My First Homemade Lasagna & Our Favorite Garlic Bread

For as long as I've known my husband, I've never made lasagna.

I'm the cook of our relationship. I'm guessing you've assumed as much by now. He's easy to please when it comes to food and doesn't often request certain meals. However, he has requested lasagna and, until now, I've never been able to bring myself to make it.

I think it's because we ate so much lasagna in my household growing up. We ate all types of lasagna from the Stouffer's variety with the sweet, orange sauce and cottage cheese curds to pans my mom made herself. It probably appeared in our dinner rotation once a week. While I don't remember not liking it as a child, I haven't wanted to make it as an adult. Heck, I worked at Broders' Cucina Italiana during my first year out of college and didn't even eat their lasagna.

The tides began to turn this past winter when I found myself enjoying a version my cousin recently made at family gathering. And finally, when my husband inquired about homemade lasagna at the start of an especially busy work week, I finally decided to honor his request. I adapted Lidia Bastianich's recipe for Italian-American lasagna and made a few changes so that it was simpler to make.

Now that I've embraced lasagna again, it's earned its rightful place in our dinner rotation. The leftovers were especially welcome at the end of a work day, and they tasted as satisfying as the first day.

A Cook's Notes

For just the two of us, I divided the recipe in half and baked the lasagna in a 11 X 7 pan. It made six servings that we enjoyed over the busy week. Much of the lasagna-building process is up to your discretion. Build each layer as thick or thin as you'd like. For example, I went lighter on the cheese. Lidia recommends letting the finished lasagna sit on the counter for a few hours and reheating the squares when it's ready to serve. I found one hour sufficient and served it from the pan with the extra sauce. There's really no wrong way to build a lasagna. Just do whatever fits best for you.  

I served our lasagna with my favorite garlic bread and a tossed green salad. 

Lasagna With Meat Sauce
Adapted from Lidia Bastianich's recipe for Italian-American Lasagna.

Ingredients:
11 X 7 baking dish
Lasagna noodles (About 3/4 of a pound)
Salt
Olive oil
1/2 pound ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/2 lb. mozzarella, thinly sliced (I used one small ball of fresh mozzarella)
Parmesan cheese, grated

Meat Sauce:
1/2 pound lean ground beef
1/2 pound Italian sausage
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 Tablespoons tomato paste
2 bay leaves
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
About 1/2 cup of dry red or white wine
35 oz. of crushed tomatoes
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Pinch of sugar

Instructions:

To begin, start the sauce. It will taste better the longer it simmers.

1. Saute the onion in olive oil with a pinch of salt until the edges start to brown. 
2. Add the ground beef and sausage and saute until browned. Remove any extra fat drippings.
3. Add the garlic and briefly cook until fragrant but not browned. 
4. Add the tomato paste and cook for a few minutes. 
5. Add the bay leaves and oregano. Try to remember to remove the bay leaves before assembling the lasagna. 
6. Deglaze the pan with wine and scrape any browned bits from the bottom of the pan into the sauce. 
7. Add the crushed tomatoes, salt and black pepper to taste, and a pinch or two of sugar. 
8. Allow the sauce to simmer for as long as you are able, or until it turns rustier in color. This could take 2-3 hours. If you don't have time to simmer the sauce for hours, it will still be fine. Longer cooking lessens the tinny taste from the canned tomatoes. You could also use your favorite jarred tomato sauce. 
9. Keep tasting the sauce while it simmers and adjust the seasonings accordingly. You may want to add more salt, pepper, sugar, and/or wine. 
10. If the sauce becomes too reduced, add water. 

To prepare the other layers

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add a generous dash of salt and small drizzle of olive oil.
2. Cook half of the noodles at a time until they are pliable but undercooked (about seven minutes). 
3. Shock the noodles in ice water.
4. When the noodles are completely cool, place them on a sheet pan and rub with a light coat of olive oil so they don't stick together. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
5. Whisk together the ricotta and egg. Season with salt. 

