Day by Day

Homemade Lasagna

September 22nd, 2009 by Janene

Sunday I spent 4+ hours in the kitchen making a homemade lasagna. I made the sauce and noodles from scratch and it was tasty! I also attempted to take pictures as I was cooking. Not an easy task and they don’t look anything like my friend Alicia’s but I tried.

Classic Bolognese Sauce
3 TBSP unsalted butter
2 TBSP each minced onion, carrot and celery
1/4 lb each ground beef chuck, ground veal and ground pork
1 Cup whole milk
1 Cup dry white wine (or beef stock)
1 28 ounce can whole tomatoes packed in juice, finely chopped, with juice reserved

1. Heat butter in large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat; add the onion, carrot and celery and saute until softened but not browned, about 6 minutes.

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2. Add the ground meat and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Crumble the meat into tiny peaces. Cook, continuing to cumble the meat, just until it loses its raw color but has not yet browned, about 3 minutes.

3. Add the milk and bring to a simmer, continue to simmer until the milk evaporates, 10-13 minutes. Add the wine and bring to a simmer; continue to simmer until the wine evaporates, 10-13 minutes longer. Add the tomatoes and their juice and bring to a simmer; reduce to heat to low so that the sauce continues to just barely simmer with an occasional bubble or two at the surface, until the liquid has evaporated, about 3 hours.

Bolognese Sauce initially:

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Bolognese Sauce almost done:

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Bechamel Sauce
2 Cups whole milk
4 TBSP unsalted butter
3 1/2 TBSP all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon Salt

1. Heat the milk in a small saucepan over low heat until hot but not scalded or boiling.

2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When it is foamy, whisk in the flour. Whisk constantly for 2 minutes. Do not let the flour brown.

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3. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add 2 TBSP hot milk and whisk vigorously. When the mixutre is smooth, whisk in another 2 TBSP, and then another. Return the pan to very low heat and slowly whisk in the remaining milk, at first in 1/4 cup increments and then in 1/2 cup increments until it is all incorporated.

4. Raise the heat to medium-low. Add the salt and cook, whisking often, until the sauce thickens to the consistency of thick heavy cream, 7 to 10 minutes.

5. Remove the pan from the heat. Use immediately or cool to room temperature and whisk until smooth before using.

Slowly adding the milk and whisking away:

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The finished sauce, after a lot of vigorous whisking:

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Lasagna
Fresh Pasta
Bechamel Sauce
Bolognese Sauce
1 Cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. Cook noodles until al dente, then gently retrieve the noodles and transfer them to a bowl of ice-cold water for 30 seconds. Then drain the noodles and lay them out on kitchen towles for up to 1 hour.

2. Grease a 13-by-9-inch pan with cooking spray. Smear several tablespoons of bechamel sauce across the bottom of the pan. Line the pan with a layer of pasta, making sure the noodles touch but do not overlap. Spread a scant 2/3 cup bolognese sauce evenly over the pasta. Drizzle with 3 TBSP bechamel and sprinkle with 2 1/2 TBSP Parmesan. Repeat the layering of the pasta, bolognese sauce, and cheese 4 more times. For the sixth and final layer, coat the noodles with 6 TBSP bechamel sauce and sprinkle with the remaining 3 1/2 TBSP cheese (or more if you want).

3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake until the cheese on top turns golden brown in spots and the sauce is bubbling, about 20 minutes. Remove the pan and let the lasagna rest for 5 minutes before serving.

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Recipes Courtesy of “The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles” by Cooks Illustrated

And since I wasn’t busy enough, I made Orange Cookies while I waited for the Bolognese sauce to simmer down:

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And of course the pasta:

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But unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of the pasta. I was covered in flour for the rest of the pasta making process and forgot to ask Joey to take some pictures.

Next time I make lasagna, I’ll let you know in advance so you can make a reservation. :)

Posted in Cooking, Recipe | 3 Comments »

Laptops and Water do not Mix!

September 19th, 2009 by Janene

Thursday night I was going to do something quick on the computer and I put a glass of water right next to my laptop.

I thought to myself “this is really not a good idea since Pumpkin and Coco like to walk all over the computer desk BUT I should be fine. I am only going to be a few minutes.”

Well, Coco decided to join me half way through what I was doing and tipped the glass of water over. Soon my laptop and the computer desk were dripping in water. I quickly picked up my computer and start shaking it. It should be fine, right?  After it was dried off, I tried a couple of the keys and it wasn’t working but luckily the mouse pad was working so I closed the window I had open, turned off the computer and called Joey. He told me to put the computer upside down on a towel and he’ll look at it when he gets home.

He got home a couple of hours later and started surgery on my laptop. He took a couple of the keys off as you can see here:

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And more keys:

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And after several minutes of working on the keyboard he tells me that it cannot be repaired so we decide to put the keys back. What are we going to do with a pile of keys anyway? As we started putting the keys back we weren’t exactly sure where they all went – do you have the top right hand side of your keyboard memorized? – luckily I had taken a picture pretty early on in the surgery process and I zoomed in and found where they all went. Whew.

Here is a picture of Coco walking right over what Joey was doing:

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I should really train the cats to not walk all over the computer desk!

After Joey told me the keyboard on the laptop was broken beyond repair, I started to think about all the things I do with my laptop and how I would do them on a different computer. I wouldn’t be able to check facebook at work so that would be a problem. How would I stay current on what is going on with all my friends? And then there are websites only my computer knows the password to so that would be a problem. I quickly realized how dependent I am on my computer. Sad.

I got home late Friday night and Joey was kind enough to hook up a monitor and keyboard to my laptop so I have a working computer. Yay!

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It seems to be working nicely except when a key decides to get stuck. You can’t do very much when your keyboard decides to press the same key over and over and over and…

It looks like we will be putting a new computer in the budget and I will never have liquids near my computer. Speaking of which, I am thristy!

Posted in Coco, Computers | 1 Comment »