Lasagna to Soothe the Soul

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in Culinate’s Death by Chocolate contest. I didn’t win, but I was in the top ten, so that’s not too shabby. Congrats to Not Eating Out in New York and her Pain with Chocolate, which was the grand prize winner, I know she’ll have an amazing time in Napa. She’d better!

Instead of jetting off to Napa, I’ll be here, wallowing in misery. Usually to ease my sorrow I would drown myself in chocolate, but given the current circumstances, chocolate can’t console me, it only serves as a painful reminder of what I’m missing out on. So I’m turning to good old fashioned comfort food to make me feel better, something with lots of carb-goodness: lasagna with homemade noodles. Lasagna was always a dish I used to get excited about when I found out we were having it for dinner. When I was little we didn’t have it all that often and it was usually reserved for a Sunday dinner as it takes a little extra time to prepare. I could never resist the smell of lasagna as it baked in the oven and was impatient as ever to eat it. I hated waiting and the fact that it couldn’t be served directly from the oven. I was repeatedly told that the lasagna was too hot to eat right away and even though I was made to wait for a while before it got to my plate, I would always burn my mouth on the first bite. That never slowed me down though, I think I stuffed myself silly every time I ate lasagna, (who am I kidding? I still do) and never turned down seconds or thirds or fourths. Given the amount of lasagna I would eat in one sitting, you’d think I’d get sick of it but I still couldn’t wait to have the leftovers again for lunch the next day.

Now that I make my own lasagna I can have it whenever I want and often make up a big tray and freeze (enormous) individual pieces to heat up when I get a craving. I don’t follow a recipe for the filling, it generally varies depending on what I have on hand. I like to make up all the components and then put it together assembly line style. My latest and greatest lasagna discovery is to use homemade pasta instead of storebought noodles. Yes, it takes considerably more time to make your own, but I like playing around in the kitchen, it’s fun for me. I also like rolling the noodles super thin and making as many layers as will fit in my pan. For this lasagna I got 6 layers of noodles alone. That’s awesome! I’ve gotten even more than that, but in that case the filling I’m using between pasta layers is pureed. This time around I used a filling that consisted of tomato sauce, cottage cheese, beef seasoned with ginger and garlic, onions, green and red peppers and mozzarella cheese. Someday I’ll have to post about the seafood lasagna that I make which uses a white sauce and is fantastic. Until then, I’d be happy to hear what you like in your lasagna and if anyone needs me, I’ll be finishing off the pan of lasagna and then rolling myself to the couch.

Fresh Pasta (from Giada DeLaurentiis’ Everyday Pasta)

3 cups all purpose flour, (I used 00 flour and since I’ve started using it in my pasta, I like it a whole lot more)

4 large eggs

1 T kosher salt

1 T olive oil

Place the flour in the bowl of a food processor. In a small bowl lightly beat the eggs. Add the salt and olive oil to the eggs and stir to combine. Add the egg mixture to the food processor with the flour and pulse to combine, scraping down the sides if needed. Continue with the machine running, until the liquid is evenly distributed, about 1 min, (I didn’t let it run that long). The dough should stick together if pinched between your fingers and be cornmeal yellow in color. Some of the dough will be clumping together but it will not form a ball.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Gather the dough into a ball and knead until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes before rolling and shaping as desired.

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