Tonight is part two of our great Italian lasagna project! Nana’s pasta sauce has been simmering on the stovetop for at least three hours, and now it’s time to build a lasagna in the style that she made it. Hint: there will be no pre-cooked lasagna noodles from the package tonight! And of course, we’ll be making it in cast iron. Come and join us at 8:00 PM Eastern standard time tonight, where we’ll have a lively discussion about cast iron…especially cooking Italian pasta sauce and making lasagna.
Nana Pacitto’s Italian Lasagna: https://modemac.com/nana-pacittos-homemade-lasagna/
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All right. All right. That is definitely a rolling boil there. So, that means time for the lasagna noodles because I will never, if I can help it, use those precooked oven ready lasagna noodles. No sir. All right, there we go. Stir these in. Cover the pot until the inevitable boil over, which is what always seems to happen. Hopefully not. Okay, there we go. And that means raise this one more time so that we can get started. Hi there. Welcome everybody once again to Castiron Wednesday. And I’m hoping we do have sound here. Um let me see. As far as I know, um I am getting a uh the microphone should be working. Do we have sound folks? Testing testing. I just wanted to Oh, I think we are getting a response here. Sorry for the delay. Hold on. Let me let me just make sure here. Yes. Okay. Sound is okay. Good. All right then. Then in that case, take two coming up. There we go. That’s what we get for going live. And again, hi there. Welcome everybody to Cast Iron Wednesday part two. uh where uh tonight as as mentioned in the title of these videos here, I have been celebrating a couple of personal uh anniversaries uh both of which have a lot of meaning to me and both of which I have uh enjoyed very much. One of which was uh August 11th, two days ago, which again was the uh was my late nana, my grandmother’s uh birthday. She was born in uh 1916, passed away in February of 2010. But of course, I will not forget her because she is probably the main reason why I will never eat Italian when I go out to eat. Not because I have yet to come across anything, at least when I’ve gone out to eat, that compares to her lasagna. The other reason uh that we’re celebrating or I’m celebrating this week is because this Friday, August 15th is the three-year anniversary of uh signing my life away, purchasing my new home where I have been living for the past three years here in New York. And with any luck, I hope to uh be here for the rest of my life. So far, it’s been a lot of fun. and as such is a great way to celebrate by making my family recipe for Italian lasagna. I figured today this time we would go all the way make the las make the uh pasta from scratch um the pasta sauce from scratch that is I’m still not able to make pasta from scratch myself. That’s one of many things I have yet to really practice. Uh, and on the other hand, tonight, now we’re in part two, which is building the lasagna. And yeah, three-year anniversary of the $2,000 gas bill. Yeah, don’t remind me of that. I won’t forget that either. It’s because of that reason that I’m still paying my my electric and gas bill manually each month, and I am not set up for automatic payments because I still don’t trust them. But nonetheless, yeah, time flies. Tell me about tell me about it, Corey Clark. I mean, I I’ve already been here in New York for uh three years. And that is almost in maybe just a couple of months or so, longer than the amount of time I spent in Worcester, Massachusetts before I moved here to New York. And boy, uh the more I forget about Worcester, the better I will be. Now, before the inevitable boil over, let’s get down to let’s uh uncover this. This thing is uh boiling uh very nicely. Actually, I was expecting a boil over yet I didn’t see it. Um, this little bit, the little bit of what looks like stains or spots or something on the surface of the water, that’s just residue from this uh spoon here, which I did use to make the pasta because why not? After all, it’s all it’s all going to the same place. Anyway, just a matter of getting this pasta noodles ready. Okay, so having said that, hello everybody once again. Yum, Nana Pacito. Yes, thank you very much, Cleico. And hello Greg Hart and Rick Stumbow. And hello uh Cynthia Wesley and Flash 1999 and William Hart, Val’s Black Cats Rules. Yes, I know you were at work when we had the first part earlier today and well, I apologize for that, but well, that’s because this is an all day project. I have been simmering the s sauce now for uh just over uh three hours, two hours covered, and I’ve had one hour uncovered. with a splatter screen, no less. Boy, this splatter screen is actually really useful and I’m quite glad uh to have it. But so far it it has actually been reducing and so far as here is in fact Nana Pacito’s homemade pasta sauce. I grew up on this pasta sauce and so did my brothers and uh of course so did mom as well who’s also unfortunately no longer with us. So, when I taste this sauce, when the first thing that hits me is the nostalgia. Uh, so far, the other folks who’ve tried it, they said they’ve liked it. So, we are on a we’re definitely