lasagna bolognese

we made pizza friday night and had lots of left-over pancetta, ricotta, and mozzarella so we decided to make lasagna. we had most of the ingredients except for the veal which we bought from our local butcher and ground ourselves. i've never made lasagna but my husband has so i was under the impression that he would take the lead here. not so much. he decided to go down to our wine cellar (and by wine cellar i mean small, dark, musty closet behind the garage) to assemble some wine racks. i was left to figure out the lasagna on my own and i didn't have much time. so i quickly scanned some recipes and many had over 3 hours of cooking and prep. and each recipe was a bit different, some more complicated than others. i needed fast and simple but that didn't exist so i made it up as i went along. the result was actually pretty good. this recipe would probably feed about 8 but we took down half of it on our own because we're savages.

ingredients:

olive oil

2 carrots

2 celery stalks

1 medium-large onion

3 cloves of garlic

1/4 pound cubed pancetta

1 pound ground veal

2 tbsp tomato paste

1/2 cup strained tomato sauce

1/2 cup red wine

1/2-1 cup whole milk

pinch of thyme

salt/pepper to taste

16 ounces ricotta

2 balls sliced fresh mozzarella

1 egg

1/2 pound lasagna pasta

shredded mozzarella

chop the onion, carrots, celery, garlic very finely. sautee in olive oil over medium-high heat until soft. add the pacetta and veal and cook over medium heat until no longer pink. add the tomato paste, tomato sauce, milk, and thyme. cover and simmer for 1-2 hours (the longer the more flavorful). when done, season to taste.

meanwhile, soak the lasagna pasta in hot tap water for about 20 minutes to soften it. in a bowl, mix the egg and the ricotta. when the bolognese sauce is near done, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

after the sauce has simmered for at least an hour, cover the bottom of a rectangular baking dish with 1/4 of the sauce. then add a layer of pasta followed by another 1/4 of the sauce, then the ricotta and mozzarella. repeat and finish with the last layer of pasta and the last bit of sauce poured over the top just to keep the pasta moist so that it doesn't harden when heated. top the whole thing with shredded mozzarella. stick in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes.

we opened up a bottle of 2002 joseph swan russian river valley zinfandel. you'd think this thing would have mellowed some with age but it was still looking to pick a fight.