Kids Dish

I’ve been tired and lazy and haven’t much felt like cooking. When I was pregnant with Sam I had a second trimester energy burst that led to me cooking and baking like crazy. Right now I’m in a second trimester slump that’s led to two nights in a row of pasta with jarred sauce and a night of pizza and french fries. I’m lacking energy and inspiration and Sam’s return to middle of the night wakeups isn’t helping matters much. But I took a large frozen whole chicken breast from my organic, pastured meats stash out to defrost and have no choice but to cook it since I can’t bear the idea of letting it go to waste. Looking for a one-pot meal I can cook before I head off to water aerobics tonight I decided on arroz con pollo.

Arroz Con Pollo, Rice with Chicken, is a Latin American favorite. When I taught high school in a predominantly Puerto Rican part of the city (90-some percent of my students were Puerto Rican and the rest were Dominican) many of our PTO-sponsored events served homemade, Latin American dishes. Arroz con Pollo was a staple. It was always deliciously seasoned, yet the cut up chicken parts were always flabby and greasy. I never tried to make the dish at home because as a rule, I generally try to avoid cooking anything that I know will be flabby and greasy.

But a recipe on one of my favorite cooking blogs, Smitten Kitchen, turned up a recipe that looks and sounds neither flabby or greasy and stresses the importance of it being a one-pot dish. It unfortunately requires a number of ingredients I don’t have in the house and don’t feel like going out to get. (I’m too pregnant and tired to go out to the store again.)So I found another recipe, this one from Simply Recipes, that only requires things I have in the house. Combining the two is my best bet. I’ll post the adjusted recipe tomorrow.

I like baking bread but I’m definitely not a purist. I know that in order to be good at baking bread I should be familiar with the various stages of dough and gluten by touch, but I just don’t have the patience. I love the smell of freshly baked bread and I love the yeasty smell while I wait for it to rise, but I don’t find the act of kneading particularly therapeutic so I use my Kitchenaid mixer instead.

The problem with using the mixer (and the food processor which is even more frightening and dangerous) is that Sam alternately loves it and is afraid of it. He wants to turn it on and off and on and off and on and off then runs from it if it’s turned on too quickly. I don’t want him to get too comfortable with it, because the dangers and mess potential far outweigh the benefits.

Sure I could stick to quick breads like biscuits, but what’s the fun in that. Instead I’m going to give no-knead bread a shot. A recipe published not too long ago in the New York Times claims to produce a perfect loaf of bread with no kneading. The secret is a long, overnight rise. According to the NYT, what makes the “process revolutionary is the resulting combination of great crumb, lightness, incredible flavor — long fermentation gives you that — and an enviable, crackling crust, the feature of bread that most frequently separates the amateurs from the pros.�

Sounds good to me. I don’t have the right size cast iron dutch oven required for baking but I’m going to give the recipe a go anyway. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I don’t get a ton of comments here so when I wasn’t getting any I didn’t think much of it. But then at Nursing Your Kids, my other 451 Press site where I tend to get at least a comment or two a week I realized I wasn’t getting any either.

I checked my spam filter and every legitimate comment was stuck with comments from “people” named Halo and Neo encouraging me to pierce delicate parts of my anatomy. My eyes began to bleed after the third page of spam comments so I gave up trying to rescue comments from the abyss and just deleted everything. Then I checked the spam filter here. It was much, much worse. The spambots attacking me over at this site all seem to have real names and tell me what a great job I’m doing with this site. Apparently I should keep up the good work. Guten Tag! It’s totally out of control. I last emptied the spam filter less than 24 hours ago, and in that time period I got more than 300 spam comments. So I apologize if I’ve deleted any comments anyone may have left. I just can’t sort through them quickly enough. In fact, since I started writing this post just a few minutes ago, Rosina May has left two comments telling me she’s impressed and that I should “keep it on the road.”

So if you leave a comment and it doesn’t appear on the site, please send me an email (click on contact) and I’ll try and pick it out of the great spam abyss.

Sam has not yet discovered the joy of cooking, though he has become an expert at opening the refrigerator and removing the items he wants. He knows where the cheese is and can open the drawer himself. He also knows how to put things back in the refrigerator, close the drawer and close the door. I fear for the day I find the refrigerator (or freezer) door wide open after returning from an outing, but until then it’s nice to know that when he suddenly realizes he NEEDS CHOCOLATE MILK RIGHT THIS MINUTE that I can ask him to get the milk and the chocolate out for mommy and the task will distract him from the tantrum waiting to happen.

