I can tell that I’m ready for summer to be over because I’m having more cooking failures than usual. Distraction, stress, exhaustion–all culprits. A couple weeks ago I tried to make this great sounding salad with caramelized fennel and bacon from a Giada recipe. I followed her recipe exactly, but rather than check on the oven full of fennel and bacon like I normally would, I let it run until the timer binged. What I took out of the oven was a blackened sheet of charcoal that had once been something edible. It was like a nuclear holocaust on my dinner salad. It fused itself to the cookie sheet so badly that after 3 attempts at cleaning it I had to throw it out.
Tag: giada de laurentiis
There is no more delicious a combination on earth than the trifecta of pasta, tomato sauce, and mozzarella cheese. This recipe, from Giada de Laurentiis’s Giada’s Family Dinners, is just awesome. I love to cook and I love lasagne, but I often find it a little overwhelming. So many different recipes to choose from, the choice of straight ricotta and tomato sauce (southern Italian) or bechamel and bolognese (northern Italian), the messiness of trying to serve it.
As a Brit, Adam grew up on the northern Italian variety. As an American, I grew up on the southern Italian variety. This recipe combines the best of both, throws in prosciutto, and makes the whole thing easier to cut and serve. I love it, but like with any lasagna be prepared to spend quite a while making it. Once or twice a month I make my own tomato sauce and freeze it. As it happened, today I had to make more sauce. Plus I made bechamel. It took almost 3 hours to put this dish together, including tomato sauce time. I wouldn’t normally make this on a weeknight, but I was home sick today and completely bored by late afternoon. And now we have lunches for the rest of the week.
UPDATE 6/8/08: Here is the actual recipe for these lasagna rolls: