CrankyAsAnOldMan: OK, I once calculated the approximate weight of one of my lasagna batches. The total was 22 lbs, IIRC (it was a long time ago). :eek: That was BEFORE my sister (wonderful sister!) solved the ‘lasagna-too-big-for-pan’ problem by giving me a lasagna pan. It’s huge and I love it. No longer do I have to split everything between two or three pans! No longer must I create special sideboards out of cardboard and foil, so that my pans are deep enough to hold all of the pasta goodness! (hint, hint ;))
I dunno about the cheese & sauce thing. I make my own sauce, very thick, in tremendous amounts, and just freeze the leftovers. I don’t like soupy lasagna from too much sauce, though - a piece of mine will stand up (literally!) to the task. If you have leftover noodles, you just eat 'em, silly people! That’s what the leftover sauce is for! (Or butter & garlic & herbs, if you’ve no leftover sauce. Mmmmmmmm.)
I use ricotta & cottage cheese in equal amounts (it solves the ‘too dry’ problem of ricotta without having to add egg & such weirdness). It’s been quite a while since I made any (hmmm, may have to do something about that), but I think I use about 2 lbs of each. Plus several pounds of other cheeses. Seasoning is freestyle, but it does take a lot - way more than any recipe I’ve ever seen. My sweeties don’t like meat sauces, so I’ll have to re-invent my sauce, though. Maybe I’ll add spinach, while I’m at it…
wring - I can’t cook rice, either. My spouse gets it to come out right, every time, with nothing more than a saucepan. <grrrr> I have a rice steamer with a timer & all. It works beautifully, I remember. You put in rice and water and push the button. If I knew where the instructions had gone, I could make rice again. (Of course, I much prefer steamed rice - like you get from Chinese food places - to boiled, anyway.)
Microwave method: I use this one at home, 'cos it is just so easy…
1 cup rice
1 2/3 cups water
14 minutes on High or
2 cups rice
2 3/4 cups water
21 minutes on High
In either case, simply put the dry rice in a microwave container. Add the water, a little salt and a little oil. Cover. Microwave on High power. (Microwaves tend to vary a lot in power… I think mine’s 750 watt… so the first time cook for a shorter time, check, repeat, etc).
Traditional Iranian method: This one was taught to me by an ex-flatmate from Iran, who learnt it from his mother, and so on… It’s a bit fiddly, but it makes the absolutely best, fluffiest rice.
Some rice (however much you want).
Plenty of water.
Salt.
Some oil.
A potato, peeled and sliced.
Boil the rice in the water with salt added (the exact proportions don’t matter, just make sure the rice is covered… the plan here is not to absorb all the water. Once the rice is almost fully cooked (cooked on the outside, but still with a slightly crunchy center), drain it and put it aside (it’ll still be wet). Heat a large pot (possibly the same one you just boiled the rice in), add a little oil and cover the base with the potato slices. Cook for a minute or two, turn the heat right down. Transfer the mostly cooked rice into the pot, and create a cone/pyramid. (Covering the pot bottom at the base and tapering to the top. Poke some air channels in the mound with a fork handle/whatever. Cover the pot lid in a tea-towel/dish-cloth and fit to pot. Make sure the heat is right down. Keep cooking until the rice is light and fluffy and all of the moisture has been absorbed. The potato will prevent the rice sticking to the pot, and there will also be very yummy, crunchy, potato slices waiting at the bottom.
I used to work at an Italian restaurant, and I was always amazed at how absolutely huge the lasagna pans were. They were almost five inches deep, but I was given one when the owners bought new ones. The first time I used it at home I was surprised to find that it was the absolute perfect size to accomodate my recipe, which like some others have said, never seemed to fit into any of the pans I had.
Also: lasagna without ricotta? Inconcievable. For me at least. I love ricotta.
After years of burning rice, I finally broke down last week and purchased an electric, automatic rice steamer. Whoopee! I can’t believe I made do without it before! It is absolutely idiot proof, which, unfortunately, is important for me.
For lasagne, I use a variety of cheeses, including chunky/watery types like riccotta, and melting types like mozzerella. The moisture from the former helps carry the spices throughout the cheese layers without getting lost in the sauce spices. The fat of the latter carries the flavour of the melted cheeses, which tend to be more flavourful than the non-melting cheeses.
A deep tray is essential. If it isn’t deep enough to bury a body, it isn’t lasagne. It needs to function sort of like a coffee perculator, letting the watery but spice laden juices flow between levels.
On an unrelated kitchen appliance note, I just made the perfect waffle. On Saturday I dropped down to Grand Marais, MN, to see the fall colours, and picked up a rusty old 1908 Griswold waffle iron. Yesterday I cleaned it up and seasoned it, and today I fiddled around with various stove settings and flipping times. The result? I’m now crunching through a perfect waffle. Yummers. I’m going to go make another one.
I know this is going to sound really stupid, but how else would you cook rice?
(I was wondering earlier in the thread, because even I, who has burned or otherwise destroyed almost every other food known to man, managed to master the rice cooker with very little effort)
Suppose we put a cat in a box with a lasagne, a weight scale, and an alarm; further suppose that the lasagne has a fifty-fifty chance of being eaten by the cat within the hour. If the lasagne is eaten, the weight scale will trigger the alarm; the triggering of the alarm will wake the cat from its after dinner snooze. If the lasagne is not eaten, none of the above things happen, and the cat will be asleep anyway, for that’s what cats do. Now the question, What is the state of the cat after the hour?
Answer? If you consider the problem from a quantum perspective, then before opening the box, the cat is in a state which can be thought of as half-asleep and half-awake. This is known as a coherent superposition: many different solutions exist simultaneously. However, the superposition breaks down as soon as the cat is observed to have or have not eaten the lasagne. This is the reason that there has never been a coherent superposition witnessed.
Remember this the next time you go into the refridgerator only to find that half the time someone or something has chowed through your lasagne. Blame it on the quantum cat who may or may not be snoozing innocently.
Can’t solve your lasagne paradox, but I have noticed that no matter how “HOT” I make a batch of chili, people are silly enough to eat it and still claim it isn’t hot enough. Never mind it takes 'em five to ten minutes for their eyes to stop watering and the rest of the day to get feeling back to their tongues. Just doesn’t make much sense to me. But, that is how I like my chili, so maybe they aren’t so weird afterall. Ack! I’m babbling and haven’t helped you at all…
No longer do I have to split everything between two or three pans! No longer must I create special sideboards out of cardboard and foil, so that my pans are deep enough to hold all of the pasta goodness! (hint, hint ;))
(Of course, I much prefer steamed rice - like you get from Chinese food places - to boiled, anyway.)