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bachelorette weekend

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SOTU drinking game, 2008 - 2008-01-27
little light - 2007-12-19
hamburger phone - 2007-12-18
why 'grease' is a perfect LA movie - 2007-12-17
recipe: barley treasure - 2007-10-12

2003-12-05 - 1:47 a.m.

i only really know how to cook a few things. heck, my boyfriend can make a piecrust and i can barely grate cheese. but taste is my weapon. and what i know how to do, i do very, very well.

this recipe takes 40 minutes to make. it costs about $30 if you buy all organic ingredients (i did, except for the noodles and the sausage). it will feed 12 hungry people, or you for a week.

bachelorette weekend

  • greased lasagna pan
  • 1 bottle cheap shiraz or chianti
  • 2 packages no-bake lasagna noodles
  • 1 32oz jar tomato basil pasta sauce
  • 1 lb fontina cheese
  • 1 1/2 lbs sweet italian sausage
  • 3 leeks
  • 2 red bell peppers
  • 16oz ricotta cheese
  • 2 eggs
  • salt, pepper, herbes fines to taste

  1. take a load off. relax. put on your slippers. cue up some cooking music (i recommend X's double album wild gift/los angeles). preheat the oven to 350.
  2. pour yourself a glass of wine.
  3. do the prep work first: dice your peppers and slice your leeks (only the white and light green parts). grate all the cheese. beat the eggs, salt, pepper, and herbs into the ricotta.
  4. heat up a nonstick pan. slice the sausage casings open and lay the sausage flat on the pan. brown throroughly, and smash them into smaller and smaller bits as you stir them on the skillet. use a slotted spoon to remove them from the skillet (set the sausage aside for now), and leave as much of the pork fat in the pan as you can.
  5. vegetarian variation: you can certainly use fake sausage or meat for this recipe. it won't taste the same, but it'll taste good. brown the fake meat as suggested for the sausage above. add a little butter or olive oil to the vegetables in the next instruction. now you're on track.
  6. dump the peppers and leeks into the skillet with the leftover pork fat. cook over high heat until the leeks brown and the peppers are limp.
  7. assemble the lasagna: spoon a 1/3 of the sauce from the jar onto the bottom of the greased lasagna pan. lay down a layer of noodles. cover that layer with half the grated cheese, and the pepper and leek mixture from the skillet. be sure to spread things out evenly. cover that with a layer of noodles. cover that layer with the ricotta mixture. another layer of noodles. spoon another 1/3 of sauce over those noodles and now add the sausage in a layer. cover the sausage with a layer of noodles, and top the whole thing off with the rest of the grated cheese, followed by the remainder of the sauce.
  8. cover your lasagna with tin foil. i like to tent the top a little bit so it doesn't melt into the cheese. bake at 350 for 25 minutes, or until the cheese bubbles.
  9. turn off the oven. remove the foil. leave the lasagna in there for another 10 minutes. then remove it from the oven. when it cools enough to eat, slice and serve.
  10. pour yourself another glass of wine, sit back with a slice of lasagna, and watch a movie that your boyfriend would rather claw his eyes out than watch (i recommend 'white oleander' starring michelle pfeiffer and renee zellweger).