MangiaMore: zucchini LASAGNA

RER 6.30.16

Because I am currently a lady of leisure—school’s out for summer— I have been given a charge, a responsibility, a duty: I must make dinner for my family at least once a week (emphasis on “at least”).  I am not going to say it is an honor, or even a pleasure, but it sure will be an adventure, experience, experiment, whatever you want to call it.

RER 6.30.16

RER 6.30.16

If you can’t tell by my blog and the foods that I make, I would call myself more of a baker than a cook. They say baking is a science, whereas cooking comes from passion and the soul. When baking a chocolate cake or whipping up some zucchini bread or even rolling out some bomb sugar cookies, there is an element of precision to the creation of these confections. Too much of something and not enough of something else can cause your dessert to fall flat. Must. Measure. Everything. But don’t get me wrong; there is plenty of room for creativity in baking. There is combining of flavors and playing with textures, the gamut.

RER 6.30.16

RER 6.30.16

Cooking, at times, has looser guidelines—a pinch of salt, a clove of garlic, pepper to taste, a pad of butter. It is about how the sauce smells when it is simmering on the stovetop, or how the eggs feel when scrambled in butter, or the give of the meat swimming in its juices. A little bit of this, and a touch of that, and some more of this, one more taste. Cooking might just take that intuition that I lack. If intuition is a part of human biology, then perhaps, cooking is science too.

RER 6.30.16

RER 6.30.16

RER 6.30.16

RER 6.30.16

To start my weekly endeavors, I found a tasty-looking Tasty recipe on Buzzfeed for some zucchini lasagna. I watched the Tasty (not to be confused with tasty) video over and over. As my sister would say, “my body was ready.” I was ready to make this noodle-less lasagna, but I was more ready to eat it.

RER 6.30.16

RER 6.30.16

Luckily, despite a stiff neck and a self-diagnosed strained thoracolumbar fascia, the recipe was pretty easy to bring to fruition. I measured everything, down to the salt, pepper, and olive oil but added a tiny flair of my own to the dish: red pepper flakes and mozzarella cheese. I was willing to sacrifice noodles, but not mozzarella cheese (nota bene: not all lasagna must have pasta, but all lasagna must have mozzarella). Using a vegetable peeler to make the zoodles was a chore, but delightfully destructive. Even though mozzarella was lacking from the recipe, I was happy to see that the ricotta was flavored with goodies rather than plopped right from the plastic container. A little salt goes a long way. Definitely.

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The results: a happy Mommie (because she did not have to cook), satisfied bellies, and one week of my cooking penance down. Stay tuned for my weekly, my at least weekly installments of dinner dishes.

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6.30.16

RER 6.30.16