A delicious mistake

Yesterday morning I saw a recipe for eggplant rollatini which was perfect because I just bought an eggplant on Monday. 

I made the cheese filling and marinara sauce right after we finished work in the production kitchen. 

We are extremely blessed during this pandemic that we are in production almost every day trying to keep up filling our wholesale customer orders. 

After lunch, I started to make the rollatini. I peeled the eggplant and began slicing it longways and boom. The damn thing was all brown and rotten in the middle even though the outside seemed ok.  I HATE WASTING MONEY LIKE THAT!

Flashback to Monday in the grocery store with Marty “Those eggplants don’t look good.” He told me. “Look this one that’s wrapped up like a baby is fine,” I said confidently. One box had loose eggplant and a new box had them wrapped individually with paper. 

So when I cut into that brown eggplant I was like, “Oh shit he was right.”Grhhhh! I hate being wrong, especially about food. 

Yesterday was a planned day off from working out so I decided to make cheese manicotti instead since I already had the filling and sauce made.

I got out my pasta maker, made some pasta dough (gluten-free), and rolled out sheets. I parboiled them because gluten-free pasta becomes brittle if it dries. I’ve done this with my fettuccine and it works. 

I laid the cooked pasta squares on a sheet pan spraying the layers with pan spray, not olive oil like I do my pasta. You do know what’s going to happen right????? At this point, I didn’t. 

After I got done writing my anti-Valentine blog post I started making my manicotti. In NJ we pronounce it mon-a-gut. “You gotta problem wid dat?” Said in my Jersey accent.

I got out the sauce and cheese and set myself up a rolling and filling station. I uncovered the pasta squares and the MF things all stuck together. 

“Are you kidding me right now?” WTF! It was almost 6:30 pm. So now I had to do what good cooks do and think on their feet. 

I decided to carefully get the squares apart as best I could under warm running water. Plan C was to make lasagna. Why not? It’s been a couple of years since I made just regular cheese lasagna. 

I didn’t tell Marty who was sitting in the living room. I didn’t talk out loud to myself and continue to curse the stuck pasta sheets, I put my head down and got to work. 

I was pretty happy how I had just enough sauce, cheese, and pasta. I popped it into the oven and was pretty sure it was going to be good. 

While the lasagna was baking, I was thinking about how the entire day was a complete train wreck. 

First thing in the morning I walked over to my neighbor’s house to feed his cat that I was cat sitting. I took off my boots, which I am tired of putting on and off constantly. Next, I stepped in warm mushy cat puke with my clean socks I just put on. After I fed the cat I threw my socks in his garbage and walked home in my boots without socks. This was all before my morning cup of coffee.

Later on in the day, I knocked over the dog’s water bowl that was just refilled to the tippy top. All the water ran into the center of my kitchen since all the floors are slanted. The character of an 1832 house is not always charming.

The water quickly ran onto my kitchen runner rug in front of my sink and island. When I raced to get paper towels I got both my second pair of socks soaked. 🤦🏻‍♀️

The saving grace of the entire day was when I took that lasagna out of the oven. You could almost hear a choir of angels singing. It looked and smelled luscious. I let it cool a bit to let the cheese set up while I set the table. 

Let me tell you what! It was the best damn lasagna I ever made and I’ve been making lasagna for 40 years! The crazy thing is, the filling was almost like the ravioli from Spiritos I’ve been trying to duplicate for decades!

I said the best lasagna that I ever made, not ate.  I will leave that honor up to Marty’s best friend Paulie’s mother Mrs. Moramarco. Her lasagne was another food memory that will go down in history. Marty and I don’t think it will ever be topped. It was pure perfection! 🙌🏼

So the title of this blog post could have been “Third time’s a charm, but after we finished eating, I announced, “That was a delicious mistake!”

Ten or fifteen years ago the old me would have gotten so pissed off when the pasta sheets stuck together I would have thrown everything away. I guess I am either getting more patient as I get older, or I just know how to fix a kitchen disaster. I think a little of both.