Greetings lovers of good food!
Let me jump right into it: I hate Summer. That's right, I said it! 100+ degree days aren't my idea of fun. But ever since I have lived in the State Capital, each Summer hits and I beef about about it until about September, then I let it go. Until the next Summer hits, then I do it all over again. The reason it annoys me this time is that I spent a morning down in the Bay Area and the climate was so cool, there was a nice gentle breeze, reminded me of growing up there. I loved it and miss it. I get back here and the minute I stepped off the Amtrak train...POW! Like a punch in the face! It was 22 degrees hotter here with ZERO breeze! Yuck! Couldn't wait for the serenity of my air conditioned Expedition... I cranked it up to "freeze" and I was ok.
But onto other things.
Recently some of the ladies at the office mentioned that they were doing an Italian themed lunch time Pot Luck, and asked if I wanted to be included, and I of course jumped at the opportunity! But what could it be?
Fettuccine Alfredo? Too simple. Spaghetti with Bolognese sauce? Been there and done that. No, I wanted to try something new, something that I had never done before. I had seen an episode of Tyler Florence's show where he created the "Ultimate Lasagna", and he used this cavernous lasagna pan to do it. It was layers upon layers of grub, and I thought "Well that looks tasty", and at some point I was going to try it. So the Italian Pot Luck would be the unveiling of the "Mack Daddy" Lasagna.
The only hurdle I had was also the biggest one: where to get a pan deep enough to do what I want to do? That took some doing but I finally located a pan that was 16 x 10, but was also 5 inches deep. Now we're talkin! 5 inches of depth would allow for many layers of creation!
Let's go to work.
First things first, let's do the sauce. In a deep Dutch Oven, I poured a little Olive Oil in and let it get hot. I wanted to see the oil smoke before I added 2 pounds of beef and 2 pounds of pork. The heat of the oil would really act to sear the meats, really bringing out the flavors. After I put the meats in I seasoned them with a little Kosher salt and Fresh Ground pepper. As the meat started to come together, I started a big pot of water boiling for the noodles, and I also gathered my vegetables for the sauce. I took 2 big red onions, one yellow onion, a half a head of garlic, two stalks of celery and a carrot, gave them all a rough chop, then put it all in my Cuisinart. Before I start to process I added some parsley, basil and oregano to it then I processed it until it was a thick puree'. At that point I poured it on top of the beef and stirred it all together letting it all cook together. Then I added two teaspoons of flour to help it thicken up and added two cups of red wine, and let it cook. Once the wine has reduced down I then added two large cans of tomatoes, one diced and one whole, and two tablespoons of chili powder for a little POW, and three tablespoons of heavy cream to add in the thickening process.
As the sauce came together it was time to prep the noodles and ready the cheese. I first drained the noodles before they were fully done, because they were going to cook again while they were in the baking stage. So after draining the noodles, I placed them in a wide baking dish and drizzled them with olive oil as they cooled, that was so they wouldn't stick together when it was time to assemble. From there I prepped the cheese. I got two quarts of ricotta cheese and put it in a big bowl, added two eggs, and some Parmeseano-Reggiano that I bought in a block but used my Cuisinart to process it into a fine powder. I took half a cup of the ground cheese and added it to the ricotta and eggs and mixed it together with a wooded spoon. Now I was ready to assemble.
First I took my big deep Mack Daddy pan and coated it with olive oil, the bottom and the sides. Tyler Florence said that if you use a small dinky lasagna pan you get a small dinky lasagna. We never do dinky in the Big Sexy kitchen. Then I laid out a row of noodles, making sure they overlapped so there would be a nice seal there, then I spread the ricotta on top of the noodles with a plastic spatula, then I took a ladle of and spread sauce over the ricotta, and from there I sprinkled some mozzarella on the sauce. Then do it all again, noodles, ricotta, sauce, mozzarella, and since I had the big pan I got one more rotation through. When it was don it must have weighed 25 pounds when I put it in the oven! The oven should be pre-heated at 350 and let it cook for 60-70 minutes and then....yes! Layers of rich Italian goodness. After rem,moving it from the oven, let it sit for 30 minutes to cool and firm up, then dig in!
Everyone at the lunch loved it! I was very satisfied with the outcome and glad that it was well received. It was a bit of work, but well worth it in the end. I made so much that I froze bout a third of it, so on the days I'm not feeling like cooking anything new I can pull some out of the freezer and I'm good to go!
As a variation, a friend (Whats up Diana!) asked me about a Vegetarian version so upon some thought I tinkered with my sauce to see if I could figure something out. What I came up with was removing the meat, adding two more onions, another big can of diced tomatoes and two baskets of mushrooms to the sauce and ad the pureed sauce to that was definitely on point! I added half a small can of tomato paste to thicken it up....yeah baby...that's whats goin on!
For the ricotta, take the two eggs out, and add another 1/2 cup to a full cup of the parmeseano-reggiano, that will still allow the layer to firm up while baking, and with those subtle modifications, we have the Mack Daddy Mark II!
I definitely encourage you to try either or both game plans, you will not be disappointed!
One more thing. The ladies at the office tell me there is a Chili cook-off planned for July, and one of my co-workers Rachel, says her man Jerry has been callin out my name. Say What?! You never pull on Superman's cape, so Jerry gear up your BEST chili, because Big Sexy is coming for you!
Until next time!
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