But enough about Sam and his newfound desire to open the fridge repeatedly. Parenthood has made me go crazy over play kitchens. I haven’t indulged my desire since Sam hasn’t shown much interest, but I would love for him to be the proud cook in his own wooden kitchen. The problem is that the kitchens I gravitate to are not of the easy to find on Craigslist plastic variety. They’re mostly European, well made, and visually attractive, i.e. outrageously expensive. And that’s not even counting the pots, pans and play food that would have to go with it.

So when I saw this cardboard kitchen from fortytworoads on Etsy I fell in love. For the very reasonable price of only $7 you can be the proud owner of plans to make your very own kitchen using recycled cardboard, wire hangers from the dry cleaner, and odds and ends you may already have around the house. I love it. I want one.

When I originally wrote about the idea of sneaking vegetables into your kids’ foods to boost the vitamin content I hadn’t yet read the book Deceptively Delicious. Honestly, I still haven’t read it, but I’m not yet in a position where I think it would be helpful. I still put extra veggies in foods that allow for it and eat a few vegetable based vegetarian meals a week. Sam is still in a pro-vegetable stage where he’ll cry for broccoli and beg for frozen peas so I don’t really think it’s necessary to slip avocado into a brownie when he’ll probably just want to eat a cracker anyway. I’m sure that someday he may go through a stage where he refuses to eat vegetables on principal and then perhaps I’ll feel the need to slip some kale into a smoothie, but until that day I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing- eating well, enjoying vegetables and encouraging my family to do the same.

In October I wrote

But when it comes down to it, how much vitamin content remains when you steam and puree vegetables then cook them all over again? When spread across six servings of macaroni and cheese how much of the nutrients from the squash remain?

The Houston Chronicle wrote about sneaking vegetables into kids in a piece called Attack of the stealth desserts. Their experts don’t seem to think you’re really getting that much of the good stuff into your kids when you slip some beets into your cake. The hidden vegetables, [Swanson- a Ph.D dietician] continued, do amp up the cakes’ nutritional profiles, offering doses of dietary fiber and vitamins A and C, “but you are kidding yourself if you think that’s a way to get your vegetable quota for the day.”

But the best part of the article was where they addressed the ethics of sneaking vegetables into treats. The ethicist they quoted for the article said,

Incidentally, Phillips has four children. They like vegetables.

Then they asked a 6-year-old what she thought about sneaking vegetables into desserts.

Isabella: (emphatically) Both!!

A recent study looking at the links between poverty and obesity shows that a lack of food isn’t necessarily to blame.

Previous research has suggested that poor children weren’t getting nutritious food and instead ate junk food, such as hot dogs. Or that children may have eaten well when money was available, but would skip meals when cash was short, a cycle that could slow their metabolism and cause them to gain weight.

“Understanding why the rates are so high …. is needed,” she said.

The study, which will be published in the February issue of the Journal of Nutrition, only looked at children who were overweight.

After teaching in poverty stricken areas of the city for four years it never seemed that a lack of food was to blame for obesity. In my experience, a lack of nutritious food, and a lack of exercise seemed to be the cause for the large numbers of obese children. Kids who were eligible for free school breakfasts and lunches (which weren’t all that nutritious to begin with) often brought in their own food- primarily potato chips, cookies, fruit drinks that contained no fruit juice, and fast food. I’m curious to read the study in its entirety to see what the researchers found.

The jícama (pronounced hee-ka-ma) is a South American vegetable, also called the Mexican potato. It’s not pretty, but the taste is surprisingly sweet. It’s similar in texture to a water chestnut, but sliced raw it tastes kind of like an apple or pear. You can do a lot with a jícama, but they’re best served raw with dip or in salads. Since it hails from Latin America it pairs well with other staples from the region, like black beans and corn. Sliced raw, it’s great for scooping guacamole.

Or you can use jícama in a dip and serve it with crudités. Here’s quick recipe for jícama salsa. Serve it with jícama slices, other sliced veggies and veggie batons, and tortilla chips. You can use a less intense pepper if your kids don’t like things too spicy, or use the spicy pepper but remove the seeds to lower the hot-factor.

