lasagna

I do the foil trick too.

My mom always puts her lasagna in the microwave to cook it. Unfortunately, hers is really juicy but doesn't taste much better than a Stouffer's lasagna. 

I finally did a search to find out what bechamel sauce is and it said it's French in origin.

Béchamel sauce (pronounced [be.ʃa.'mɛl] or [beɪ.ʃə.'mel]), also known as white sauce, is a basic sauce that is used as the base for other sauces, such as Mornay sauce, which is Béchamel and cheese. This basic sauce, one of the mother sauces of French cuisine, is usually made today by whisking scalded milk gradually into a white flour-butter roux, though it can also be made by whisking a kneaded flour-butter beurre manié into scalded milk. The thickness of the final sauce depends on the proportions of milk and flour.

Lasagne is DH's favourite of all my dishes and it's his choice for his birthday meal.  I find it a lot of work though. 

My husband always picks it for his birthday meal too!  But he picks the English one.  It's what my mother-in-law would call "a bit of a fiddle" but I don't mind because the work can be done ahead of time rather than a whole bunch of work at the last minute.

I think you're right Cait, that restaurants make it whatever way local people like it.

I finally did a search to find out what bechamel sauce is and it said it's French in origin.

That's why I think it's used more in northern Italian cooking - since it shares a border with France - rather than in southern.

uscans and Emilia-Romagnans make it with béchamel sauce, sugo alla bolognese, and grated Parmigiano;

http://italianfood.about.com/od/pastarecipesandsauces/a/aa102298.htm

"A recipe from my home in Emilia-Romagna, Italy; this lasagna made with spinach pasta cannot be beat. It's excellent if you want to impress some guests, or even yourself. It may be a bit time consuming, but it's well worth the TLC you put into it."

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Lasagne-Verdi-al-Forno/Detail.aspx

All this thinking about lasagna is making me crave it! Hmmn, maybe tonight's dinner!

All this thinking about lasagna is making me crave it!

Me too! I told my housemate that I'm going to make one one of these days!

Oooh, that sounds yummy. I don't make lasagne that often because it is a bit fiddly if you're making your own sauce. And if I didn't use homemade sauce in it, I probably wouldn't bother at all. The recipe I use is a veggie Green Lasagne from the Silver Palate cookbook.

Chary, you're probably right, that may be why the northern Italians use that sauce. I'll have to try it that way sometime.

I have been making my own sauce lately. I use canned tomatoes and tomato sauce and then have been using dried spices in it. I use all fresh stuff if I have time and the ingredients on hand. It's just usually easier to make the homemade that way than to cut up the spices.

Liz, I honestly don't recall what cheeses she used (although I'm 99.9 percent sure that cheddar wasn't one of them), because I thought we'd go through it one rainy day. All I know is that both her meat and spinach lasagna were far, far better than any I've ever had (either homemade or in a restaurant). If I had her recipe, believe me, I'd share it, just to blow people's minds.  :\\\'(

So do you think Northern Italians were more likely to move to England than Sicilians?  Maybe so!  Or maybe because English people were already using bechamel sauce in quite a few recipes (at least by my English cookbooks) that tasted better to them.  Then again, there are plenty of American recipes that call for white sauce!  Mac and Cheese??

All this talk is making me hungry for lasagana too!  

Liz, I honestly don't recall what cheeses she used (although I'm 99.9 percent sure that cheddar wasn't one of them), because I thought we'd go through it one rainy day. All I know is that both her meat and spinach lasagna were far, far better than any I've ever had (either homemade or in a restaurant). If I had her recipe, believe me, I'd share it, just to blow people's minds.  :\\\'(

She didn't have it written down anywhere or have told it to anyone you can get it from?

My youngest brother's ex-wife (she cheated on him) does have the recipe, but they didn't part on the best of terms, I have no idea where she is now, and most importantly, I've never forgiven her for breaking his heart. Even if I did know how to get in touch with her, I'd never be disloyal to my brother.

That's too bad Suzanne. I can understand your loyalty to your brother.

When my great-uncle died last year my cousins were all lamenting about not getting his onion dip recipe.

Suzanne, maybe once you're feeling better you can start experimenting and you might be able to get close to your mom's recipe. I've searched and searched for some of my grams recipes that I didn't get from her before she died with no luck so I've been trying to test out different things until I get close to hers.

Suzanne, maybe once you're feeling better you can start experimenting and you might be able to get close to your mom's recipe.

I agree! Try out different ways of making the ragu sauce and using different cheeses, and try things like using fresh basil or other herbs. You probably won't get it to be the same but you can still have fun trying and who knows, come up with something you really like! I rarely make anything the same twice myself anyway, I like to try out new ideas all the time.

Wow, four pages about lasagne! 

Coincidentally I made one this weekend and, at the risk of being a bit smug, I make a KILLER lasagne.... It's an all day affair but that's only because I simmer the ragu as long as possible to make the flavours meld - lardons, onion, garlic, minced carrots, pork and beef mince, beef stock, wine, bay leaf, various herbs, passata, tomato puree... I chuck a lot in. I'm a bechemel girl too. Oh and I've had really good luck with the no cook sheets!  Mmm. Wish I'd brought some leftovers for lunch!