Italian Recipe Chatter

Growing up in an Italian family, food is central to literally every event and family get-together. My grandma was always the one who was in charge of the kitchen, no matter whose house we were at. All of the recipes that we used were passed down to us from her great-grandmother, from traditional cannolis to our authentic Italian lasagna recipes.

Some of my fondest memories are of standing on phonebooks to reach up to the sink and helping her fill the manicottis. I always think of our family get-togethers as being quite similar to the opening scene from The Godfather—without the organized crime. Today my family has tried to maintain the tradition and atmosphere that my grandmother worked so hard to create.

My wife and I had been renting apartments for the duration of our marriage until about a year ago when we managed to purchase our own home. The improvement projects and mortgage payments are stressful, of course, but anything beats dealing with incompetent landlords and sky-high rents. Now that we have a place to call our own, we’ve begun hosting dinner parties on a regular basis.

Knowing that our close friend and neighbor Brad and his wife Judith are both vegetarians, we like to shake up the main course on occasion. It’s much easier to prepare a meat-free entrée for everyone instead of a meat dish with vegetarian option. My wife’s vegetable lasagna recipe is a dinnertime staple anyway, but it’s especially useful for when we need to be accommodating toward our guests.

Want to eat delicious spinach lasagna tonight? Check out this great spinach lasagna recipe! In addition to the ingredients, a large baking pan and enough aluminum foil to cover it is needed.

Ingredients:

16 oz. cottage cheese
16 oz. shredded Mozarella cheese
1 can tomato sauce
1 package lasagna noodles
10 oz. frozen spinach (chopped)
1 tsp. minced onion
1 tsp. minced garlic

Directions:

First, thaw the spinach and strain it, and then in a mixing bowl, combine the cottage cheese, about half the mozzarella, and the garlic, onion, and spinach. Spread a small amount of the tomato sauce on the bottom of the baking pan, and then place the uncooked lasagna noodles on top. From this point on, layer the cheese mixture, sauce, and noodles twice more, and then add the rest of the mozzarella. Cover with foil and bake for about 55 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 5-10 minutes.

People often make wistful remarks about the food they grew up eating. Typically, it’s mom’s apple pie or even grandma’s pot roast. The most memorable meals from my childhood were dished up courtesy of my dad. Once a month or so, when he happened to have enough time, he made vegetable lasagna from scratch. I can still smell the savory tomatoes baking in the oven.

My tastes for cuisine have developed with age. I’ve honed my own cooking techniques by branching out to diverse cultural dishes. Most of the food I make is infinitely more complicated than dad’s lasagna recipe, but any attempt to replicate it proves futile. The more I look back on those days gone by, the more I appreciate my father’s home cooking.