1/2 small pineapple
a 1/2-pound piece jícama
3 ounces dried apricots (about 1/3 cup)
1 small red onion
1/2 cup packed fresh cilantro sprigs
1/2 fresh habanero or Scotch bonnet chile

Peel pineapple and cut enough into 1/4-inch dice to measure 1 3/4 cups. (You can use canned pineapple, just make certain to drain it or your salsa will be very soggy.) Peel jícama and cut into 1/4-inch dice. Coarsely chop apricots and chop enough onion to measure 3/4 cup. Finely chop cilantro and, wearing rubber gloves, finely chop chile with seeds. In a bowl toss together all ingredients and season with salt. Salsa may be made 6 hours ahead and chilled, covered.

I had every intention of making Spanakopita for dinner last night. I remembered to defrost the filo at room temperature and remembered to buy all of the ingredients I don’t usually have on hand. Bob and I planned on walking to our favorite bakery for coffee and pastries when he got home from work and I figured we’d be home before five, giving me plenty of time to get dinner on the table by seven. But then, when we were on the front porch with our coats on and Sam in his wagon anxiously awaiting the cookies to come, I realized I’d completely forgotten to pick up our meat order the day before.

After filling up my kitchen with great clouds of acrid black smoke, this was my second major case of pregnancy brain in a week. So we packed the unhappy toddler into the car and drove to the house where the meat is delivered, hoping it would still be there and still be frozen. The temperature was on our side and even though someone had removed our order from the cooler it was still there. We drove straight to the bakery and enjoyed cookies (Sam and I) and eclairs (Bob) with our coffee.

By the time we finished our snack it was after five and I still wanted to stop at the library to pick up a book that had come in from my reserve list. It was way too late to make Spanakopita. So we had grilled Delmonico steaks from the meat order, steamed green beans and baked potatoes instead. Dinner was on the table in under an hour, and it would have been on the table sooner if Bob hadn’t lost track of time and forgotten to light the grill.

The part that surprises me most about dinner being ready so quickly is the part about the baked potato. Believe it or not, it’s possible to have a perfect baked potato in half an hour. The amazing people from America’s Test Kitchen have found the perfect recipe for a potato with a crispy skin (my favorite part) and a soft, flaky middle.

30-minute Baked Potatoes

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Prick the top of the potatoes several times with a fork. Microwave for 8 to 12 minutes, or until soft to the touch, rotating halfway through the cooking time. Bake the potatoes for twenty minutes. Using the tines of a fork, make an x on the top of each potato immediately after removing from the oven. Squeeze the potatoes open, allowing the steam to escape. Serve immediately with butter, salt and pepper or your favorite baked potato toppings.

I cooked an amazing Butternut Squash with Caramelized Onion Galette the other night. It took longer than I anticipated because I somehow managed not to read the part of the directions that specified the bowls used for the dough ingredients needed to be chilled for an hour in the freezer. Combined with the hour needed to chill dough, I was about an hour behind schedule, which wasn’t too bad since I’d planned to eat dinner at six, but it was still late considering we have an almost-two year old who should be getting to bed earlier than he is.

Because I was trying to rush I cut the dough refrigeration to 40 minutes instead of the full hour leaving me with a sticky, wet dough that was tough to roll out. I managed to roll the dough into a 12 inch circle, get the cooked filling in the center, and wrap the dough around it. The problem was when I went to transfer the dough to the baking sheet. The bottom stuck to the floured counter and started to rip. In a hurry to get the galette into the oven I grabbed a cookie sheet and slid it under the pastry, rather than sliding the pastry onto the sheet. It ripped a little, but I was able to patch it and slide it in the oven.

I’m going to fast forward an hour and half now then fill in the blanks.

We sat down to dinner. A hungry Sam came into the dining room and sat down next to me instead of his booster seat. Rather than argue with a hungry toddler I put some of the butternut squash pastry on his Thomas plate and put it in front of him. He grabbed his fork, and without even testing the temperature he stabbed a piece and started to eat. I was so proud of my little boy. He doesn’t usually react so well to unknown foods. The fact that he just started eating without hesitation thrilled me to my core.

