Lasagna

[cjsmith]

Welcome to the latest installment of CJ Feels Stupid In The Kitchen!

This time it's lasagna, a dish even I cannot usually screw up. I decided to add Italian sausage, not in the sauce, but just adding it in between the sauce and the cheese. I made all the layers and remembered to leave a big bunch of mozzarella to put on top. I'm so smart.

When I grated that mozzarella, I took a good chip off the base of my thumb, a minor but painful goof I haven't made for years. Considering that I know better than to serve this to anybody but myself, I figured this attempt was just barely still a success. I spread out the cheese prettily.

Then I noticed the other two-thirds of the sausage, still waiting. Dangit. The only layer I remembered to put sausage on was the bottom one. So I dumped that large pile of crumbled sausage on above the cheese, pressing it down in the hopes the cheese would sort of bubble around it. Durrr. It's going to look like pizza.

But the whole thing is baking now, and mmm the smell. I adore Italian sausage.

I better get cracking if I want bread today. This will be the first time I ever try rye.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yeah, lasagna tastes good even if it doesn't look good at all. I love lasagna. (It also works excellently with whole wheat pasta, at least to my low class taste buds. Some pasta dishes just don't. Lasagna fillings overwhelm any pasta flavor.)

This rye bread recipe is half and half rye / all-purpose white [wheat] flour. That's not what I'd prefer; I'd like a higher percentage of whole grain or at the very least bread flour. Given that it also requires brown sugar (!!), I'm definitely going to mess with it or find other recipes. For this first try, though, it's right from the book. I'll post about how it comes out. And mmm, I love the smell of caraway seeds!

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Whole wheat pasta for the win!!!

I love that stuff. It's a bit hard to find, because you gotta read the labelz. People in marketing will say all sorts of stuff to get you to buy it, but the label is the final answer.

Since My Sweetie went onto South Beach for blood sugar management, we are doing a lot more wholegrain eating. Tasty and satisfying, and I'm getting more used to reading labelz. It's a pain, because I assumed that Food I purchased would be Food and not Mystery Chemical Crap, but in a modern supermarket you can't assume that, you gotta check labelz.

You -can- do 100% rye, but it doesn't rise worth a tinker's damn. Depends on what you want. If you want 100% wholegrain, get some King Arthur whole wheat flour and use the recipie on the back of the bag. I was hooked on that stuff for years. It's nutty, tasty, and rises well enough to be good even for finicky people. (I don't care if my bread doesn't rise high, I am still happy. Other folks are pickier.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

There are only two brands of whole-wheat-ish pasta at my supermarket, so reading the labels wasn't even all that onerous! I picked the one that claimed no sugars on the nutrition panel.

I'd like to look into South Beach. It sounds like approximately what I'd want: a heartfelt plea to my nutrition-related body parts saying please do not make me diabetic soon.

King Arthur whole wheat flour bags have a rye bread recipe on the back? Awesome! Thank you!