Cooking Diary: Easy Italian

[linds]

Tonight was my first night to cook, and I think everything turned out really well. There were no disasters in the kitchen, the food turned out as described and tasted good, and I gained some cooking confidence that will serve me well. I documented everything, so you can see what I was up to.

The Menu
Slow Cooker Sausage Lasagna
Romaine with Creamy Garlic Dressing
Pre-baked Garlic Bread
Triple Fudge Brownies with Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce

I chose this menu for a couple of reasons. The first being that I don't think food gets any easier than a pasta dish and salad - it's pretty idiot proof and at this point I need to keep it simple. I also wanted dishes that I could break up into several different components and make them at different times. As you can see below, I was able to break everything down and work on different parts of the meal during the day.

11:00 AM: Makin' Brownies

I decided to make the brownies first because they would be fine sitting until dinner and there's something very motivating about making dessert first. When you wake up and have to write a paper, you want to stay in bed. But when your big task for the morning is to make brownies, there's no "Oh, fuck. I gotta make brownies." It's fun and luckily these turned out to be very easy to make.



Here I am whisking the 2 cups milk into the pudding mix.



Next I added a box of chocolate cake mix to the pudding mix. I was a little dubious, but it turned my puny pudding into a gloriously rich and thick batter. This turned so thick that my whisk almost got stuck a couple of times.



Goin' in the pan. This was very easy to spread.



The finished product. The brownies only cooked for 30 minutes and they turned out perfectly moist. (Yes, that's my mom's Rachel Ray olive oil. I'm so ashamed.) 

12:00 PM: Assembling the Lasagna



Chopping the vegetables. Yeah, I had to use mini-carrots. 



MEAT. LOTS AND LOTS OF MEAT. Browning the sausage and sirloin was probably the hardest thing I had to do today. It wasn't complicated or anything, but getting the meat broken up was a little tough, not to mention it liked to fly everywhere, so I had to keep dodging meat missiles.



Meat with the carrots, onions, and garlic added. I had to work quickly, so that's why the pic is a little blurry.




The meat with the tomato paste and pure added. This was the point where I could actually begin to picture how the lasagna was going to turn out.



After bringing the sauce to a boil, it was time to assemble the lasagna in the crock pot. Here's the first layer.



Layer 2 with shredded mozzarella cheese.



The beautifully assembled lasagna, ready to cook for 4 hours. In the meantime, I had a nice interval to watch Youtube and play around on Librarything.

5:00 PM: Plating



This is the Creamy Garlic Dressing, which I made last night. I'm glad I did it - I think the garlic intensified a little due to sitting for 24 hours. The green bits are chopped up oregano. I don't really think the dressing needs them, but if I add it again, I'll definitely use an herb mill to chop it smaller.



Assembling everything. The garlic bread only needed to bake for 10 minutes, so it was really easy to coordinate with finishing cooking the lasagna and dressing the salads.



The finished lasagna, with more mozzarella sprinkled on top. Ta da! 

Overall, everything tasted good. I would give the menu as a whole a B+. I thought the lasagna could use a little more flavor, but it was moist with filling, and the blandness could be easily remedied with spices. The Creamy Garlic Dressing was delicious on the romaine and the brownies turned out delicious. They are, not surprisingly, closer to cake than brownies, but they have a really decadent, rich chocolate flavor. I'm really proud of myself and can't wait to tackle my next menu.