Back-of-the-box lasagne

I promise-- after this, I'll stop with the food blogging.




Fun fact: "Lasagna" means one noodle; "lasagne" means more than one. I used more than one noodle in my lasagne, so I'm going to spell it with an "e" at the end.


Last week, my twin sister came to visit me in San Jose for the day. When we are together, we have a general repertoire of activities which make up our agenda. These are: shopping, watching Bones, going to the movies, eating, nail painting (required), and cooking, cleaning, and double feature (optional). Now that Little E has joined us on the West coast, she is also an optional all-or-nothing inclusion in our agenda, depending on her availability and/or gymnastics schedule. Unfortunately, weekdays for undergraduate athletes are not ideal for sister visits, so little sis didn't make the last trek to San Jose.

Corey and I quickly moved through our to-do list. We watched some Bones on the projector, ate some snacks, got some sleep, did some shopping (new glasses!), made a lasagne (coming back to this, hold your horses), got some manicures, and saw the Justin Bieber movie in 3D.

The lasagne was the main event of the day; Corey's main food specialties include apple pie and lasagne. I have recently made a vague commitment to eat healthier, which essentially means I will only eat fast food for one meal a day. My cooking skills are not that extensive, having spent the majority of my undergraduate career in a house with a chef (which, incidentally, caused me a general distaste for quite a few weekly foods including but not limited to quiche, gyros, and pot pie). I do enjoy a good food experiment, though, so Corey graciously gifted me with the ingredients/skills necessary to make a great lasagne.

The Secret: Follow the recipe on the back of the box. Go figure.

Back in the day, we used to help our mom make lasagne sometimes. She not only followed the lasagne recipe on the back of the box; she also cut out and saved the lasagne recipe long ago from a used box just in case the only lasagne noodles available at the store happened to lack a recipe, or in case one day the lasagne noodle companies decided to issue a "screw you" to the housewives of America, or to be more polite, "make up your own damn recipe." I guess when I heard Corey was an excellent lasagne-maker, I assumed that she had made up her own damn recipe, but this was not the case.

This does, however, lead me to a particular realization about my sister and my family. We are above average at following directions. I remembered that in addition to her gourmet pies and lasagnes, Corey is an exceptional at cooking Ramen and Kraft macaroni and cheese. My mother similarly has a few go-to recipes; although, now that she is both more experience and an empty-nester (read: wild and crazy), she may vary her recipes by adding corn to... everything. While I admire those fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants home cooks for their creativity and daredevilry, I find solace and pride in my family's own recipe-following meals.

Because even if you follow the same recipe, ours still turned out better.