Poll of the Day > Bah, it may have been over a year since I made lasagna...and it shows.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have pictures of my lasgna (made by other people) because it was so good in the past.

Back in the day I would make it for holidays, for friends/staff at work etc and it basically was like a knock out drug because everyone ate so much they couldn't move afterwards.

It was really good.

But I didn't make it much since my wife passed, I had friends/roomates for the first year or so afterwards, so I made it at least a few times and while it went downhill, it was still pretty good.

Now it's been at least a year, and I made it for the first time today. I short cutted on the sauce only a bit, leaving out the sauteed onions and the bell peppers (and I have not used wine in forever), but the result was not even as good as most itallian resteraunts, and certainly not worth the time and effort.

I always cooked by memory, my own recipies developed over time and practice, but if enough time goes by, I just forget. I lost my really good baked potatoe pancakes recipe years ago, I just didn't make it often enough. I never thought my Lasagna would deteriorate so much, it is really sad.

I guess if you don't use it, you lose it, and that includes cooking. No reason to cook large meals only for myself, so I stick to fast easy things to cook, or eat out.

I really should have joined a pot luck club or something, I did think about it, but never could force myself to actually do it. Now I really regret it because it's too late I think, the best dishes I made are lost in the past.

---

Sounds like you know some of the steps you could change to make it better, maybe youre just rusty? The nice thing about something like lasagna is that you can cook a lot of it and its easy to portion up afterwards and freeze to be reheated whenever you want

---

I wanted to make a lasagna joke, but I couldn't think of one that was cheesy enough

---

Yeah, I made a smaller pan since I don't eat much anymore (I just used 12 total lasagna noodles). Still only ate about 1/4th of it. Not sure how it will be reheated though.

I can improve the sauce which is the biggest difference here. The cheese also wasn't that great, but that is more because you can't get whole milk mozz anywhere anymore (at least near me). That combination left me with blah sauce and cheese that had no taste. Also the noodles were a bit undercooked because the over I used was different and cooked the cheese on top too fast.

I need to try and find somewhere with better cheese, or honestly i'm just better off going with pizza over trying to make lasagna anymore, especially since I only eat one square at this point.

---

Metalsonic66 posted...

I wanted to make a lasagna joke, but I couldn't think of one that was cheesy enough

Heh:)

It's hard to find good cheese now adays.

---

there's a bomb in the lasagna

---

wolfy42 posted...

The cheese also wasn't that great, but that is more because you can't get whole milk mozz anywhere anymore (at least near me).

Most stores in my area have it, but you may have to check the deli

---

Metalsonic66 posted...

Most stores in my area have it, but you may have to check the deli

Yeah I mainly shop at Safeway although I do hit Fred Meyers and Winco now sometimes. None of them have whole milk mozz or have for along time. Safeway used to, but it's been years.

That was a big drop in the taste of my lasagna right there, but yeah my sauce has just......plummeted in taste. I don't know what I'm doing different (or I would change it) but I used to rate it over the best itallian places and somewhere like Olive garden didn't even come close, and now I would almost prefer the olive garden to my sauce (and it's WAY freaking less work).

Not sure what changed, maybe it's partially my taste buds as well.....and I know I don't put in as much effort, but there are other factors as well. I don't get the mix of itallian sausage and ground beef right (like this time there was too much sausage for sure), and I don't think I'm cooking the sauce as long (i literally only cooked it on the stove (the ground beef and sausage) then added the sauce (Prego) and simmered it for the time it took to boil the water and cook the noodles. I used to slow cook the sauce all day with a bell pepper in it to flavor it, I added wine and let that reduce, and I don't remember the spices I used, but I used bay leaves and that was the first thing I stopped using years ago.

Anyway the difference is amazing and it didn't happen over night, I built up an epic sauce over decades, making it since I was in my late teens, and then it started to go downhill about 5 years ago or so, but while it took 25 years or so to master, it seems like it takes only a few for it to fade away.

---

Maybe it's just underseasoned

---

https://imgur.com/a/tNHEVmE

crockpot for the sauce works nicely
---

Yeah that looks yum, way better than what I made today.

I used to use a crockpot while I worked, the slow cooking of the sauce with the meats is key I think and a big reason why it didn't taste nearly as good. Also I had 50/50 itallian sausage/ground beef and it really should be 75% ground beef. That and no diced onions/green bell pepper, and no slow cooking with herbs and spices = meh.

I do vaguely remember my general methods in the past, I just don't go through the work anymore and then am surprised it doesn't taste as good.

I used to start off sauteeing the onions, ground beef and itallian sausage (I would use 2 out of 5 itallian sausages broken up to sautee, and then add the other 3 into the sause after browning them to eat seperate (but they flavored the sauce). I would add 1 bell pepper cut in half (which I would give to elizabeth as she liked them stuffed), add the spices (It was a variety, but included bay leaves, oregano, black pepper, red pepper flakes and some others), and the sauce. I would mix it all together and back in the old days I added a decent amount of red wine and let it cook off the alcohol.

Then I would put all that in a crock pot and let it cook on low for 8-10 hours while I went to work. I would let the sauce cool, and put the lasagna together in a pan, letting the noodles rest over night with the sauce so it could absorb the flavor. The next day I would heat the lasagina up at 350 degrees in the over for 20 minutes or so, and then at the end increase the temp to 425 to brown the top of the cheese.

I would let it rest for a good 10-15 minutes before serving and it was scrumptious.

But it's been years since I did all that.

---

Sauce is the key and making it the day before helps.

---

topic needed more hot pics