Lasagna: A Rite of Passage
And a Recipe That Took the Fuss Out of It
On a stormy August afternoon in 1999, my bridesmaids and I bustled around the upstairs bedrooms of my husband-to-be’s aunt’s house, preparing for my wedding that was supposedly happening in a few short hours. But the heavens had opened and doused the drought-ridden ground with an outpouring it hadn’t experienced in months. “It hasn’t rained all summer,” everyone said in the weeks leading up to the big day. “You won’t need to have a tent for your wedding.” But on that blessed day, while the local farmers were offering up their prayers of thanksgiving, I was sick to my stomach, watching water cascading over the rows of white chairs set up for our ceremony in Aunt Fan’s backyard, the rain pooling in the ground beneath them. “It’ll be fine,” my mom kept cooing, but I saw the panic in her eyes.
Later when Shawn’s uncle came up to check on our spirits, I asked how Shawn was holding up. “He’s doing great,” Uncle Carl said with a chuckle. “He said, ‘I’m not worried about the rain. All I know is that I’m getting married today.’” And Shawn was right. The rain stopped about an hour before our ceremony began, leaving everything in its wake bursting with vibrant color. The parched grass and drooping flowers were now the brightest shades of green, yellow and pink. And what had started off as a stifling hot day turned out to be a beautiful, cool evening whose sunset left our entire outdoor reception glowing in a magical light. It was perfect.
And on that day when we tied the proverbial knot, Shawn and I were 22 and 21 years old.
We were babies.
Of course, we didn’t think we were babies. When one of my mom’s friends stood staring at me aghast when I told her I was getting married, I chalked it up to her inherent dramatic nature. “But you’re so young,” she gasped. I wanted to slap her, but I was mature--I was a staggering 20 years old at the time—so I was wise enough to know not to.
What didn’t help matters was that I always looked young for my age. During my freshman year of college, my dad was in Intensive Care after a major surgery and when I walked back to see him, one of the nurses stopped my mom and I. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” she said to my mom. “Children have to be 12 or older to come back here.” I was almost 19 years old. Hence, getting married at the age of 21 but looking like I was 14 tended to make the whole situation a bit unsettling for folks.
Still, I knew I was in love and I knew I wanted to get married. I’d graduated from college and it felt like the next best step. After our wedding, Shawn and I moved down to Florida for his new corporate job, and we basically played house together. I learned how to wallpaper and menu plan, while he learned how to trim shrubs and grill steaks. Every night we played Scrabble together at our kitchen table as a slurped down the newest creation he’d made for me with our favorite wedding gift: a milkshake maker. And, I kid you not, I gained 10 pounds in the first two months we were married.
But while paying bills using checks with my very own name printed at the top and having a glass of wine with dinner felt very adult-ish, nothing quite gave me the “welcome to the club” credentials I was looking for as when I made my first lasagna. I’m not sure why that felt like the bar I needed to reach. Perhaps it was because I never saw a kid carrying a lasagna into a potluck at church or pulling a bubbling hot tray of the stuff out of an oven. Cookies, sure. A pan of brownies, yep. But never, ever a lasagna.
My first lasagna recipe came from my mom’s best friend, Shirley. And the recipe wasn’t even hers. Its ancestry went back to her mother-in-law, and may even have stretched back further than that unbeknownst to me. All I did know was that there was history attached to it…and more importantly, cottage cheese wasn’t on the ingredient list.
I’d grown up with my mom’s lasagna, which I’d always enjoyed, but its inclusion of cottage cheese always baffled me. Something about it didn’t feel authentically Italian, and yet, I’d known no different. Then came along this recipe written out in black ballpoint ink on a piece of faded tablet paper. It called for ricotta cheese, mushrooms, ground beef, pepperoni slices, and enough mozzarella cheese to sink the Titanic if the iceberg hadn’t shown up.
The end result was delicious. And placing it at the center of our new dinner table with guests gathered round made me feel like the adult I’d finally become. But after all the pomp and circumstance surrounding my first lasagna successes, I made fewer and fewer as the years progressed. In part that was because I changed to a WFPB diet and my old recipe didn’t meet my new criteria.
But the other reason was because the whole dish felt kind of fussy: all the precooking of noodles and meticulous layering, or the anxiety of using no-cook noodles and praying that they softened enough during baking but not so much that they soaked up all my sauce, leaving the casserole thick and dry. By that point in life I had half a dozen kids and little-to-no time for that kind of a high-maintenance relationship.
And then it hit me. One of the greatest things about being an adult is that we get to make the rules (or at least some of them.) I decided that in the Mai Time Rule Book, lasagna didn’t have to be confined to the 9x13 inches of a baking dish. It can be free to arrive on my plate in whatever way I choose. And so I give to you, dear friends, Mai Time’s No Rules Lasagna: a customizable, no boundaries recipe that gives you all the flavors of a delicious lasagna without all the fuss.
No Rules Lasagna
Okay, while this recipe doesn’t have any of the meticulous layering and baking of a regular lasagna, we are going to knock the taste out of the park (let’s go, Phillies!) with a homemade spaghetti sauce and vegan ricotta cheese here. It’s not horribly time-consuming, but it’s also not a dump and dish kind of recipe. I’ve outlined the game plan below so that we can get your meal on the table in an hour. Just stick with me, and we’ll make it there in the end.
1. Make the sauce.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
Pinch of salt
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp. dried basil
1 tsp. paprika
2, 28oz. cans of tomatoes (I like to use one can of crushed and 1 can of diced to give a little chunkiness to the sauce but feel free to mix and match as you prefer.)
2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. salt
Instructions:
In a large saucepan over medium heat, sauté the onion and pinch of salt in the olive oil for about 5 minutes or until the onions get golden brown. Then add the garlic, basil, and paprika and cook for another 2 minutes. Now, add your canned tomatoes, vinegar, and salt. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer while you work on the rest of the meal.
2. Make the ricotta.
Ingredients:
1 c. raw cashews soaked for an hour in warm water (or if you’re in a pinch, you can pour boiling water over them and let them set for 15 minutes.)
¼ c. (or more) reserved soaking liquid
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. white miso paste (if you’ve never used miso or even heard of it, it’s not as exotic as it may sound and most groceries stores carry it.)
Instructions:
Put all ingredients in your favorite blender and whiz it up. If it’s too thick for the blender to handle, just add a bit more of the soaking liquid to loosen it up, but it shouldn’t be runny. You want a thick consistency similar to dairy ricotta.
3. Cook the noodles.
Ingredients:
1 box whole wheat lasagna noodles (or you can use regular if that’s all you have on hand or if you’re not fussed about fiber and all that jazz)
Pinch of salt
Instructions:
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add a pinch of salt and then break lasagna noodles in fourths before adding to the water. Cook according to package directions. Drain and keep noodles warm till ready to serve.
4. Sauté veggies.
Ingredients:
A few tablespoons of water or vegetable broth for sauteing (or you can use olive oil if that’s your jam)
2 garlic cloves, minced
8 oz. button mushrooms, sliced
1, 10oz. bag of baby spinach
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
Sauté garlic and mushrooms in broth or oil until mushrooms have reduced by half. Add in the baby spinach and cook just until spinach starts to wilt and reduce down. Salt and pepper to your taste.
You did it!
Now place all the different dishes on the table and let everyone create their lasagna according to their taste. I like to toss a few noodles at the bottom of my bowl, cover them with veggies, douse them with sauce, and use the ricotta like a cherry on top. Have fun making your lasagna your way!