Lasagna, a labor of love

Last weekend I decided to make veggie lasagna. It turned out to be much more than pasta, veggies and cheese.

It was a Saturday afternoon, the night before Halloween and I had the house to myself for the weekend, so I figured it was a perfect time to do some entertaining. Since I wasn't in any rush, I decided to walk to the grocery store to shop for the ingredients. Following through on my "green-lasagna" project, I even remember to bring my reusable Envirosax grocery bags (which by the way are adorable and very convenient).

Walking down Winton Road on the way market (Wegman's) and feeling very European, I observed a few other people walking by me going the opposite direction. Both were middle-aged women. One had her groceries in bags; the other in one of those carts with wheels you often see at the market. It made me reflect on a time when women spent their entire day collecting the ingredients for and preparing a meal. I am sure my grandmother spent many a day in her lifetime making lasagna noodles from scratch. Despite the fact that my grandmother and I grew up decades apart, the labor of lovethat goes into making big homemade meals and the joy of sharing them remains unchanged.

I will try to explain how I made this lasagna, but I never follow a recipe when I cook it. I check out a few recipes online and rely on my past experiences. This time I included carrots, yellow squash, red and green peppers, mushrooms, onions, spinach, broccoli and some stewed tomatoes I had leftover. I cut all the veggies up to about the same size, using the food processor to chop the zucchini and carrots. Then I cooked the ingredients all together, starting with the vegetables that take the longest to cook and gradually adding the others based on their required cooking time. The key is to get all the liquid out of the veggie mixture.

My wet cheese mixture included ricotta, California-style cottage cheese, Bertolli® Vineyard Premium Collections Marinara with Burgandy Wine Sauce, a little four-cheese alfredo sauce, and fresh oregano, parsley, basil and thyme. My dry cheese was just a combination of a bunch of different Italian cheeses.

Some may call me lazy (and wouldn't my grandma be appalled), but I use the no-boil lasagna noodles. I actually like the way they bake up, with a little more crisp and firmness to them than the kind you have to boil first.

Once I have the veggies and cheese mixtures ready to go, it's time to layer them. I decided against using my own baking pan because lasagna can really make a mess of it. I suppose this goes against my concept of a "green lasagna," but then again, I saved water with one less dish to wash! Back to the layering. You start with some of the veggie mix, then a layer of noodles, then veggies again, followed by a layer of the wet cheese, the dry cheese, and then noodles. Keep going until you run out. You typically want the top layer to be just wet and dry cheese.

I would recommend putting foil over the lasagna to keep the moisture in as it bakes. I forgot to do this and my top layer kind of dried out. I pretty much cooked it at 350 degrees until it looked done. I admit, this was not one of the best lasagnas I have ever eaten, but then again, they say lasagna is best left-over. I've heard reports that it was great the second and third time around. I hate leftovers, so I'll take those people's word for it.

Knowing the amount of leftovers I usually have when I make lasagna, I invited a half-dozen people to help me eat it all. What a wonderful surprise it was when Frank and Nancy Sinatra dropped in, along with a few other friends. In the end, it wasn't the hours of work I put into making the lasagna or the few missteps I took while making it that stands out in my head. It was the great company and conversation which flowed like the wine which I will remember.