To assemble the lasagna:

1. Heat oven to 350-375 degrees F. 
2. Ladle enough sauce into the bottom of a pan to generously cover the bottom of the dish.
3. Layer three noodles into the dish, lengthwise. It's OK if they slightly overlap. Trim a little off the edge for a better fit.
4. Ladle a thick layer of sauce over the noodles. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. 
5. Add a noodle layer.
6. Spread the noodles with the ricotta-egg mixture. Use your best judgement about how much cheese to spread. You may want to use less than the full amount. 
7. Add a noodle layer.
8. Add the sliced mozzarella cheese. If it's fresh mozzarella, sprinkle it with a little salt. Cover with sauce and sprinkle Parmesan cheese.
9. Add a noodle layer.
10. Cover with sauce and sprinkle more Parmesan cheese. 
11. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Uncover. If the top looks a little dry, add more sauce and Parmesan cheese. Bake for 15 more minutes. 
12. Allow the lasagna to sit before cutting into squares. Serve with any extra sauce. 

My Favorite Garlic Bread

Ingredients:

French bread, split

Butter

Olive oil

Garlic, minced

Herbs, whatever you have on hand. I used dried basil and marjoram. 

Salt

Black pepper

Cayenne

Instructions:

1. Combine butter and a little olive oil in a small dish. Add minced garlic, herbs, salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. 
2. Heat until the mixture is spreadable. 
3. Spread on both cut sides of the bread. Put the bread back together and wrap in foil. Bake at 350 degrees F. until heated through. 
4. Cut and serve. 

Culinary School Update: Winemaking, Bubbly, & The Strong Stuff

Join me at Simple, Good & Tasty for my latest culinary school update about the last half of wine class.

I share our experience making wine and some of the most interesting things I learned about sparkling and fortified wines.

I'll meet you there. 

Apparently, I'm Afraid Of Lobsters: Seafood Class Finale

Apparently, I'm afraid of lobsters.

On the last day of seafood class, our teacher ordered live Maine lobsters. She even ordered extras for the students who wanted to purchase them for home cooking. This was the only opportunity on which I passed to purchase food the school purchased for special demonstrations. Once the teacher handed the lobsters over to my care, I was afraid I'd feel responsible for their well-being. They would have been more likely to live in my bathtub than ever become food. It mostly came down to the thought of driving home with them in my car. I knew I'd freak out.

The lobster demonstration got off to a rough start. One of our teachers had snuck a slinky, wooden snake into the box before we reached the kitchen and when we opened the box, I screamed. Before I could make sense of the situation, I remember wondering why on earth the supplier would include a snake with the lobsters.

And you thought your last flight sitting in coach was rough. . . 

Our teacher gently removed the lobsters and examined each one for movement. 

We learned that active lobsters taste better. Those that barely move are known as sleepers and are close to death. They're still edible but won't taste as flavorful. Our instructor flipped a feisty lobster on its back and tickled its little pairs of legs, known as swimmeretes, to identify whether it was a male or a female. A female's swimmeretes are soft, while a male's are hard. This shouldn't too hard to remember. . . The lucky students who bought the lobsters got to take home the females that were rich in roe.

Before she passed one around the class, she firmly stated the afternoon's one and only ground rule: Do not, under any circumstance, remove a rubber band from a lobster's claw. No one did.

Then, she piled the rest of the lobsters onto the demonstration table. Some of them may have been sleepers while others explored the table as they waved their long, delicate antennas. Our teacher had set out a container of hot water to rinse the lobsters after they been cooked and broken down. I noticed one lobster's antenna wiggling dangerously close to the hot water and leaped to its rescue until it touched my hand. A kind classmate came to both of our rescue.

I noticed that I started feeling funny. My face flushed with heat and I broke out into a cold sweat. When the lightheadedness hit, I knew there was a distinct possibly that I might faint. I've prided myself on maintaining a (mostly) composed demeanor in the kitchen and trying to avoid giggly and squeamish gender stereotypes. This has also meant being willing to taste anything, handling raw meat like a champ, and throwing down in the dish room. I didn't want to end this winning streak by being the girl who fainted at a lobster. Plus, I had laughed when I found out someone fainted when the Meats class broke down half a cow. Call it karma.

