Lasagne So Good You'll Eat It for Breakfast Too

I'll be celebrating my "matchiversary" with my husband tomorrow; just 2 years ago we matched by swiping right on each other's dating profiles, resulting in marriage a mere 4 months later. This past weekend I was dumbfounded to realize that I had never made my husband lasagne. MY lasagne. The lasagne my mom calls "her last meal should she ever go on death row." Let's hope it never comes to that, but short of bringing a child into the world, cooking lasagne is probably on the short list of my proudest accomplishments.

Anyway, food is love. Lasagne is really, really love, given the time it takes to make. And I love my husband very much, but this. THIS. ?!!! It's a pretty glaring omission. I knew that I had to remedy the lack of love in my marriage immediately. Cooking this lasagne proved to be the perfect Sunday-afternoon-during-a-snowstorm activity to kick off this Valentine's week.

Disclaimer: I am not Italian. I am an American, though I did live in Italy for a year and a half, 8 months of which I spent in Bologna, the heart of the Emilia-Romagna and the cradle of many things Italian food: balsamic vinegar, parmegiano cheese, mortadella, tortellini, and lasagne. My recipe, however, is not northern Italian, but rather from a friend who spent considerable time in Sicily.

This is not my complete recipe, but here are a few recommendations/commandments for making lasagne that will change your life if followed in just about any lasagne recipe you and your family love:

1. Don't boil your noodles. Just DON'T. Layer your lasagne with DRY noodles. This is, in fact, a commandment.
2. In addition to the obvious tomato base and ground beef, my ragu has, surprise: peas and carrots.
3. I season my ragu with salt, pepper, cayenne, and nutmeg. That's not a typo. The same nutmeg you put in your pumpkin pie. No basil or oregano for me (at least in my death row recipe).
4. Regardless of the ingredients you use, make sure your ragu is very wet, as this will cook your noodles when your lasagne is baking in the oven. In the process of simmering your sauce for 1-3 hours, make sure you don't cook off too much liquid. When you put together your lasagne layers, the consistency of your ragu will be quite runny.
5. I'm not a fan of ricotta or cottage cheese in my lasagne. The taste and texture are all kinds of wrong, and not Italian. Mozzarella and parmigiano reggiano is how you do it.
6. The staples of your lasagne layers are the ragu meat sauce, the noodles, and secret weapon: besciamella, or Béchamel sauce. Why Americans have dropped the ball on the besciamella step is beyond me, as it's pretty much a glorious, delicious glue of melted butter, milk and flour that will keep your lasagne together.
7. After you finish assembling your lasagne, I beat 2 eggs with some salt and pour it on the top, creating the most delightful thin crust on top.
8. Bake your lasagna, take it out, and then let it sit. Then let it sit some more. Better yet, wait until the next day?

*I also eat gluten-free. It is possible to make this lasagne gluten-free and to even feed it to unsuspecting lovers of gluten without them ever knowing! I do make my own fresh pasta (I highly recommend Jamie Oliver's recipe https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/gluten-free-pasta-dough/ for making gluten-free pasta, with a few important tweaks... perhaps that's another post), and simply substitute the wheat flour in the besciamella with a gluten-free flour blend (typically a brown rice and white rice flour blend).

I knew all was right and good in the world when my husband asked if he could eat leftover lasagne for breakfast this morning.