I made the lasanga.

The end result was edible but not something I would not go out of my way
for. I think part of the problem was the sauce. We really prefer Amy's
Organic. I must get more of that. Yes it is expensive.

I used a brand called Mom's that I got at Costco. I had issues with the
texture. It was not a smooth sauce. It reminded me of what my mom used to
make. Chunks of tomato and watery stuff. But it had leaves of basil in it
and whole cloves of garlic! I thought at first they were mushrooms, but no.
I will save the other jar for when husband is home. He's the big garlic
lover. Oddly it smelled heavily of garlic but it didn't taste overly
garlicky.

Because of the texture of the sauce (I think), the end result was quite
watery. I did saut? the spinach and zucchini quite well and made sure they
were drained before I put them in.

Daughter said there was too much cheese and it did seem that way. I used a
layer of pasta on the top and bottom and the zucchini in the middle with
cheese in between the layers. I used Ricotta with about half as much
cottage cheese mixed in. Also some Mozzarella and a small amount of
Parmesan. More Mozzarella on top and more Parmesan after it was baked.

The lasagna looked fine until I tried to remove it from the pan. And then
it just fell flat. The cheese didn't really ooze out as I thought it might.
It just sort of deflated.

Mostly we just picked around at it and ate the pasta out of it. But...
Neither of us felt well. I thought I had a migraine but maybe not because
she was complaining of stomach pains and a headache. I feel fine now. So
maybe something less than a 24 hour bug? I dunno.

I made enough for 4 servings. Will try it again on Tues.
 
Julie Bove wrote:







Thanks for the report. Some thoughts:

Watery-ness can sometimes be an unpredictable problem in almost
any pasta dish. I usually deal with this by placing each
serving of pasta in its dish, and if I notice any watery stuff comes
out of it I drain/blott it away. This is not something
you want to have happen, it does not happen often, but now and then
it does happen. The remedy is to remove (to the extent possible)
the watery component before serving.

You are right that some tomato sauces can separate out a watery
fraction. Other possible culprits are the cottage cheese, and
if you used something like rice pasta (I think you had said you were),
this might not behave the same way as conventional pasta and
lose moisture.

Very tangentially:

Tonight's pasta for me did not have that problem: it was intentionally
in broth. Penne, yuba, and leeks in a broth of pasta water and vegetable
stock. Salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, and EVOO. This really
is like pasta e fagioli, except instead of beans there is yuba,
and instead of chicken broth, there is a vegetable broth.

Steve
 
"Steve Pope" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Ah... I didn't think about the pasta. I have used it before but never for
lasagna. The frozen stuff I buy for my daughter seems to have more pasta
and less sauce and cheese.
 
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:07:15 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:


All packaged lasagna noodles is made without eggs, in fact all
packaged pasta is made without eggs unless it says egg noodles. The
way it seems foodtv dagos make fresh pasta always with eggs is pretty
disgusting, no guinea dish tastes right with egg noodles
 
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:36:05 +0000 (UTC), [email protected]
(Steve Pope) wrote:


I think the culprit was the zucchini. Also, her lasagna noodles were
probably over cooked so they couldn't soak up the extra liquid.

--

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
 
sf wrote:




That's possible, but she said she had sauteed it pretty good.

I think any composed, then baked, pasta dish can have this happen.
And I don't think it's a big deal unless you are moving the entire
casserole from oven to table and expect it to look pretty.


S.
 
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 18:09:39 -0700, "Julie Bove"
wrote:


I would never call anything that uses rice noodles lasagna either...
but you're the one with the dietary dilemma... I won't try to help
anymore because it's thankless.
 
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:39:15 -0700, "Julie Bove"
wrote:



If you put watery sauce, cottage cheese and zucchini into any dish
it's going to come out very wet. Your recipe sounds VERY unappealing
to me. Two sheets of pasta isn't enough to hold anything together
either.

btw one cure for wetness in a lasagna is simply putting it back in the
oven and baking it again. It's not going to hurt it.

Go easy on the cheese and heavy on the sauce/pasta. Then bake it until
it's done. If it's not done, then bake it some more.
 
Julie Bove wrote:
[snip]

I hope you meant remove each serving from the pan, and not remove the
whole lasagna from the pan! It should tighten up quite a bit
overnight unless you severely overcooked the noodles before you
assembled it.

Did it taste OK, even if it didn't look great?

-Bob
 
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:48:54 +0000 (UTC), [email protected]
(Steve Pope) wrote:


IMO don't expect a lasagna that isn't all noodle to hold together
immediately. It just ain't gonna happen.

Oh, I was watching the Cooking channel (not FoodNetwork) yesterday and
they had Ligurian lasagna. It's a *must try soon* for me. I googled
and there are lots of recipes on the net, but here is the one that got
me thinking about it.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/lasagne-ligurian-style-recipe/index.html
I'm making lasagna today, but it'll be a tomato meat sauce.

--

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
 
sf wrote:

I assemble my lasagna with fresh made, uncooked pasta (full sized
sheets, no gaps, rolled thin) and the pasta cooks in the oven absorbing
liquid from the sauce and cheese mixtures. I've never had a watery
result.
 
"Pete C." wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Rice pasta is much less forgiving than wheat. It tears very easily once
cooked. Doesn't reheat very well. And is very easily overcooked. I should
think if it were fresh you'd just put it in the boiling water and have to
pull it right out.

Somebody did give me a recipe for eggless ravioli some years ago but I
didn't save that recipe to my computer. It was on a forum and I saved it on
the forum. But then at some point that forum was taken down, never to be
heard of again. I have yet to run into that person anywhere else.
 
"Brooklyn1" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

I used to make fresh ravioli all the time. Not only did I use eggs in the
pasta, but an egg wash to seal the pieces of pasta together.

Most gluten free pasta is egg free. Some is not. All of the gluten free
ravioli I have found contains egg.
 
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:14:13 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:

So far no boil lasagna noodles have soaked up any moisture mistakes
I've made.

I haven't made my own lasagna noodles yet... maybe
I'll try that today. Do you make them early and let them dry a couple
of hours before you use them or just roll them out and use
immediately? I need to get cracking if I want to make my own for
today! :) How much dough would you say one extra large egg would
make? I'm also thinking about using egg + water for dough. I saw it
done yesterday on the Cooking channel. Have you ever tried making
that type of dough?

--

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
 
sf wrote:

I roll the pasta as I'm assembling the lasagna, i.e. I prep the cheese
mix, sauce, meats, etc. first, along with the basic pasta dough so it
can rest a little after the initial rolling/kneeding. I usually do an
egg pasta, but you can also do it without the egg. In this application I
don't think you'll see much difference.

I roll the pasta down to about #5 on my machine, not all the way to the
thinnest setting. Since the roller is 6" wide and the pan is about 9"
wide, I take the sheet of pasta I've rolled, cut it to length (12"),
then I hand stretch it width wise to get to 9" and place it in the
lasagna assembly. I apply the next layer of sauce/meat/cheese, then roll
some more pasta, cut, stretch, apply, etc. The stretching of course
makes the pasta thinner also.
 
"Pete C." wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

It would be the carb count then. The stuff I used had 7g per 1/2 cup. But
still that's not overly high in carbs. But my daughter didn't like the
basil one we tried. I don't think it was that one. It was the organic one.
It had large pieces of basil in it. That was her objection.
 
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