And now, food! I can't remember if I've mentioned it before or not, but I love stuffed pasta. Ravioli, shells, tortellini, I love it all! You will not catch me making it, though. I've tried, and it's such a faff. So much work! You know what's a great cheat, though? Lasagna. That's right! I said it! Lasagna is overgrown stuffed pasta! And I'm here to review a great recipe for it. Whoops, I suppose I should have given a spoiler alert before I said it was great. Sorry to give away the ending like that.
Let's talk chefs for a moment. If you know me at all, you know I'm a massive Alton Brown fan. But what about those other Food Network peeps? Yeah, not so much. Most of them, in my personal opinion, are a little too fancy. They're cheffy chefs that want to chef up every dish and make it cheffing cheffy. You know what I mean. Ingredients you can only buy at gourmet grocery stores, fussing over every little thing, taking hours to do just one step...guh! No. Get outta here with that noise. There is an exception here, however: Ina Garten. I have never watched one of her shows, but this lady knows how to keep it simple. If I'm Googling a recipe, I'll often look for one by her because she's pretty reliable. In this case, I used her Turkey Lasagna recipe.
The first thing I liked about this recipe (and quite possibly my most favorite part besides how yummy it is) is the fact that you don't have to cook the noodles! What a faff cooking lasagna noodles is! You have to get the water boiling and and then cook the noodles and hope you don't over do it and then get them out without tearing them and burning yourself in the process. That is why I never really made lasagna before. Those days are over, my friends! Just plonk your lasagna noodles into some water and leave them be. I also appreciate that the recipe told us exactly how many layers to do, exactly how to divide up the filling, etc. I don't want to have to do math while layering pasta. And then you just bake it.
I did not do this recipe exactly the way it was written (shocker, right). Instead, I went a more traditional route and just used ground beef and ricotta. It was so stinkin' tasty! And it works great with GF pasta noodles - if you've ever had to deal with GF pasta, you know how finicky it can be. Sadly, I have no pictures because I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. The hubs told our guests that night they weren't allowed to take any home and that they also shouldn't have any leftovers. Said guests ignored him and went back for seconds anyway. :-) Even if you just use this as a method, it's fantastic! You could use store bought sauces to get really creative. I best you could do a veggie version with squash and zucchini and alfredo sauce. Or chicken with vodka sauce. The possibilities are endless! Try this recipe. You will be very happy you did.
Cheers!
Dana
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