Our teacher placed the lobsters into a brazier of boiling water and quickly covered the pot with a lid. No, the lobsters did not "scream" or make dramatic scratching noises as they tried to climb out from the pot, but for someone who's never taken part in dispatching an animal, it still felt unsettling. A minute later, she lifted the lid and we all flinched when we saw they were still writhing in the hot water.

Somehow, I did not faint.

You can remove the rubberbands, now.

Phobia aside, the demonstration was worth the taste. During our last seafood demonstration featuring clams, mussels, and oysters, I was surprised when a quarter of my classmates left because they thought they were gross. To my dismay, everyone stuck around to taste lobster, but fortunately there was more than enough to go around.

We compared previously frozen warm and cold water lobster tails broiled in their shells to our freshly boiled Maine lobsters. It was hardly a contest, as the Maine lobsters' texture was stunningly more delicate and silky than the other varieties. One lucky student took home the lobster shells to make a seafood caldo broth while I stuck around to suck the tiny shards of meat from the legs.

We wiped clarified butter from our faces and thus ended seafood class.

It's summer break now. I took my last final and turned in my final project. Maybe by the fall I will have enough gall to reconsider the upcoming field trip to North Dakota State University's slaughterhouse. So far, I've maintained that I'm just not going. If I almost fainted at a lobster, who knows what will happen?

Worst case scenario is that even if I do, in fact, faint, it'll make a good story, right?

India Palace in Fargo: A Spicy Dish With A Curious Disclaimer

Our first visit to India Palace, Fargo's newest Indian restaurant, brought tears of joy and tears of pain to my eyes. I wished it hadn't taken us so long to get here. 

Since moving to Fargo, we've been quite loyal to Passage to India. We dined at Karma, once, and found it bland so we stuck with what we knew. In the Twin Cities, there are at least five India Palaces, several of which are part of a local chain. I was initially concerned Fargo's India Palace also a part of a chain, but from what I can tell, it's not related. In January 2013, Eric Daeuber wrote a review of India Palace that was published in the Forum. He spoke well of the food and service, but the following description stuck in my mind:

"When tradition demands something more like the Indian food your Midwestern mother used to make, the popular Chicken Tikka Masala brings a kind of comfort food familiarity, and a little smoke, to the table." 

Despite the fact that Daeuber gave India Palace's food a four star rating, I couldn't move past the comical mental image of picturing my own Midwestern mother cooking Chicken Tikka Masala. She never ate Indian food and avoided anything spicy. It would have been dreadful. Recently, a friend and chili-head assured us the food was spicy and well-prepared, so visited on our next date night.

On this Saturday evening, we were warmly greeted and seated immediately. We ordered a couple Indian beers and our server expertly poured them into fancy beer glasses. For dinner, we chose a few orders of garlic naan ($2.99/order), raita yogurt sauce ($1.99), Paneer Masala ($10.99) and Dhamaka Balti with lamb ($14.99), a style of dish described as being cooked in a special pot with white wine, tomatoes, bell peppers and onions and seasoned with cumin, coriander, cassia bark and ginger. Most curiously, the following disclaimer accompanied this particular Balti dish:

*Very HOT! Prepare for an explosion in your mouth.  

Omg. An explosion in my mouth? We had to try this. 

Top left: Dhamaka Balti with lamb. Top Right: Paneer Masala

The Dhamaka Balti with lamb was wonderfully spicy. Despite the fact that I was weeping tears of pain and sweating profusely, I was really happy. Completely giddy on the rush of endorphins released by the hot peppers. The Paneer Masala was milder than the Dhamaka Balti, but it was still notably spicy and both dishes were laced with chunks of hot peppers. Those who aren't fond of heat can certainly order dishes mild. Spiciness aside, the sauces had compelling flavors from which the heat did not detract. I also appreciated that the Balti dish contained a generous amount of tender lamb.

Both entrees came with a plate of fluffy basmati rice fragrant with a subtle, warm spicing. 

We sopped the curries up with the garlic naan that was blistered and soft in all of the right places and cooled them down with raita yogurt sauce. Both were respectable versions of themselves.

In conclusion, we were thrilled with our first visit to Fargo's India Palace. Our meal wasn't cheap, but it was flavorful and thoughtfully prepared, the curries were appropriately filled with their respective proteins, and the service was warm and hospitable. Most exciting of all, they actually make spicy food spicy. I was getting bored with turning to Buffalo Wild Wings to satisfy my spicy food cravings.

