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My domesticated life, without a job, has been spent at home testing out several different recipes. Ever since I made a visit to Europe, tasted fresh-made lasagna, I have been on the hunt for a recipe to duplicate that taste. The other day, I was bold enough to attempt fresh pasta and was quite pleased with the results.
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Pasta recipes are all the same. There are variations but stick to a recipe that calls for flour and eggs. Of course I used organic, unbleached flour and free-range chicken eggs. I also added some salt and a splash of olive oil. I will experiment with different types of flour in the future after I've mastered the basics. The dough took a little while to come together since I kneaded it by hand (I don't have a mixer). What took most of my time though was rolling out the dough. I suggest getting a pasta machine to roll out the dough or you'll be slaving over it for a few hours. After an hour of rolling, I gave up and went with the thick noodles. It worked out fine.

[Image]Before I rolled out the dough, I set it to rest and put together the meat sauce. On special occasions I make "real" sauce, from scratch but this was not that special of an occasion so I went with Paul Newman's brand of marinara and coupled that with Italian turkey sausage. After the meat sauce, I whipped together a bechamel. Bechamel is a white sauce made of butter, flour, and milk or cream. The variation on this bechamel is that I added nutmeg. I have never heard of using a bechamel in lasagna but it proved to be the trick that put me one step closer to the lasagna I tasted in Europe.
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So when layering your lasagna, go with meat sauce on the bottom. Lasagna then bechamel and meat sauce, and repeat. I did not use ANY shredded cheese with this. I think the shredded cheese is only used in America. There were medallions of either goat or feta cheese in Europe. Either way, I left out the shredded cheese and it came out wonderful! The taste was fantastic!

Ok, so google away for the pasta recipe and the bechamel. Yum, yum, and more yum!