I have been looking forward to this recipe since I started working on this book. It caught my eye as I thumbed through the pages with a stunning image of deliciousness and a wonderful title, and I’ve been hooked on the idea of the dish ever since. I’m proud to say it lived up to my high expectations.

I knew given the scope of the recipe that this dish would need to be made on a weekend, and Sundays are great for cooking big meals that can be used as leftovers for the start of the week. Plus, it makes the whole house smell amazing.

A NICE LASAGNA

From SMALL VICTORIES by Julia Turshen

Ingredients: I skipped making the pasta myself this time, since it requires a food processor (and patience), so I made sure to purchase oven-ready lasagna so it would cook by itself.

First off is hand-crushing the whole peeled tomatoes. I remember finding this an annoying task last time I attempted Julia’s go-to tomato sauce, but this time around I found it pretty satisfying to squish each slimy tomato into bite-sized pieces. It was exactly as she described: Messy but fun.

Then, throw thinly sliced garlic cloves and olive oil on the stove to sizzle, then add the tomatoes and salt. After that, it’s super simple: Let it reduce. I folded my laundry in the other room through most of this part (domestic AF).

Once the sauce is reduced, add creme fraiche. This addition to the sauce removes the need to incorporate ricotta into the lasagna recipe according to Julia, and I gotta say, this sauce is something I would be happy to eat on its own. It reminds me of a vodka sauce (without any of the vodka flavor).

After, I needed to (im)patiently wait for the sauce to cool before assembly. Sauce needed to be room temperature, per the recipe. That said, I didn’t wait until the sauce was actually room temperature, I just made sure it was cool-er.

Assembly time! Pasta, sauce, two cheeses, basil, repeat. Easy peasy. It’s a similar assembly to the typical lasagna layers in other recipes, but missing the hardest layer of the layering process: spreading the ricotta. Because of that, this part went super quickly.

Into the oven it goes! Once it’s cooked through and bubbling, take it out of the oven and let it sit “like you would do for a steak” to let the bubbling sauce get soaked into the pasta. Then (FINALLY) cut slices and eat.

I wonder if the dry-ness I experienced in the final product would be fixed by letting the sauce cool down and become more creamy to start. With the creme fraiche being warm, I wonder if it was detrimental to the lasagna’s moisture. Plus, we might have done one layer too many, which made it a little more pasta than filling.

N: Thumbs up for me.

Final thoughts: Would def make this again. Can’t wait to eat the leftovers tomorrow.