Kudos to India Palace for being bold and bringing us heat. 

Fargo-Moorhead Gyro Quest: Santa Lucia, A First Impression

I swear, I have the food cravings of a pregnant woman.

Some of these cravings appear only once every few years, such as the yearning for a peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich. Others rotate more frequently, and every few months I'll find myself chasing a good cheeseburger or gyro.

In the Twin Cities, I ate gyros from most any place that offered them: The overstuffed variety at Holy Land Deli, the greasy bombs from the Lyndale Deli, and the spicy gyro from Gyropolis in Bloomington, MN, my favorite one of all. Gyros are like pizza and french fries for me; the good are really fantastic while the bad are still good.

I've become rather picky about my gyros. Below are the qualities I look for in my favorite gyros:

• Size: Bigger is not always better. But don't skimp on the meat. I'd like to be able to pick up my gyro without everything falling out, but shouldn't have to ration the meat over each bite.
• Meat: I prefer meat that's crisped on the gyro spit and thinly shaved. I'll settle for meat that's at least griddled. 
• Lettuce: Most gyros seem to be garnished with iceberg lettuce, but I think romaine holds up better. Iceberg lettuce gets slimy when it hits warm food and I hate the smell it emits.
• Onion: I like thinly shaved onion and it doesn't have to be sauteed. 
• Sauce: Enough to moisten the sandwich, but not so much that it causes the bread to crumble. 
• Pita Bread: Most places don't make their own pita bread, so store bought bread is not a deal breaker. Most importantly, it should be fresh and not crack when I pick up the gyro. Second, I like it gently warmed. 

The first two gyros I ate in Fargo were from Aladdin's, but for this particular gyro craving, I wanted to try something different. During the last visit, I swear I heard the ding of a microwave. . . I can't imagine why it would have been necessary to microwave any component of my gyro, or any gyro, for that matter.

A few friends recommended Santa Lucia located off the access road along I-94 near the bright lights of Paradiso. I stopped by for a late take-out dinner on a Saturday evening and it was bustling with a large prom group and couples on dates. A server took my takeout order at the bar for two spicy gyros. Each comes with one's choice of Greek salad, french fries, or soup and I chose the salad, plus an extra side of french fries. My tally came to $30 before tip and I was a little taken aback. I noticed that the order of fries cost $5.95 so I checked the menu which listed them as Greek Home Fries in the appetizer section. They were described as being seasoned with lemon and oregano and accompanied by tzatziki dip. I felt a little better since they seemed to be more fancy than the typical french fry.

The server estimated a 20-25 minute wait and asked for my phone number. I said I would wait in the restaurant since it felt pointless to leave and return in that short amount of time. After 35-minutes had passed, I was preparing to inquire about my order but noticed the server bringing it from the kitchen. She apologized for the wait. From what I could observed, the restaurant seemed understaffed and I knew it wasn't her fault.

The pita bread did not seem homemade but it was fresh and filled with thick chunks of gyro meat crisped on the griddle. The meat tasted good, like any other gyro meat I have tasted. I know many restaurants purchase them from the same suppliers, and I'm fine with this. It's what I was craving.

Because the gyro was a spicy gyro, it had a red pepper-feta sauce instead of the traditional cucumber-yogurt tzatziki. It reminded me of Gyropolis's spicy gyro sauce, though I wish it there was more of it and that it was spicier. However, for Fargo-Moorhead, it gets points because it carried a discernible kick. The gyro was garnished with a few sauteed onion strands, diced tomato, and romaine lettuce.

The kitchen divided the order of fries between the two gyros. Despite their cost, they were better than the average, frozen fry and generously portioned. They looked like they were hand-cut and were fried to a golden brown. I enjoyed the subtle Greek seasonings and scattering of feta crumbles. However, the fries did not come with the described tzatziki sauce. Jake was disappointed since he's crazy about this yogurt sauce.

