If This Is Prison Food, Lock Me Up....

This is NOT prison food nor
does it taste like hamburger helper

So, this month in my Cooking Light magazine, they were celebrating pasta.  I, too, like to celebrate pasta.  Especially, if one has figured out a way to cook it light on the calories.  Diet pasta sounds like winner to me!  I settled on the Classic Light Bolognese Lasagna.  

I like the way Cooking Light magazine gives fairly accurate cooking times.  It was realistic.  I, mean, it did take me 2 hours versus their 1 hour and 35 minutes....But, this is lasagna, I didn't expect to whip it out in 20 minutes or less.

The kids always see to show up to survey the ingredients...just to make sure there aren't any real surprises in there and I took their silence as a positive thing.  Although, Mark Henry (4) asked why I was putting trees in the dinner (basil)....I let him smell a leaf and he too, wondered off into another room content with what was for dinner.

I was feeling pretty confident.  It could have something to do with the recipe calling for wine.  Wine makes me confident.  I've heard that you shouldn't put any wine in your cooking that you wouldn't drink yourself....it seems important that I make sure the wine was good enough for my lasagna.  It was.

Unspreadable Cheese Layer

There was a lot throwing 3-5 things at a time into the pot to simmer....I think I added on time by not prepping and pre-measuring all my ingredients.  So, I would highly suggest doing that.  Also, when the recipe calls for the ricotta layer....that stuff isn't exactly spreadable.  I just had to sort of, plop it around and hope that as it melted, it spread itself out.  I didn't do the broiling part at the end because I cooked it on convection...so the top was already good and melted at the end of the cook time.  I was nervous about putting 3/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper in the sauce....it seemed like a lot, but it wasn't.  I guess they had to jazz up the turkey a bit.  It was just enough.

The real test comes when I pull it out of the oven and hand my little creation over to my very verbal taste testers.  I made everyone a plate of diet pasta and sat back with my wine in hand and waited as everyone took a bite.  Taylor (19) chimed in first. "This is good.  It sort of tastes like Hamburger Helper."  I grabbed my wine and topped it off.  Ryan (13) followed up with, "Yeah, like Hamburger Helper, but with a little spice."  I began to wonder if I had more Chardonnay in the house. Mark Henry told me he doesn't eat trees.  Well, it was worth a shot.

There's nothing like working for two hours to serve something that tastes like a 20 minute box recipe.  To be fair, I tried it and thought it was fantastic.  Before I had finished my lasagna, Taylor and Mark were back for seconds.  Things were looking up...And then Taylor plopped a big helping on her plate and said, "This almost feels like prison food."

I gave up.  On any helpful feedback...not on my lasagna or Chardonnay.

Ingredients

Bolognese Sauce

Cooking Light March 2013