The Lasagna Struggle

I hate ricotta cheese. Not good, not good at all. Anything that is "leftover" from a food making process can't possibly be good. And ricotta is no exception; apparently ricotta means "re-cooked" and in the cheese making process the whey that is leftover is re-cooked to make ricotta. I actually don't think I'd mind ricotta maybe with a bit of honey and some raspberries or something, but lasagna is not the place for it.

Needless to say, I don't really ever make lasagna, but, Jeff is a huge fan. He loves noodles and cheese, and lasagna is pretty much the epitome of that. It doesn't get more noodley or cheesey than lasagna. I think the last time I made lasagna was probably 4 years ago. But, Jeff was talking about lasagna last weekend so I decided to give it a go again. But, this time I decided I was going to make my own pasta noodles. I also found a couple of lasagna recipes that didn't have ricotta, but instead included a bechemel sauce. Sounded good to me (I have heard the suggestion of using cottage cheese instead of ricotta, which I do like, but it still doesn't seem right in pasta).

Early afternoon yesterday I busted out the pasta roller attachment that Grammy had given me for our wedding (and technically yes, Grammy gave it to us, but I'm not sure Jeff will ever use it, but I'm happy to be proven wrong). The traditional recipe that I've seen for pasta dough includes mounding up a pile of flour and making a well in the middle of the flour and putting the eggs in the well and then mixing them in to the flour. Great, sounds easy, no problem.

I made my mound of flour, made a perfect little well in the middle (key word being little), and dumped in the eggs. On the addition of the fourth egg, there was a volcano of egg over the mountain of flour. I tried chasing the oozing egg with flour trying to move my mountain of flour around the egg lava. Thankfully I decided to make the pasta dough on my big cutting board and it has a lip on it (memories of the pierogi's oozing through the crack of our table were still very vivid - but it wouldn't have mattered, because as it turns out our cat likes raw pasta). I was able to catch the egg before it went overboard

Once the egg situation was under control I got the egg mixed in with most of the flour until it resembled a usable dough. I kneaded it and let it rest for a half hour (and during the half hour I was lucky enough to have dishes to do that were piled up in the sink from the weekend burger extravaganza). Then it was time for the rolling of the dough. While typically I am not a patient person, at all, this takes some patience. A couple of rollings at each setting on the machine ends up being at least 15 times through the machine for each hunk of dough (I had divided the dough into three pieces). Things were going pretty well though, the dough looked like actual pasta and I cut the noodles into lasagna type shaped and had enough dough leftover to make some fettuccine too.

I then realized about 2 hours had passed and it was time to get crackin' on the lasagna filling. I cooked the meat, made the bechemel (I had pre-made homemade pasta sauce defrosted already) and shredded the mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. I layered everything in, including a bit of spinach, patted myself on the back, because it sure looked tasty to me, a non-lasagna lover. I topped the whole thing off with a final layer of cheese and covered it with foil (I didn't pre-cook the noodles for fear of them sticking together and ruining the whole project).

About half-way through the cooking process I went to take the foil off and the entire top layer of cheese and noodles came out with the foil. Lesson learned... The good news was that I knew Jeff would love picking the noodley cheesy hunks off of the foil (which he did). I re-topped the whole thing with more cheese and popped it back in the oven.

About an hour and a half after I put it in the oven, the lasagna was done, just in time for Jeff to get home. I served it up and we dug in...turns out the spinach was a big mistake, no can-do for Jeff. Another lesson learned...Jeff's expectation of lasagna does not include spinach. But, other than that if I have to say so myself, it turned out pretty well. Plus we had some yummy bread and olive oil to accompany the lasagna, and that'll make any meal great. I think, however, we have some middle lasagna ground, no ricotta, no spinach, bechemel sauce and lotsa mozzarella. The noodles were great, but I think they could be better "shown-off" in a dish that focused a bit more on the noodle. Well worth the time and noodle making adventure.

Pasta Dough
3 1/2 to 4 cups AP Flour
4 eggs

Make a mound of the flour and make a very large well in the middle of the flour. Add the eggs to the well and start mixing the eggs and slowly incorporate the flour. Once the dough has some kind of shape, stop mixing and start kneading and incorporating more flour. It may not need all the flour. Knead for 5 or so minutes until smooth, a bit sticky and elastic. Let it rest for a half hour and then roll it out in your pasta roller.

You can freeze it, but I let it dry a bit first before freezing it (but then you have to be careful with it because it'll be more brittle - this was the point at which the cat enjoyed the noodles so much), I was afraid it would stick together. Maybe best for a weekend project.