At $10.95 each, the gyros struck me as more expensive than the typical gyro, but the Greek salads made up for the price because they were large and included fresh iceberg lettuce, romaine, diced tomatoes, cucumber, minced onion, black olives with pits, and feta. I really liked the creamy Greek dressing. Many Greek dressings strike me as overly seasoned with oregano or just plain gross, but not this one. I'd return for this salad. Unfortunately, I had requested the salad dressing on the side, and the salads were delivered dressed as well as overdressed.

Concluding Thoughts. . .
All in all, this seemed like a challenging evening, but I'd definitely return for a date night with my husband or for the gyro and Greek salad combination. The restaurant seems to cook with quality ingredients and the interior was lovely.

Do you have any suggestions as I continue my Fargo-Moorhead gyro quest?

Culinary School Update: Seafood Class

Join me at Simple, Good and Tasty for my latest culinary school update.

This the class I've been waiting for my entire life. It's all about seafood.

Even though we're on the prairie, we got to try preparing different types of seafood from whole salmon and halibut to littleneck clams and scallops. This might be my favorite update, yet.

I'll meet you there. 

Culinary School Woes: I Sure Hate These Pants

Culinary school has a lot of benefits.

We get to taste a new type of dessert everyday, attend food shows, and scarf down what's left of the themed breakfast buffets every Thursday morning. But culinary school is like any other experience and has its own set of ups and downs. Our pants come to mind. I just hate those pants.

Next week, our semester will come to an end and we'll return our uniforms to AmeriPride. I will not be sad to part with my pants over the summer. These aren't just any pants, they're culinary school pants and we get five pairs. Have I mentioned how much I hate them? Let me count the ways:

First, they're unisex pants and don't differentiate between male and female anatomy. I don't need to explain these differences, only to say that there are reasons why pants aren't generally offered in unisex shapes.

Not only are these pants unisex, but they have a firm waistband that just doesn't give. It's not like these are sweatpants. They're non-stretchy unisex pants. This is unfortunate considering they're like clown pants merged with high-waisted, tapered jeans from the 90's. These pants levitate towards my bosom and are so severely starched that they literally stand on their own legs. When I sit down, they rise, and when I exhale, they squeeze my abdomen like a sausage.

I encountered these pants during my first week of school on Uniform Fitting Day. We took turns meeting with vendor representatives who assigned us pants. Now, I'm a petite individual who already has trouble finding adult clothes, any clothes, and most especially pants. It's hard to be on either side of the size spectrum, and it's not fun to be on the small/short size when default sizes are often set to extra large. I hauled a few pairs of pants to the bathroom and tried them on. They fit in such a comically bad way, that I confronted a random girl in the bathroom and asked for reassurance.

"They're not that bad, are they?"

In the Midwest, "Minnesota Nice" is a reality, not a myth but even she could not say anything nice about the pants. She made a face and replied, "I don't think those are supposed to fit like that." That's when I ran.

I found the AmeriPride representative and showed him my pants so he could see for himself how badly they fit before he sentenced me to wearing them for a year. Even he could not tell me, in good conscience, to just wear the pants, so he made a note to find a different size and hem about a foot from the bottom.

My final grievance about these pants is that they are white. They match our white everything: Pants, jacket, and baseball cap which comes in a one-size-fits-all. No matter how tightly I adjust it, the bill always falls into my eyes. It's not unusual for me to run into others or biff counters and I maneuver around the kitchen by watching my feet. I know that white symbolizes ideals like cleanliness or purity, but what if it's accented by spots and streaks in questionable colors? I feel like a walking canvas. A sunset painted in carrot orange, rusty blood, and chocolate streaks. I just hope I don't unknowingly sit in something colorful. On especially messy days, I jump at the sight of my own clothing. People must look at me and think, "Damn, that girl sure knows how to throw down in the kitchen," or, "What a klutz!"

In addition to being prone to staining, white pants are also kind of revealing. Some of my white pants are constructed from thick fabric, while others border on transparent. Both become see-through when wet and, since we are often cooking with water or spraying down dirty dishes, this is a significant concern. I have to wear pants underneath my pants because I just don't trust my pants.

All of this makes me wonder, "Why white? and, "What's up with these pants?"

Turning in my pants will feel bittersweet, but unfortunately, it's not a goodbye. It's a see you later.