I recently made a lasagna dinner. I used the pre-cooked lasagna noodles. Like Cooks Illustrated suggested in a recent podcast, I pre-soaked the lasagna noodles in warm water for 3-4 minutes.

We started with a simple “salad” of sweet tomatoes, with typical flavors: basil, prosicutto, and mozzarella cheese. EVOO and a balsamic glaze completed the dish, alongside fresh pepper and sea salt.

The lasagna was a hybrid recipe; it couldn’t decide if it was a cheese one, a meat one, or a tomatoey one.

Ingredients included:

• one can chopped tomatoes
• garlic
• 1/2 medium onion
• 1/2 lb. pork, 1/2 lb. beef
• fresh thyme
• crimini mushrooms
• bechemel sauce (thickened milk, augmented with 3 cheeses)
• grated Fontina
• grated Parmesan
• crumbled Maytag Bleu

I layered the noodles between the cheese sauce and then the meat with mushrooms. Back and forth, cheese sauce on top, with extra parmesan. The cheese sauce could have also yielded a good macaroni and cheese dish, with the addition of bread crumbs.

Best one I’d made; the combination of cheeses was a real winner!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 9:32 pm and is filed under In the Kitchen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.