Now I’ll get to the part I omitted. After the galette had been in the oven for about 15 minutes the oven filled with smoke and the smoke began to fill the room. A quick look inside showed the oven was not on fire, I’d just made a tactical error. The butter from the dough and the liquid from the filling was pooling on the unlined baking sheet and dripping to the oven floor where it smoked and burned. I shouted for Bob to pull the batteries from the smoke alarm and help. We turned on the fans and he dug an industrial strength fan in the window backwards to suck out the smoke. I didn’t know what to do. I turned off the oven and removed the galette. Bob told me it would be fine and I should just put it back in. So I put the un-rimmed cookie sheet onto a rimmed baking sheet and put it back it the oven to finish cooking.

Smoky kitchen panic aside, dinner was delicious. Because Sam ate it and liked it I will share the recipe with you.

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette
from Smitten Kitchen

For the pastry:
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into
pieces
¼ cup sour cream
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
¼ cup ice water

For the filling:
1 small butternut squash (about one pound)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 to 2 tablespoons butter (if you have only non-stick, the smaller amount will do)
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced in half-moons
1 teaspoon salt
Pinch of sugar
¼ teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
¾ cup fontina cheese (about 2½ ounces), grated or cut into small bits
1½ teaspoons chopped fresh sage leaves

1. Make pastry: In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Place the butter in another bowl. Place both bowls in the freezer for 1 hour. Remove the bowls from the freezer and make a well in the center of the flour. Add the butter to the well and, using a pastry blender, cut it in until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Make another well in the center. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, lemon juice and water and add half of this mixture to the well. With your fingertips, mix in the liquid until large lumps form. Remove the large lumps and repeat with the remaining liquid and flour-butter mixture. Pat the lumps into a ball; do not overwork the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Prepare squash: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Peel squash, then halve and scoop out seeds. Cut into a ½-inch dice. Toss pieces with olive oil and a half-teaspoon of the salt and roast on foil lined (for neatness sake) sheet for 30 minutes or until pieces are tender, turning it midway if your oven bakes unevenly. Set aside to cool slightly.

3. Caramelize onions: While squash is roasting, melt butter in a heavy skillet and cook onion over low heat with the remaining half-teaspoon of salt and pinch of sugar, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly golden brown, about 20 minutes. Stir in cayenne.

4. Raise the oven temperature to 400 degrees. Mix squash, caramelized onions, cheese and herbs together in a bowl.

5. Assemble galette: On a floured work surface, roll the dough out into a 12-inch round. Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet. (note: Make sure it is rimmed!!) Spread squash, onions, cheese and herb mixture over the dough, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border. Fold the border over the squash, onion and cheese mixture, pleating the edge to make it fit. The center will be open.

6. Bake until golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven, let stand for 5 minutes, then slide the galette onto a serving plate. Cut into wedges and serve hot, warm or at room temperature. Serves 6.

I took a picture of my own efforts, but Bob has the camera so I’ll upload later. Until then I’ll leave you with the photo of Deb’s from Smitten Kitchen. Her picture is prettier than mine anyway.

I don’t eat a lot of white bread. Almost all of the bread I bake or buy is either whole wheat, multi-grain, pumpernickel or rye. One of the notable exceptions to this rule is Italian Bread. There’s something about an authentic loaf of Italian bread with it’s hard crust and soft, spongy middle that makes me want to eat the whole thing, slice by slice with a thick layer of butter.

There’s a fantastic Italian bakery up the street from me that specializes in desserts but bakes bread as well. It sells out pretty quickly so whenever I see it on the racks I can’t help but buy two. For only a dollar a loaf it’s well worth it. We can usually eat the first loaf the day I bring it home. The second loaf doesn’t always get eaten right away making it perfect for this recipe for Eggplant and Country Bread Lasagna from Lidia’s Italy.

Yes, I know I just wrote about lasagna, but this dish is different. Instead of noodles, Italian (or country bread) soaks up the sauce and causes crisp, sauteed eggplant to lose all traces of bitterness. Even people who claim not to like eggplant like this dish. It’s perfect.

Eggplant and Country Bread Lasagna
(recipe adapted from Lidia’s Italy- the recipe wasn’t on the site the first time I tried it so I improvised)

*you can skip this step if you’re pressed for time.

