Jarrett's birthday was Monday, and we celebrated by having our friends, Kate and Tim, over for dinner, drinks, and dessert. Jarrett's request was lasagna. Now typically I use a recipe from Cook's Illustrated, which is pretty much no-fail and quite delicious. However, Jarrett really wanted an ooey-gooey version, more like my mom's "recipe," so I set out to try to replicate hers as closely as possible... only I screwed up in several ways. I use the word "recipe" in quotes because my mom rarely follows a recipe -- something I am not so accustomed to. I probably depend on my recipes too closely -- something that causes my mom to be quite nervous in my kitchen. :) Anyway, my mom told me she originally went by a recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. The only problem was that I must have been half listening and therefore thought she said the Betty Crocker's Cookbook, which is the one I own. The recipes differ in many ways; for instance, the one I used does not use any eggs in the ricotta mixture and it uses about half as much cheese, causing my end result to lack a lot of that ooey-gooeyness. Not only that, but I accidentally bought hot Italian chicken sausage rather than pork, didn't have any parsley on hand, and probably ended up adding too much salt to the sauce. But, alas, it was edible, and Jarrett claims he enjoyed it. At least the cheesecake I made for him turned out as expected!
Happy Birthday, Jarrett. I love you. And I am glad you love me... regardless of whether I can produce an ooey-gooey lasagna.
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