Random Thoughts

As a general rule of culinary thumb, it's difficult to have too much cheese in a recipe.

 

I made au gratin potatoes, baked mac and cheese, ham, and crescent rolls, and green beans. A pretty nice traditional Christmas dinner for me. Not for the Italian heritage of doc, but I don't make a great lasagna.

 

Too much cheese in Chicken Enchiladas can be a bad thing, but for the most part, I'd agree.

 

What's a traditional Italian and/or Italian-American Christmas dinner?

 

Doc's family always has lasagna made by his sicilian uncle. He "claims" he's jealous of them because we're not there this year, but when he has my christmas dinner, he'll be a happy camper.

 

Au gratin, a quality side! [/Mayor Quimby]

 

Instead of gifting for the parents, I cooked a nice, shrimp pasta in a sun-dried tomato cream sauce.

 

Totally what Doc said when we decided to make that.

Oh, and these ain't from no box, either. Those fuckers are homemade.

 

For all the old-schoolers out there ...

 

Not hard to do. If you find an Italian deli that makes fresh pasta, you can get fresh lasagne sheets that you won't even have to boil, and it'll be even better than the regular dried stuff or the dried no-boil sheets (which are fine, anyway). If the deli makes its own fresh ricotta, though, you will notice an incredible difference between that and the plastic tubs at the supermarket. I'd go for the packaged mozzarella over the fresh stuff though, because fresh has a lot of moisture and you won't get that pizza-type top. All you need then is browned ground beef and a good sauce.

Sauce
Crushed tomatoes, either fresh or canned (Redpack is good).
large onion
A green pepper or two
A few pork neck bones
Lots of garlic
Salt, pepper
Oregano, dried or fresh
Basil, dried or fresh
Red wine or a dash of balsamic vinegar

Saute the pork, onions, peppers in olive oil with salt and pepper on low heat until pork is brown and onions and peppers have carmelized

Add garlic, oregano, basil and saute a few minutes

Add tomatoes and dash of balsamic vinegar (or wine) and simmer over very low heat for at least three hours and as much as six (the longer the better)

Lasagne

Layer of sauce
Layer of noodles
Layer or ricotta
Layer of browned ground beef
Repeat
Repeat
Top with shredded mozzarella
Bake 45 minutes at 325 degrees

Let stand for a half hour

 

I know how to cook my uncle's recipe, but not as well as he does. And he uses italian sausage instead of ground beef.

 

I usually use both sausage and ground beef. I don't make my own sauce though. Someday I'll try that.