The night before last we had Spinach and Ginger Fried Rice along with some leftover Roasted Carrot Soup for dinner so last night I decided we (well, I) needed a little extra protein. Bob never remembered to take chicken out of the freezer in the garage and all we have in the kitchen freezer is ground beef. I know this recipe is completely inauthentic, but rather than make my standby hamburgers, meatloaf, meatballs or sloppy Joes I figured I’d give Shepherd’s Pie a shot. I’ve only ever made and eaten it with vegetarian meat substitutes, never meat, so last night’s attempt was a first. It turned out pretty good and I got it on the table in under an hour.

My Inauthentic Shepherd’s Pie

1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 lb ground beef or lamb ( you can use turkey or meat substitute, but you’ll probably need to adjust the seasonings)
1 1/2 lbs potatoes, quartered (I used 2 baking potatoes)
1/2 stick butter
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup stock or broth (beef stock preferably, but I used chicken)
1 tbsp flour
1 tbsp minced fresh rosemary
1 tbsp minced fresh thyme
Couple of handfuls of frozen peas
11 oz can corn, rinsed and drained
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain, and mash with butter then milk. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a large skillet. Cook onion, carrot and celery until softened, about five minutes. Add the meat and cook until browned, stirring frequently to break up the meat, about five to ten minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about a minute. Stir in the flour and cook about a minute more, Add the stock, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper and cook until absorbed, about five minutes.

Spread the meat mixture in the bottom of a 9 inch pie plate. Top with corn and peas. Spread the mashed potatoes over the meat and vegetables. Cook for about 20 minutes, until potatoes are browned.

This recipe isn’t exactly quick- it takes about an hour start to finish- but it is definitely easy and for the most part it’s hands off. All you need are some carrots, onions, a couple of cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and a carton or some cans of chicken stock.

Roasting vegetables gives them a richer, sweeter taste. Carrots, which are sweet to begin with, are less cloying and more grown up when roasted with onions and garlic. Without any extra fat or dairy, Roasted Carrot soup is rich, creamy, healthy and simple. You can make the flavors more complex by adding a bit of ginger (fresh or powdered) or you can make it even creamier by serving with a dollop of sour cream or plain yogurt. If you prefer a vegetarian (vegan, actually) version, use vegetable stock.

Last night, with a pathetically empty refrigerator I had no choice but to keep it simple. With a fussy toddler tugging on my legs and a husband who had to work late I had neither the time nor the inclination to defrost anything from my freezer stash or run to the store for extra ingredients. We had Roasted Carrot Soup and half a loaf of French baguette for butter with dinner. There were no complaints, though Sam did insist on eating his soup with a fork.

Roasted Carrot Soup

Let the vegetables cool slightly. If you have an immersion blender add the vegetables to the stock and blend directly in the pot. Otherwise, remove the veggies to a blender and puree, adding stock as needed. (Don’t add all of the vegetables at once- do two batches. If the vegetables are too hot and the blender is too full it can cause pressure to build up and blow the top right off the blender. I’ve done it. Now I blend in two batches) Put the vegetable puree in the stock and stir to combine and reheat. Serve hot.

This is the quick-ish and easy-ish lasagna I recently overcomplicated. If your ingredients are measured and ready to go this takes an hour total to make. If you like, you can assemble the lasagna, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours before use. Allow to sit at room temperature for an hour before cooking. You can also make two and freeze one, wrapping it with a layer of foil over the plastic wrap. Defrost it in the refrigerator for 24 hours and allow to sit and room temperature for an hour before baking.

Simple Cheese Lasagna
from the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

15 oz ricotta cheese (1 ¾ cups)
2 ½ oz Parmesan Cheese, grated (1 ¼ cups)
½ cup minced fresh basil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
6 cups chunky tomato sauce (about 2 24- to 26-oz jars)
1 (8 or 9 oz) package no-boil lasagna noodles
1 lb whole milk mozzarella, shredded (4 cups)

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 375 degrees. Mix the ricotta, 2 cups of Parmesan, basil, egg, salt and pepper until well combined.

Spread ¼ cup of the tomato sauce over the bottom of a 9 by 13- inch baking dish. Place 3 of the noodles on top of the sauce and drop 3 tablespoons of the ricotta mixture down the center of each noodle and spread it to an even thickness. Sprinkle evenly with one cup of the mozzarella. Spoon 1 ½ cups of the sauce evenly over the cheese. Repeat this layering two more times.

