Thursday 11 October 2012

La Vita e Bella - Random Ingredient Recipe


Everyone knows, that it is not easy to keep the crowds happy. So I can imagine that it is a challenge as well for Dom from Belleau Kitchen, who is doing the Random Recipes blog challenge. Every month he is to come up with something, kind of new preferably.
As I see things, though, he doesn't seem to have any difficulties with that. Therefore, month by month by month we are all having a good time joining him in Random Recipes.
This time it is rather a random ingredient challenge - grabbing something from the depth of your cupboard and ... go for it.
Well, my cupboard is not so deep. I'm well organized (really?) and can see all the things I have. The only thing is, there is not one cupboard I can put my hand in and randomly pick something from.
Due to this I went through my various storing places to look for all this ingredients that went off in 2007 ... no ... I used them last month already .... no, just kidding, I don't have or had any of those. Still it could easily happen that you have things that are already off for quite some time or are very very close to it.
This search revealed the following items, which I should start to think about on what to do with them:

- nori leaves
- lasagne sheets
- sesame seeds
- urid lentils
- rose water
- jar of plums
- jar of beetroots
- vermicelli noodles
- cassava flour
- rosecco beans
- pearl barley
- apple compote

You probably know, how things are. In the shop you see something and think, oh that might come in handy. It would be lovely to cook something with it.
Then months pass and you don't.
From the above list we now need a participant. It's time to roll the randomizer and count it out. I could be in for some sushi, Italian pasta, Indian daal, a nice cake or pudding.

And the winner is ...

... no sushi ...

... no cake ...

... nothing Indian ...

... no pudding ...

... therefore it must be Italian with some lasagne sheets.

I have to deal with the other twelve some other time.
It's time to get all those Italian books ready and see what I can do.
The final choice goes to these guys ... 



... once more, as I have used them a few times lately.
Of course then it has to be a lasagne recipe. Again, something very lovely ... la vita e bella (life is good).



Just the other day when I looked into the fridge at work, I saw a package of ready made microwave lasagne ...
It's so much better to do your own. Now you may ask yourself, how I managed to have unused lasagne sheets, that I didn't use for such a long time? Simply put ... I don't know.
Back to work then. 
Or rather, on an evening when I came back from work at about 6 p.m. I decided to do my lasagne.



Starting with the chopping of a carrot and an onion and then letting them sweat in oil in a pan for a while.
Here come the 'good' thing now. After the meat went in and the chopped tomatoes the sauce was due to simmer for ... two hours.
That leaves me with enough time to do all the other things I wanted to do at home, like caring for washed clothes and do some other housework ... lovely ... really?!
Careful calculations then lead to the conclusion it will take roughly about three hours until I get my dinner. A bit of a downside, but I should survive. After all ... you can always start with the pudding.
In between I had to care for the white sauce as well so I would be able to assemble things after the two hours.



Now just some 40 minutes more and I will be ready for eating. Well, the dish I put it in was a slightly bit too big, but ... no worries ...
It tasted lovely ... I bet a lot lot lot better then those you buy from the supermarket ... 
That was needless to mention.
The book said: serves 4. Well, I don't know about that ... la vita e bella!

18 comments:

  1. I absolutely adore Lasagne. It is a winning dish. Your lasagne looks lovely and rustic - bet it tasted so good.

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    1. Thank you, it tasted very good. I don't understand why I do it more often. As to the looks I wanted it to look a bit like it was in the book, but I didn't have something colourful to place it on.

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  2. An entertaining post as usual and Lasagne is such a great comfort dish. I always have lasagne sheets lurking in my cupboard.

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    1. Always a pleasure to have you around here.
      The fact is that this lasagne didn't result in using up all sheets. I still have half a package normal ones and a full package of green ones. No, this is not mold, but tose are spinach ones. Therefore I will have lasagne more often now or I will come up with something different.

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  3. Make the open mushroom ravioli with lasagne sheets. I thought I left a comment earlier today, but it went awol. Love the look of your lasagne

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  4. you have NO idea how hard it is every month to come up with ideas... I'd been toying with this one for ages but didn't know how to relate it back to random recipes but it seems everyone has so far enjoyed playing along with gusto!... especially you Chris, what a brilliant lasagna with ALL those found ingredients... glad you enjoyed it this month and thank you for the tasty entry.

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    1. Since you are doing it for quite some time now, Dom, I can imagine that it gets increasingly challenging to come up with new ideas, but of course, I can not feel the full scope of it. I only know, as you see, that what I have experienced so far is a lot of fun. You will manage to keep it up.

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  5. Love your style of writing. Wonderful recipe

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  6. That looks really delicious, even if you do have to wait around. I always seem to end up with one or two lasagne sheets that get put to the back of a cupboard.

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  7. I really enjoyed reading your post and like your style of writing. And now, I have a craving for lasagna to tackle.....

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  8. Can't beat a lasagne: it's my daughters absolute favorite, always guaranteed to transform me from 'mum' to 'the best mummy ever'!

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  9. You can't beat a home made lasagne. This looks fantastic. Was slightly worried for a moment that it was going to involve all of the ingredients on your list - which might have pushed the boundaries of 'you can put anything in a lasagne and it'll still be good' a little bit too far!

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    1. I agree, no one would have been willing to eat that lasagne afterwards.

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  10. This looks absolutely mouthwatering I'm salivating! I'm gonna have to give this recipe a go. I'm your new follower hope to see you at mines. I've bookmarked this! : )

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    1. Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoy it in the future.

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  11. Lovely lasagne - so nice to see it being made properly, with just scant layers of ragu rather than the pasta sheets drowning in the meat which is how it is often seen here in the UK!!

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    1. Thank you! Partly this was due to the fact that I had 100 g meet less available as stated in the recipe, but still that would have been alright, too.

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