A Year of Blogging: July 29, 2011

July 29 was 'National Lasagna Day'. Lasagna is perhaps my most favorite food. Pasta, meat, and delicious melted cheese. It is comforting. It's also filling, and better yet- it's a dish you can cook one night and eat on for at least two. Unlike most leftovers which end up tasting kind of rubbery or bland the next day, lasagna tastes better on the second day once all the flavors have had a chance to marry (I learned that term on The Food Network!). If I weren't the family historian, I would swear we were Italian. Or had an Italian link somewhere in the tree. But Italy seems to be one of the few countries in Europe that my ancestors did not hail from. My brother-in-law has some Italian roots, but he's a relative newcomer to the family. Mom made a lot of Italian dishes. We had spaghetti and meatballs (my mother makes the BEST meatballs- they are close to the size of a tennis ball), baked ziti, stuffed shells, and lasagna. Our family loves pasta, meat, and cheese. Italian restaurants have always been among our favorites, right up there with a good steak place. If Mom or my sister (and sometimes the Aunts) see someone who they think is too thin, their first words are 'Eat something!' Before Dad's hair turned white, he had jet black hair and a deep tan; he looked very Italian. Our last name is pronounced Pre-mo, and it has often been mistaken for Italian. It's quite funny, because we are mostly of German descent. Should you find yourself questioning if we are part Italian, you only need to look at our pasta. We buy it at the grocery store, in a box. I have never made pasta in my life, and have no intentions of doing it. Mom makes the homemade meatballs. The pasta comes from a box, the cheese is Kraft and the sauce is Ragu. I love lasagna, but it's a chore to make. Cook the noodles, brown the beef, then layer noodles, beef, cheese, and sauce in a pan. Then you have to bake it for about an hour. You have to start cooking dinner at least 2 hours before you are ready to eat. If you've been following my blog, you know that is just not me. Especially not on a weeknight. I get home from work a little after 5, if I were to start making lasagna when I get home, we wouldn't be eating until well after 7pm. So if I'm going to make lasagna, I usually assemble it on Sunday and put it in the frig. Then we can cook it Monday night and since it's just the two of us, we can eat it for several days. Which means I don't have to cook for a few days! A couple of years ago I stumbled on a recipe for lasagna rolls. You cook the noodles and brown the beef just the same. Then you put the sauce into the beef and let it simmer for a little. You take one noodle, stretch it out, and put some of the beef and sauce mixture down the length of the noodle, top it off with some shredded mozzarella and roll up the noodle. It looks like a lasagna pinwheel. The rolls are then added to the baking dish, covered with sauce and cheese and baked for about 20-30 minutes. It is so much easier than making a full lasagna! This is a dish I can make after work. And it actually has all the cheesy goodness. The only difference really is that it doesn't have the ricotta cheese. When I first made it, Erich referred to it as 'lasagna without the nasty ricotta'. Turns out he doesn't like ricotta, but had been eating my lasagna for 8 years without mentioning it. So now I only make lasagna rolls, and if I want 'real' lasagna, I order it at a restaurant. I'm not sure why Lasagna Day is July 29. It would seem much more appropriate to have it in the middle of winter, than in the middle of summer. I don't eat a lot of Italian food in the summer, because it's so heavy. Plus, heating the oven heats the whole kitchen, and the last thing I want when it's 100* outside is more heat inside! Although, now I could really go for some lasagna...