the lasagna, but it made for a great garnish.

Rolling pin master

The first layer

Before

After!

The lasagna tasted awesome, possibly because we were so hungry. We used red pepper and cayenne to taste, along with the basic salt and pepper. 

For desert, Leah brought her very own black and white cookies. Talk about a filling dinner! Here's the recipe I used.

And here's a link my mom sent to her half of our extended family, with the subject "24 reasons why I love Katz" I am my mothers daughter.

EDIT: I brought the lasagna leftovers to work, and my manager took one look at it and said "aw that's cute, you made it wrong!" He is the sort of manager that drones on like Dr. Cox from Scrubs, but you still admire him somehow. Anyways, I guess traditional Italian lasagna does not have pasta layers, but is a mix of all the ingredients. Good to know for next time.