on a roll here. I’m debating whether I should just turn off the heat at this point, you know, so that this thing won’t be scorching hot. On the other hand, I had better I just realized uh two things. I have something in the oven. Not no just a uh c just a pot that I was drying off. And I have to heat up the oven anyway to uh bake the lasagna. And that would be uh just making sure here preheat oven to 375° F. All right. And I did forget to get this pot out of the oven as I was uh drying it off. Fortunately, it’s cool enough. This is actually in another aluminum pot. This is my uh friendgirlfriend’s uh caldero in fact that I was cleaning up here. So, we’ll keep that out of the way. But now the oven is clean is uh cleaned out so we can heat it to 375. And yeah, this pasta sauce is still spitting. So, I had better put that splatter screen back on. All right. Anyway, once again, hello, uh, Flash 19, uh, 1499 and RT Scott. Uh, the sauce needs the bread test. Wipe the bread in the sauce to see how it tastes. Oh, yeah. Looking forward to that, that’s for sure. Hello, love to see someone other than me using red sauce and black iron. As a matter of fact, this is an enamelled pot. This is a uh a stove uh enameled um 13Q um they call it a coat, which is basically a fancy French term for a Dutch oven. Um yeah, this um uh I got I acquired this big enamelled um Dutch oven as a replacement for the Lucas Dutch oven that finally wore out about uh five years ago and u and since then I have indeed u done my best to get a lot of use out of it. Uh but it is in fact uh enameled both on the inside and the outside. I have indeed made pasta sauce in bare iron. uh and no and the sauce does come out good. But yes, it is true that it can affect the seasoning of a uh bare iron pot. And that is one of the best reasons to have an enameled cast iron pot for using things like um for making things like acidic and tomatobased dishes, which is exactly what’s been happening here. As I mentioned, the sauce has been reducing for a little bit more than an hour. All right. Meanwhile, lasagna needs garlic bread. That all sounds good. Definitely. Okay. I was wondering if it’s an enamel since you’re cooking tomato uh sauce in it for a long time. Yes. Like hickory guy. As as I mentioned, this is in fact an enameled uh Dutch oven stove is famous for having its uh enamel for for having black enamel on the inside and in this case also on the outside. Uh that actually reduces the amount of staining that you might get with a typical uh enamel pot that has a white uh inside. And that was probably the main reason why I chose the stove u in which I’m quite happy to be. My buddy’s mom was Italian and Polish made the most awesome sauce. That sounds great. Uh Val as well. Um oh and one last thing. It is in fact pronounced sto. I got that directly from their website where I heard them pronouncing it. Um, so even though a lot of people call it STOB, uh, it is in fact a stove, uh, enameled Dutch oven. Um, they were from the Bronx, too. Nice. None. Okay. But nonetheless, while we’re waiting here, and it should not take very long, I think, to uh cook these uh lasagna noodles. Once they’re ready and drained, well, then it’ll be uh certainly time to build a a lasagna. And for that we will be using another enameled uh cast iron pan. This one I’ve had for like almost 13 or 14 years here. And this is in fact an enameled uh 9 by13 casserole dish which I actually got especially for making lasagna largely because as I as I’ve just said the this recipe that I’m making right here for pasta sauce and lasagna is my family’s favorite. So, uh, yeah, definitely I felt like as I was, uh, getting into the this cast iron hobby, I definitely felt like I could not go without a cast iron lasagna dish. Um, my family is from the Bronx, Greg Hart. And, um, congratulations to everybody who’s from the Bronx. And I’m unfortunately, I’m pretty sure most people unfortunately can’t afford to live in the Bronx anymore. I’m sorry to say. Okay. 187th Street in Arthur A. All right, but while we’re waiting here, uh there there is one thing we have to do yet, and that is to build ourselves the actual lasagna stuffing or or the uh cheese uh filling that is that will go to the lasagna. And you better believe we’re going to be using a ricotta cheese for that. Uh we’re not using cottage cheese. It definitely has to be a ricotta. Oh, yeah. I guess that’s I guess it’s because I grew up in an Italian family that I pronounced this different from just about everybody else. The word ricotta I mean everybody else just calls it ricotta cheese whereas I always grew up because my family pronounced it with like an accent and so I always end up calling it ricotta cheese. Nonetheless, I also made sure to get the good stuff largely because this particular brand, Galbani, has uh almost no uh liquid to it. You know, that’s the thing. You have to drain out the whey and leave the curds. But u this particular brand usually comes out pretty dry and hopefully that’s going to be the case this time. But let’s find out and and and see. There we go. Like I said, almost uh no, you Yeah, almost no liquid on this. That’s why that’s why I actually uh I actually like this brand. So, let’s throw