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October 22, 2021

Pizza Lasagna Recipe

(Added at the top because I hate to scroll through multiple paragraphs just to get to a recipe!)

Ingredients

1 lb Lasagna or preferred noodles (we prefer farfalle or radiatore)

1 large jar of pizza sauce

2-4 cups of preferred cheese (we prefer mozzarella or a blend of Italian cheeses)

Desired toppings (our favorites include pepperoni, bacon, and sauteed peppers, onions, and mushrooms)


Directions

Cooking is an important life and homemaking skill.  I think this is something that should be taught to children from a young age.  I enjoy cooking and like to learn and continually push my skill further.  I remember being so excited the first time I cooked for my family.  I made tacos.  So really, I browned ground beef with some spices and cut up veggies, but I was so proud of making my first dinner all by myself.  I like to pass that love down to my children.  One night a week my daughter makes dinner for our family.  The toddler is still too young to make the whole dinner, but he helps me with stirring things sometimes, and he loves to clean up!  Everyone can find something good about cooking, even if it is just enjoying the fruit of your labor.

One thing I enjoy about cooking is that it is a skill that can be developed over time.  My cooking has greatly improved from browning ground beef to tackling French dishes I can’t pronounce correctly.  When I first started as a homemaker I was fairly confident in my ability to cook dinner, but I soon realized I had a lot to learn.  I could make some basic foods and follow directions in a cookbook or on the back of a box.  I used a lot of things out of a box or a can.  I have come to realize that I wasn’t really a skilled cook so much as skilled at warming things up and putting them together.  I was still pretty solid on browning that ground beef, and I added some other meats to my repertoire as well.  At first, I looked down on my former self, making variations on spaghetti using boxed and canned items.  I have grown to respect that young housewife just starting on her journey.  She was doing the best she could with what she had and what she knew how to do.  There is nothing wrong with someone who starts with a jar of sauce or a box of noodles.  

My growth as a cook started with a desire for greater variety in the dishes I was making.  I couldn’t afford a five-star restaurant every night, so I had to learn to cook some of those “fancier” meals.  I started to consider ways to spice up something I had made frequently to make it a bit different or new.  As I made these changes I also thought about making some of the ingredients, such as the sauce, myself rather than using something from a jar or can.  Full disclosure, I still prefer canned tomatoes over scalding, peeling, and dicing tomatoes for recipes such as salsa or spaghetti sauce.  I learned to cook larger pieces of meat, such as roasts, and even hosted my first Thanksgiving.  I learned the hard way that a turkey has parts tucked into two different body crevices as we cut into our cooked turkey and found a bag of organs in the neck.  During that same time, I discovered the benefits of kitchen appliances such as a crockpot.  I found that on busy days it was a nice relief to come home to a meal already cooked.  I also had a lot of cooking fails, like when I forgot to plug in the crockpot and wasted a whole pot roast.  Sometimes in my efforts to spice things up, I got a little carried away.  I think one time I used every spice in my cupboard, which was a bit of an odd combination.  Those were the pizza or fast food days.  I had to enjoy the pizza and not worry about how much inedible food we had to throw out.  They were the days I had to embrace and learn from failure.  Eventually, my cooking and my palette improved.  I learned that basil isn’t included in every meal, but that garlic should be used liberally and well beyond what any recipe says.  The same is true for vanilla in baking.  I learned that some nights it is okay to have something simple like soup and sandwiches.  It is also important to double-check your recipe to ensure you have all of the ingredients before you start your cooking.  Things start to become easier and more familiar and preparation times start to decrease.

As you learn and grow as a person your cooking will change as well.  When my daughter’s food coloring allergy was discovered it changed the way I shopped and the way I cooked and baked.  I started to look at labels and question what was in the food we ate.  I had a greater desire to steer away from processed foods and seek to make things myself.  I started looking for natural solutions to healthy living and cooking.  We learned to dye eggs with natural items such as purple cabbage.  We found that our homemade macaroni and cheese was more tasty than what came in the box.  A macaroni and cheese fail actually turned into the recipe I have shared above!  I poured some garlic powder in without realizing that the top was loose.  This resulted in macaroni and cheese that was too “spicy” for my daughter.  I didn’t want to throw out all of that food, so I tried to think of something that would absorb some of the garlic flavor.  We added spaghetti sauce to the dish and that did the trick.  We had some great saucy macaroni and cheese.  From there, we kept thinking of things to add to or change the dish each time we made it until one day my daughter told me it was “just like pizza, but with noodles!”  Thus we had created “Pizza Lasagna”, even though we technically started with elbow noodles, not lasagna.  From there I became increasingly interested in learning about cooking.  I have had many failures along the way, but also some pleasant surprises.  There have been some days we have had pizza at the ready only to find that the food is delicious.  There are other days that I am confident that a meal will be great only to be disappointed to find I  burnt half of the gravy to the bottom of the pan, overcooked the pasta, and generally made inedible food.

Learning from failure is the best type of learning.  We see our mistakes, and we reflect on what led to them.  We can make notes in our recipes and try again.  Sometimes we throw out a recipe because it’s just not good.  My cookbooks have notes written in, sticky notes added, additional recipes taped in, water stains, oil stains, and other signs of use and wear.  I just had to replace a cookbook that was basically to the point of just a charred stack of paper.  Just like life, cooking is a learning process that reflects who we are and where we have been.  Our expertise will not be the same as everyone else, but we will find what we like and do it well.  Cook to provide sustenance for your family, but also find joy in cooking.  Celebrate your cooking accomplishments and keep growing!