Bored Suburban Dad Cooks: Gen-X Lasagna!

cheeeeeeeese

I don't want people to think that Bored Suburban Dad is all about abandoning Less-Bored Suburban Mom to take the Bored Suburban Kids on camping and hiking trips or playing board games.

Bored Suburban Dad cooks too!

We're gonna do this the opposite way that most cooking blogs do: recipe first.

Bored Suburban Dad's Extra-Goopy Lasagna

Give yourself 2 hours, because this is a labor of love. 

Ingredients first:

• 1 big fucking onion. White. Not that purple shit.

• 1 green pepper

• How ever many cloves of garlic you like, but like 3 or 4 big-ass thumb-sized is good

• Olive oil, because this is Italian. Ish.

• 28 oz can of diced tomatoes, pretentious or not

• 28 oz can tomato sauce, free-range or not

• 6 oz can of tomato paste

• A fat tablespoon of sugar

• Salt and pepper

• 2 pounds of ground Italian sausage (not links, but bulk ground). Mild, hot, sweet, whatever tickles you today

• Ricotta cheese. Big 32 oz thing of it.

• More garlic, like another 2 or 3 huge cloves

• Giant 1.5 pound bag of shredded mozzarella

• A whole 16 oz shaker container of crumbled parmesan cheese. Not shredded. That crumbly one. Yeah, that.

• Italian spices. There’s a thing in the spice aisle called “Italian Spices.” That. I mean, you can make your own tiny pile of oregano, basil, parsley, and thyme if you want, or just cheat and buy the one that says “Italian spices.” How much? Like...cup your palm. Fill the little divot that cupping your palm makes.

• Lasagna noodles

Now, there’s lots to do, and we’re gonna do it the way my brain thinks about it:

1. Dry the ricotta. You heard me. Ricotta actually has a ton of water, and if you don’t dry it out, your lasagna won’t be goopy. It’ll be wet. Spread a good 3/4 of that big container out on a plate, and gently pat down a paper towel over it. Leave it alone for a half hour or more. Put a new one on top of the old one at some point.

2. While the cheese dries, make the sauce:

1. Dice the green pepper. Chuck it in olive oil in a dutch oven

2. While the green pepper sautés, dice the giant onion. Then chuck that in there too. 

3. While those two sauté, dice the garlic. Then chuck that in there too.

4. Then dice up the “more garlic” from above, but really super teeny-tiny fine. Set it aside.

5. When it looks and smells like the veggies are done, add the 3 cans of tomato stuff. All of each.

6. Throw a fat tablespoon or so of sugar in there to cut the acidity

7. Salt and pepper to taste

8. Simmer for a while

3. While the sauce simmers, brown the sausage and mix it into the sauce. Keep simmering.

4. Oh, shit, right, the noodles. Boil water.

5. Oh crap, the oven. 375.

6. Back to the noodles: cook until al dente (7 or 8 minutes)

7. Yeah, the ricotta looks dry, or should I say, the paper towel looks wet. So throw out the towels and:

1. That garlic you cut up really fine? Fold that into the ricotta. 

2. Those Italian Spices I told you about? Do that cup-your-hand thing and fold that much into the ricotta too. If it looks like it’s not enough, sprinkle more. Whatever. Now you have a wad of garlicy spicy ricotta

8. Well that was intense.

Now the fun part. Get a 9x13 baking dish; greasing or Pam-ing the sides is up to you. Build:

1. Little bit of sauce to cover the bottom

2. Layer of noodles; cover those in sauce, cover that in mozzarella. Don’t skimp. Then sprinkle some of that crumbled parmesan over that. Like, half the shaker.

3. Another layer of noodles, then cover those with the ricotta mixture, and cover that with more mozzarella

4. Another layer of noodles, and cover that layer with sauce

5. DON’T put cheese on that layer yet! Be. Patient. 

6. Instead, cover it in foil, poke some vents in the foil, stick it in the oven for 30 minutes

7. Putz around, think about a side dish, have a beer

8. When the time is up, take the foil off and admire your handiwork.

9. Cover it in mozzarella and the rest of the parmesan in the shaker

10. Throw it back in the oven, uncovered, for 20-30 minutes

1. Like, check it in 20. If it’s not all brown and bubbly yet, give it a couple more minutes

11. Make a big fucking deal about bringing it to the table, and make people tell you like 5 or 6 times during the meal how much they just can’t get enough of this lasagna

12. Make someone else clean up. You worked hard and you’re tired, and besides, you’re like the best chef now and chefs make other people clean up

It's time-consuming, but it's worth it.

Your family tearfully gazes upon your work with awe

Now for the self-absorbed blogger stuff that everyone else puts at the top, making you slog your way through their self-indulgent bullshit before you get to the part that got you there:

I love cooking. I am a Gen X-er, and thus was blessed with being a latchkey kid because my parents worked and generally trusted us at outrageously young ages to just like let yourself in a house and do your chores and homework and be totally responsible for your younger sibling and start family dinners on a hot stove with no adults around. It's a point of pride for Gen-X: being bored and left the hell alone. We are a very small generation, fully capable of just...sitting. Thinking thoughts. Wrapped in boredom. We invented stuff and got in trouble and cleaned everything up and painted-on a Disaffected Face all before our parents got home from work. All's well, why are you bothering me. Our defining song lyric from our defining band (neither of which we wanted or asked for, thank you) is "oh well. Whatever. Never mind."

But all that boredom and completely unearned trust from our Boomer parents gave us all skills. We can build. We can fix. We can cook, especially, because like I said above, family dinners were in part kind of on us. We're a self-reliant generation because we had to be.**

Add to that: my mom comes from an Italian family. We literally have family recipes, and they're better than anyone else's family recipes, and if I didn't learn how to cook them, there would be family trouble. Maybe someday I'll share with you all the outline of my family recipe for spaghetti sauce. I can't be specific, because you're not blood. But I can speak in generalities.

So all of this is the perfect storm: bored, self-reliant Gen X-er likes to cook long, time-consuming dishes because they can be left alone.

My family loves this recipe. I hope you like it too.

**don't get defensive about this statement if you're not Gen-X. It's not to say your generation isn't all of these characteristics and more. It's just characteristic of us.