Lasagna — nearly a disaster!

This is one challenging dish. I spent three weeks preparing to make it and things still got messy! I’ve decided I’m going to cook it again soon, just to conquer it.

First up, the meat sause. I was dreading the thought of putting it all down but I remembered that I already posted it! Yaaaaay! It’s the same meat sause from the Pasta and meat sauce post. This time I had some red wine so I didn’t use rum.

Next, the cheese mix. I made lasagna a long time ago. I don’t even remember much of what I did. I do remember that I used 4 different kinds of cheese. I looked at several recipes online to get the cheese mix.

I liked this one and this one. And came up with the following:

250g cottage cheese
420g ricotta cheese
250g grated parmesan cheese
250g grated mozzarella cheese
2 eggs beaten
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Funny thing is, I have been shopping for these cheeses over the last three weeks. I totally forgot that I used some of it in the scones. So I had a little less cheese than I thought I did and it was too late to run out and get more. But I figured it would be fine. I mean, it’s just a little less cheese, right?

Once all the cheese is mixed, (uhm, not all exactly, the mozzarella isn’t in the cheese mix it stays separate and is drizzled on top. It’s not a rule. I just did it that way.) beat the nutmeg into the eggs and add to the cheese mixture and it’s done

Then the layering. Meat sause, cheese mix, sprinkle grated mozzarella, then a layer of lasagna. Repeat till all the ingredients are finished. Be sure to leave some grated mozzarella for the top.

After I was done with the first layer I realised I had buttered the wrong oven dish (by the way, butter the dish a little before you start layering). Yeah, so the dish I pulled out was too big. I didn’t even have enough meat for a second layer.

Oh goodness!

My sister-in-law and her husband are coming over for dinner. I had a panic attack. I told my husband if it didn’t taste good we’d have to buy them dinner somewhere. He told me to calm down (-_-)

So not having enough to do three layers, I put the rest of the cheese mix down, the little remaining meat sauce, a lasagna layer and finished it off with mozzarella.

I turned on the oven to preheat to 200°C. Then I pulled out the foil to cover.

I didn’t have enough foil.

At this point I just wanted to laugh.

I covered as much of the middle as possible with the little foil I had and put it in the oven for 45min. After 45 mins I uncovered it to brown the cheese a little for about 10 mins and it was done.

It looks good. But the sides were crusty and dry. Not having enough sauce or foil did’t help.

It was cooked in the middle though, so that’s what we ate (^_^)

Husband Rating:
creamy

I was very surprised! It was good. The middle was fine, the flavours melded together nicely, it was moist. It was just crusty at the top on the edges where the lasagna didn’t cook.

Phew!

Lasagnas usually have a lot of red tones in their colour. That’s mostly because of the tomato paste which is used in the meat sause. I prefer to just put in extra fresh tomatoes instead.

I need to do something with these leftovers. Don’t know what yet.