Mushroom Lasagna (aka a Way to Decimate a Clean Kitchen)

When I was shopping for the ingredients for this lasagna, I felt fancy. I went to the market (not the run of the mill Safeway either, mind you), meandered through the aisles with my quaint shopping basket, and browsed the produce section.

I bought portobello mushrooms for the first time in my life. So exciting. I loved seeing all of the exotic types of mushrooms, and sorely resisted the urge to buy some shiitakes (comeon, you know it's fun to say "Shiiiiiit...ake).

While I hadn't intended on buying spinach lasagna noodles, the market was out of the regular kind, so I said to myself, "Hey, why not?" And it turned out to be one of the best substitutions I've ever made, because the the green pigment made the lasagna look beautiful. It was an appearance that was almost equal to its taste, but let me tell you the taste by FAR surpassed any beauty that the green noodles provided.

I'm pretty confident that I used every single dish in my apartment to create this masterpiece, and if you saw a picture of the state of my kitchen after this thing went in the oven, you'd think you were looking at a scene from a horror movie.

But it was worth it. Ohhhh was it worth it. The portobellos had so much flavor, and the combination of earthy mushrooms with a creamy bechamel sauce and slightly spinachy noodles made for the best dinner I've ever eaten outside of a restaurant.

(Also, for a new blog feature! At the end of every post I'll let you know what music I'm listening to while I blog. It's my favorite time to listen to music, and I think it'd be interesting to track my song obsessions through this site.)

Current Song Obsession: YourBiggestFan by Nevershoutnever!

Mushroom Lasagna Recipe:

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen 

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Salt
Olive oil
3/4 pound dried spinach lasagna noodles
1 large clove garlic, minced
4 cups whole milk
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, divided
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 

1 1/2 pounds portobello mushrooms
1 cup freshly grated parmesan

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Bring water to boil in a large, wide pot with a little salt and oil for your lasagna noodles. (You can use this pot to saute your mushrooms later.) Once boiling, add noodles and boil for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. For bechamel sauce: In a saucepan, bring milk and garlic to a simmer. In a separate saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter and add flour. Cook 1 minute over low heat, whisking constantly. In small amounts, begin adding the milk mixture to the butter/flour mixture., stirring until combined. Continue to do this until all of the milk is incorporated. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, the pepper, and the nutmeg. Cook over a medium-low heat, stirring often, until thick (about 3-5 minutes). Set aside.

3. For the shrooms: Lightly wash mushrooms and discard the stems. Slice mushrooms 1/4 inch thick. On medium heat in the same pan you used for the noodles, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter. Add 1/2 of the mushrooms with a pinch of salt and cook for 5 minutes, until tender and release some of their liquid. Repeat with the other half.

4. Lasagna Assembly: In a 8 x 12 pan, spread some of the sauce. Add a layer of noodles. Then 1/4 of remaining sauce. Then 1/3 of mushrooms. Then 1/4 cup grated parmesan. Repeat two times, finishing with a final layer of noodles, sauce, and remaining parmesan.

5. Bake for 45 minutes, until top is browned and bubbly. Let sit 15 minutes. Consume epically delicious food.

Mission: Homemade Pasta, Status: Complete

For years I was intimidated by homemade pasta. Sticky dough, stringy noodles, gross textures... all of these potential pasta-making hiccups truly terrified me. But I finally told myself to just pluck up the courage and try it - the worst that could happen was that my family would politely smile through the first few bites and then order a pizza.

Knowing that even though the recipe sounded simple, I would need lots of time (being the novice cook that I am), so I started my pasta at 4, hoping to have it on the table by 6:30.

So... I'm not gonna lie - I was really, REALLY excited to get to mix the pasta dough by hand. When I first heard that this was how pasta dough was made, I was skeptical, but after several confirmations on this fact, I started getting giddy. Playing with my food? Awesome! Starting the process by making a flour-well with eggs inside, I felt confident, because this is how it was supposed to look (no mess-ups yet - go me!).

Swirl, swirl, swirl; mix, mix mix. Gooey hands, messy counter top. So messy, in fact, that I had to ask my mom to take some of my photos for me, because as you can see...

...my tripod wasn't going to work for this situation.

After much mixing, my dough finally started to come together into one, sticky lump. I kept adding flour and kneading the dough, and with some tender-loving care, my dough turned into a ball. I had a lot of the original flour left over, so I strained it in a mesh sieve to get out all the little egg-crumbs and put it in a bowl (you can see it in the above picture) to use for the rest of the pasta process. Yay for being economical!

