Lasagne night

Welcome back to the second edition of Monday is Monday. Still trying to find the right format, voice, style, any suggestions are welcome. Whence comes Monday night ? We pinned it down to somewhere in the fall of 2006, when P was living here, M was back in school nearby and unfortunately it was near the time when our friend Mark Blanco was killed, as J remembered. These dinners have been, and still are, a good place to be with old and new friends and with the food also share some of our stories, adventures and misadventures.

At the beginning, on monday nights, P would buy some food and I would come back from work and improvise on the day's ingredients. That worked well when there were just the four musketeers, then more guests arrived and a bit more planning was required and then with time it became a self fulfilling tradition.

Tonight's dinner conversation spanned many topics, from f**ed up family dynamics to gun control (or the lack thereof) and related bumper stickers in the US, and Sarah Palin of course. We're taking bets on how long it will take for her to get sued and for someone on fox, or related, to announce that the recent shooting in Arizona was all part of a democrats' conspiracy to undermine the tea party.

And now on to the food. I know what you're thinking. No, I'm not going to divulge our family secret ragù sauce recipe. And by the way, in Italy there are as many secret ragù recipes as there are families, like gaspacho in Spain, chili con carne in the US or ratatouille in France. I can give you a few suggestions if you'd like to come up with your own family secret traditional recipe. First of all, take your time, it will cook at least three hours, if possible the day before you eat it. Use more than one kind of meat if possible, and not lean meat, some dishes are not supposed to be lean, and this is one of them. If you like a gamey taste you could add some chicken livers, sausage or dried porcini mushrooms. Some people put white or red wine, others milk, before adding the tomatoes. Do not use tomato paste. It is possible to not use tomatoes at all ... we made it that way once with my father, I remember it took a long time, but in the end you get a sauce which is basically the essence of the meat. It can only go on home made pappardelle.


Roasted vegetable lasagne. This one is not a secret, I think I originally got it from The Joy of Cooking. The trick is to roast all the vegetables together in a very hot oven with olive oil, rock salt and oregano. This makes a very nice sauce at the bottom of the roasting pan where all the vegetable flavors mix oh so smoothly. After that you can use beshamel sauce, and ricotta and mozzarella to make your layers. I didn't use beshamel this time, and I used some arrabbiata tomato sauce and ricotta. Sprinkle parmesan and mozzarella on top before baking. Be careful not to burn your tongue ! It's very hot !


Dessert, as usual, was S's creation, and appropriately for the season it was galette des rois. I got the feve ! (and thus the crown) It was one of the characters from Harry Potter 7 ! (see photo above) What has this world come to !


Special guest: airman from Bangalore
Cooking soundtrack: FIP radio station
Dinner soundtrack: Regina Spector, Marylin Monroe and Bob Dylan (freewheelin)