I was having second thoughts about writing this post today. There are much bigger things happening around the world, and here I am writing about lasagna and banana cake. I guess that’s the case every day, though. Delicious chocolate chip-laden banana cake will never be as important as the end of a nearly ten-year manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t tell you about it. Plus, ten years from now I can look back and remember that when I heard Bin Laden was killed, I was eating chocolate chip banana cake, much like how I remember that on September 11, 2001, I was in my first month of college and had a geology quiz first thing in the morning. I walked out of the lab after I finished , and my professor was waiting in the hallway to tell me that a helicopter had flown into the Pentagon and that I should go find a television to watch. While I would prefer to have no recollection of that geology quiz because 9/11 never happened and no memory ten years from now about this banana cake because someone like Bin Laden was never a part of our lives, that’s not the case. And if I can choose, I’d rather have a memory of an event associated with good food than one associated with the identification of rocks and minerals.
What else did I make this weekend? Wheat bread with some added millet for crunchiness. I’d been living a homemade bread-less existence for about two weeks, and I finally remedied that problem.
I worked late on Saturday, and based on my lack of both groceries and motivation to cook, I decided it was time for us to finally try Five Guys. Holy smokes! I was worried that the burgers would not live up to the hype, but they were totally delicious.
I went grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon so I could make my favorite spinach lasagna for dinner. To create my shopping list I referenced my version of the recipe that was scaled down for an 8×8 pan and called for eight lasagna noodles. I had exactly eight noodles in my cupboard. Perfect. When it came to cooking, I followed the original recipe so that I could have a magazine in the kitchen instead of my computer. I made the sauce, grated all the cheese, soaked the noodles, and started to assemble the lasagna, and halfway through I realized that the original recipe required a 9×13 pan and twelve noodles. Not perfect. I only had eight. I panicked, and then I improvised.
It was just as delicious as I’d remembered. If you’re experiencing snow flurries in May like we are, you should definitely make this lasagna to warm your bones.
For dessert: chocolate chip banana cake. You’ll be hearing more about this soon.
september 11 will always be my brothers birthday too!
Rocks and minerals are good things too – especially pretty ones!
However, I may have to let some bananas get over-ripe – that chocolate chip laden cake looks amazing!
I had my first Five Guys experience two weeks ago. I thought the burger was good but was underwhelmed by thier fries. The best part was the fountain soda machine with a million choices.