Labor of love

An unexpected blessing has occurred since starting my blog. Thanks to this little corner of cyberspace, my already-strong marriage has improved!! When my husband read the glowing description of himself in my "About Me" section, he was so flattered that he started acting on his best behavior. Then, he joked that he's concerned that any mischief or misbehavior on his part will be directly posted here. So, I've got an even more incredible husband and father under my roof now! What a treat! He appreciates the extra baked goods that I've been experimenting with, so he's getting a good deal from this gig, too.

Believe it or not, I like to cook in addition to baking. You wouldn't know it from my first few posts (other than the fried taco shells), but I like to make entrees and sides in addition to desserts. If you read my first entry, you know that I was inspired to create this blog after joining The Daring Bakers club. The Daring Bakers club is an online group of folks who challenge each other once a month to try a new baking experiment - in the past, the group has made cakes, croissants, French baguettes, and lots of other delectable baked goods.

This month, my first as a Daring Baker, our challenge was to bake LASAGNA! I was a bit surprised, expecting a sweet baked good, but I have made pasta from scratch before and have wanted to do it again. I just hadn't gotten the kick in the pants until now! I used that as an excuse to buy an attachment for my KitchenAid mixer that's designed to roll and cut pasta dough.

The March 2009 challenge was hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. Rather than posting the frighteningly long recipe at the end of my entry, I'll refer you to their websites. My family will think I'm crazy if they read the recipe because they will see how much time it took - it did take several hours. I guess I AM crazy.

The day I made the pasta, I was also trying to finish decorating my mom's birthday cake, featured here. I was a little ambitious that day! The lasagna (and the cake) turned out well, but I want to invite my children to help next time - I was too hurried to ask for their help this last time. While they were outside selling lemonade with their dad, I chopped up some spinach, mixed it with flour and eggs in my mixer, rolled it out in my pasta attachment, and voila! I had lasagna noodles! The noodles were delicious. (The kids raked in $20 - we might have to do the lemonade stand more often!)

Here are the spinach, flour, and eggs ready for a beating!

I hung the noodles on a dowel rod to dry overnight. I should have cut them into shorter lengths. Several of them flung themselves to the floor after tiring of holding on - sort of like I do when my husband pushes me to do pull-ups.

After making the noodles, I made a ragu and a bechamel (white) sauce. Despite misreading the recipe for the ragu, it turned out well. The recipe called for 3 canned tomatoes. Somehow, I turned that into 3 CANS of tomatoes - oops! After adding the second of three cans, I decided I was not going to follow that recipe anymore, so I skipped the third can. Later, I discovered my error, but only after assembling and eating the lasagna. Turns out, the extra tomatoes didn't cause trouble, even though the sauce would not cook down to the consistency of a stew as indicated in the recipe! (I was quite perplexed that it would not perform, especially after letting it simmer for twice the amount of time called for.) As I wrote, though, the lasagna was great in spite of my mistake. It might have been more subtle without all the tomatoes, but I liked it as it was.

After preparing the extra-tomatoey ragu and bechamel, I layered them with the spinach noodles and a cup of grated Parmesan. The finished product was gorgeous and delicious! Parker devoured a third of it at dinner. He runs every morning, religiously, so he can get away with eating just about anything he wants (stinker!). We froze the rest and ate it for lunch a few days later.

If any of you are up to the challenge of trying the recipe, I'd love to hear about your results!

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io de Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

All recipes from The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food by Lynne Rosetto Kasper (published by William Morrow and Company Inc., 1992).