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]

*laughter* I usually don't even bother shredding; I just dump blobs of cheese all over the place and it melts into everything just fine. But for the top layer, I dug out the grater. No good deed goes unpunished I suppose! :)

The brand I found is called Ronzoni Healthy Harvest "whole wheat blend", and I suspect the "blend" part is they added semolina and whole flaxseed meal. It looks pretty good on the nutrition facts panel on the side of the box.

Speaking of lasagna tasting good even if it doesn't look great (as other commenters have mentioned), you could do an excellent lasagna with other shapes of pasta, too. I've done it with penne. It's not quite as tidy-looking but my taste buds don't care.

It's frustrating how little whole wheat choice there is as yet. I figure the more people back away from over-refined carbs, the more choices we'll eventually get in whole grain foods. Fingers crossed!

[deege.livejournal.com]

I think lasagna with a top crust of sausage sounds incredible. I would consider making it that way on purpose. Both you and otterpop58 sliced hunks of your thumbs off in the past few days. Is this the new thing? :) Luckily it doesn't count as cannibalism if it's your own flesh.

As for Healthy Harvest pasta, the bad news is that it actually contains no whole wheat flour. (http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-145387249.html) It is mostly refined flour with some wheat bran and wheat fiber added. There are some equally tender and delicious real whole wheat pastas out there that would probably work just as well.

Overall sounds very yummy, though!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, slicing one's thumb is the new fashion!

How odd: the ingredients list on the side of the box specifically states "durum whole wheat flour" as the first ingredient. Somebody's got wrong information somewhere, and I'm a bit surprised. I agree with you, though, that any (real) whole wheat pasta would work just fine.

[deege.livejournal.com]

Maybe they've changed the formula since this information was published. I do remember there being a few articles when the product came out, taking Ronzoni to task for the discrepancy between its marketing and its actual ingredients.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Could be. In fact, now that you mention it, that's the explanation that makes the most sense to me. I bet the penalties for having a misleading product name are much less stiff than those for having outright lies in the ingredients list, so given today's ingredients list, yeah, they probably changed the product.

I love ingredients lists. (Also nutrition facts boxes, inexact though that set of measurements may be.)