First-Ever Lasagna

When Avo was freelancing, he had more time to prepare dinner. In particular, he liked to make a big pot of soup or a pan of lasagna and then freeze it so we'd have leftovers handy whenever we didn't have any dinner plans.

Now that he's got a full-time gig, I've decided it's up to me to keep up his good work. So the other night, I made my first-ever lasagna using a recipe for Beef and Sausage Lasagna from the late, great Gourmet Magazine.

"How does this recipe look to you?" I asked Avo.

"I use the recipe on the box of lasagna noodles and it works just fine," said Avo. "Don't get too fancy. And whatever you do, just double the garlic."

I ignored Avo and went with the Gourmet recipe, although I left out the veal and doubled up on the beef chuck.

I used the no-boil lasagna noodles, which ended up being too crunchy. Not sure what I did wrong, but it couldn't have helped that I removed the tinfoil twenty minutes -- not the ten minutes the recipe recommended -- before removing the lasagna from the oven.

The result was a wee dry.

"We'll still eat it, right?" I asked Avo.

"Yes," said Avo. "And don't worry. I think you have many more lasagnas in you," said Avo. "It's a good thing to experiment with."

Actually, despite the a little extra crunch in the noodles, the lasagna was quite tasty.

"It's good and I made it!" I exclaimed.

"So you cut off the casings on the turkey sausage?" Avo asked.

I nodded. It gave me the heebie jeebies at first, but I quickly got over it by pretending the meat was wet, slimy Play Doh.

"The Paula I married never would have done that."

I'll take that as a compliment.

I wonder if there will come a day when Avo takes it for granted that I do such things. I still can't believe it myself.