For the final layer, place the 3 remaining noodles on top. Spread the remaining sauce over the noodles. Sprinkle with the remaining mozzarella and then the remaining Parmesan. Spray a large sheet of foil lightly with vegetable oil spray, cover and bake the lasagna for 15 minutes.

Remove the foil and bake until the cheese is browned and the sauce is bubbling, about 25 minutes longer. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Hazelnuts are high in protein and good-for-you unsaturated fat. Many brands of packaged mixed nuts contain lightly salted hazelnuts (also called filberts) in addition to the typical cashew, almond, walnut, peanut mix. They’re great for snacking on plain or salted, and they’re also now making hazelnut butter which is just like peanut butter only, well, made with hazelnuts. Hazelnut coffee is the only flavored coffee l like (though please don’t give coffee to your kids!) and hazelnut liquors like Frangelico are delicious poured over ice cream or just over ice (again, please don’t give booze to your kids!) Combined with chocolate, hazelnuts are divine.

Nutella, a chocolate hazelnut spread, is the easiest way to get your chocolate- hazelnut fix and you can even serve it for breakfast. I love hazelnut crepes, but sticking to my quick and easy theme I’ll just link to a recipe for the crepes (which require more effort for breakfast than I generally like to commit to) and give you a recipe for a close second in deliciousness. Grilled Banana and Nutella sandwiches. If you have a panini press, sandwich press, or George Foreman Grill I recommend using that for the ease of clean up and minimal effort, but if you don’t have specialty equipment any frying pan will do.

Grilled Nutella and Banana Sandwiches
makes 2

1 ripe banana sliced and mashed
4 slices whole wheat bread
1/3 cup Nutella
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon confectioners (powdered) sugar (optional)

Place the bread slices on a flat surface and spread each slice with some Nutella. Spread the mashed banana over 2 of the slices and combine to make 2 sandwiches. Butter both sides of the sandwich.

Heat the grill or frying pan to medium-high. Place the sandwiches on the grill and cook until golden brown on both sides (cooking times vary, but it usually takes 3-5 minutes on my preheated panini press). If using a frying pan flip the sandwiches after the bottom is browned and cook the other side until brown and crisp. Remove from the grill and sprinkle with the confectioners’ sugar. Eat immediately.

Btw, I didn’t forget about the lasagna recipe! I’ll post it tomorrow.

Remember how I wrote that I was going to attempt to start using some quick and easy recipes? It turns out I’m not so good at it. The Saturday after Christmas we had my husband’s aunt, uncle, cousins and their kids over for Christmas round two and I decided that to make things easy on myself I’d make a salad, two lasagnas (because I could make them in advance) and let everyone else bring the rest. I new that one of the lasagnas I planned to make was labor-intensive. It’s a Lasagna Bolognese from Cook’s Illustrated and I’ve been eying it for months. But for the second lasagna I decided to make a regular spinach and cheese lasagna as simply as possible.

Of course I couldn’t make it simple. Rather than use a jarred sauce like most easy lasagna recipes call for I decided to make my own. Two days before the scheduled dinner I pulled out the tomatoes I froze over the summer and made a quick (ish) chunky tomato sauce. Then I started the ragu for the bolognese. As the meat simmered I realized that most of my husband’s family wouldn’t understand a plain meat lasagna. They’d want to know where the cheese was. So I decided to make a third lasagna with meat and cheese. This meant making more sauce because if I was making homemade for the first two I certainly wasn’t going to buy a sauce for the third.

While it should have taken no more than 2 hours to assemble all three lasagnas it ended up taking most of the following afternoon after making another batch of tomato sauce, reheating the ragu, making a bechamel sauce, cooking the meat for the third lasagna, chopping, cleaning and spinning spinach and basil, combining the ricotta mixture and grating four cups of Parmesan. Once all of that was done it took no time at all to assemble the three lasagnas, but I really could have simplified things by buying a couple of jars of sauce, pre-grated cheese and frozen spinach.

Here they are assembled and uncooked. From left to right: meat and cheese, spinach and cheese, bolognese

Sam just woke up from his nap so tomorrow I’ll post the recipes for the meat and cheese and the spinach and cheese. I promise I’ll make it easier for you than I did for me.