So far so good, right? Well, technically yes. However, when I rolled out the first quarter of the dough and tried to cut it up, my noodles kept sticking together. Uh oh. It was now past 5:00, and with three more portions to do, I started panicking that there wouldn't be enough time. The result? No pictures of my rolling/cutting process. Sorry guys :(

However, I found a solution: use lots and lots and LOTS of flour. Like, when you think you've used enough flour, use more. Seriously. I figured this out after the first two batches of sticky noodles, and the last two batches went much more smoothly because of it.

Then the moment of truth arrived: boiling the pasta and testing it. My heart was pounding, and my worry-brow was forming (you know that crease you get in your forehead when you're stressed?), but after a few minutes, I tested a noodle and....

It tasted like pasta. Wow! I felt a little silly, because for some reason I didn't think that homemade pasta would taste like normal noodles. They did, in case you're wondering. But they tasted good! Something about the homemadiness made the noodles taste extra delicious, even more so than boxed pasta (a favorite of mine to begin with).

The only bad part of this whole experience was that dinner was late. Because of my battle with the two sticky batches of dough, dinner didn't get on the table until 6:50. Whoops. But I feel like this is the type of dish that can potentially go really quickly once you get the hang of it, so next time I make it I won't have to wrestle with sticky noodles for half an hour.

My family seemed to enjoy dinner, despite it's tardiness, and there was one final surprise for all of us: homemade pasta fills you up really, really quickly. After one moderate portion for all of us, we felt incredibly full. So full, in fact, that despite the pasta's deliciousness, we couldn't make room for seconds or else we'd burst. This meant that even though the noodles were feeding 5 people, we had enough leftovers to feed us all for a second dinner. Homemade pasta leftovers? I definitely didn't complain :)

Recipe:

Adapted from the Joy of Cooking

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
5 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil (optional)

1. Mound flour onto a clean counter, make a well in the center. Add eggs and optional ingredients to well. Using your hands, beat eggs, drawing in some flour as you go. Gradually incorporate the flour into the eggs and blend everything into a smooth, not too stiff dough. If the dough feels too dry and crumbly, add water as needed. Knead the dough until satiny and very elastic, about 10 minutes. Cover in plastic wrap and let dough rest for 30 minutes.
2. Generously flour a large surface. Cut dough into 4 pieces. Using only one piece at a time, roll out dough until 1/32 inch thick (you should be able to see magazine words though the dough, but not necessary make out what they say). Cut dough as desired. If making fettuccine, spaghetti, or some other thin noodle, cut strips narrower than you want them to be, as the dough will expand when boiled.
3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Depending on noodle type, pasta can be done as soon as 2 minutes, so keep testing until noodles are al dente and no longer taste like raw flour.

Easiest Lasagna in the Whole Entire World

As a kid, my mom never wanted to make lasagna - she said it took too long. I always felt like I was missing a crucial part of childhood because I never had homemade lasagna. When I moved into my apartment, I decided that I would make lasagna myself, thank you very much. Then I looked at recipes and realized that it was horribly time consuming. But lo' and behold, a recipe that is quick and delicious!!! (It still has to bake for over an hour, but you can busy yourself with many other things in that time: do laundry, study, clean the kitchen, or just talk with your roommate (my preferred option)).

So without further ado, here it is!

Easy-Peasy Veggie Lasagna
My version serves 6 - the perfect amount for my roommate and I to enjoy for dinner and have leftovers, too!
(Adapted from an allrecipes.com entry: Veggie No Boiling Lasagna)

1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (i used the powder stuff and it was fine)
1 egg
1 jar (26 ounces) cheap pasta sauce
6 uncooked lasagna noodles

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Heat olive oil in a a medium skillet over medium-high heat and cook onion and red pepper, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes (or until tender).
2. Meanwhile, combine ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, 1/8 cup Parmesan cheese, and egg in a medium bowl. (I left out the egg and it was fine. It was a little harder to spread in the pan because it was thicker,but manageable)
3. Spread 1/2 cup pasta sauce in a 11 x 7-inch baking dish. Layer 2 uncooked noodles, then 1/2 cup sauce, 1/2 of the ricotta mixture and 1/2 of the vegetables; repeat. Top with remaining uncooked noodles and 1 cup of sauce.
4. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake 1 hour. Remove foil and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Bake uncovered 10 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. (I didn't use foil and it was fine. I think it is just meant to make sure that the noodles don't dry out too much. My top noodles were a bit chewy, but I like them that way!)


And there you have it! Super easy lasagna. So go ahead, quench your never-ceding lasagna desire. Make it, eat it, and then say yummmm.