this out of the way. Keep the container. That’s the container there. Also, while I’m at it, Captain keeps stirring the lasagna noodles. I still think it’ll be at least a couple more minutes before they’re getting close to al dente and we get to add our add the ingredients to the ricotta. So that is 1, two, three, four, five. Now to this uh 32 ounces of ricotta cheese and um okay just it will produce just barely enough cheese. Yeah, this will produce just barely enough cheese for a large lasagna. So, into this, um, we now add two eggs. Actually, I think I I probably should start mixing this already. Let me dig up another spoon or a ladle for this. This should do. Yeah. Instead of having it here in a big lump, let’s actually start putting it together so that it looks more like ricotta cheese. Okay. Yeah, definitely tastes like ricotta. Okay. To this we will be adding two uh eggs. So here’s number one. And here comes number two. All right, that’s good. Now we can throw that out and keep the kitchen clean. Next up, four teaspoon of parsley. That should probably be enough. Yeah. Yes, I admit I’m eyeballing it this time. Uh, about a teaspoon of salt. Teaspoon, it says. So, let’s put the big one here. That should be about enough. A teaspoon of salt. And if I’m seeing this right, let me make sure here. Uh, use a cheesecloth. Okay. Combine egg, parsley, and salt. All right. That means now, oh, to add flavor, uh, you might also want to mix in a little bit of Parmesan cheese, which sounds good to me, and a little bit of mozzarella cheese. Yeah, that’s the other that’s the other kind of cheese I that I’ve always pronounced with an accent for no real reason. People have actually made fun of me. Um, not heavy fun, but they’ve done it just because I pronounce mozzarella with like rolling my Rs. My mozzarella, no, my mozzarella and mix it with a ricott. And those are the only things I really pronounce that way. And I am not exactly blamed, but I give credit as I said to the Italian family I grew up with for uh for teaching me to pronounce those particular kinds of cheese like that. And from here, it’s only a matter mixing it all up. Get the parsley all mixed through. Fortunately, building the pasta sauce was probably the hard part. Well, actually, the hard part is going to come next, and that will be laying out the lasagna noodles. I So far, when making a regular 9 by13 lasagna, I find that one 16oz package of lasagna noodles gives more than enough. There always seems to be leftover lasagna noodles, which is fine because hey, it’s a, you know, it’s pasta. That’s still tasty on its own. But there we go. And just like that, here is our cheese sauce, which combined with the mozzarella and uh the rest of this uh parmesan, we’ll certainly be having more than enough to uh build ourselves a lasagna here. I moved to Montana. Lots more freedom, lots more room, too. That’s for sure. All right, let me uh double check the the lasagna noodles just to be sure. And about the only way I can do this is maybe break off a tiny bit and try the taste test. As I said, there’s going to be more than enough lasagna noodles here anyway, so I can certainly do that. Come on. Having some trouble getting these lasagna noodles out of the water. Okay. Oh, it keeps going back in. All right. Time to dig up a Here it is. Dig up a large fork. And this is why they have these things. No doubt. Here we are. Here is our lasagna noodle. So far, hot and steamy. Let’s test it. Not only is it salty, I think we’ve got the right consistency here. It is definitely there is no, you know, it is definitely soft and I think it’s maybe a little bit less than al dente. So I think we are good in that case. You can turn this off. And also means time to drain the noodles. Okay, let’s move over to the sink just so that you can folks can see the action here as we drain the noodles. And yes, I did wash out the sink in advance, you know, with soap and everything like that. So, this is going to be clean. On the other hand, one second. Again, I don’t want to um accidentally pull out this cord for the um There it is. pull out the cord for the for the cam here. I do not want to ruin this whole live video. Okay, now that we’ve done that, there’s this. There’s that step carefully. Okay. And in it goes. Okay, so the extra water in the sink, like I said, is just pasta water. I did wash this out in advance thoroughly. And that means we have ourselves some lasagna noodles. All right. I know. I now live 2400 miles from the Bronx. Can’t beat it, but winters are rough at for at fourth below. I think that you probably mean 40 below, don’t you? Sometimes. Okay. All right. That was the fun part. Now comes the other fun part. Also, these lasagna noodles are going to be hot, hot, hot. So, I’m going to have to wait about a minute or so. Meanwhile, I still have the sauce simmering. I’m trying to reduce it as much as possible. I mean, I realize actually I set myself with not a lot of time here. If I were able to slow cook this sauce for like seven or eight hours, it would definitely have the thick consistency I want, but this is getting to be pretty good. I can probably turn off the uh heat on the sauce as well. So that means all we have to do now Yeah. the nudes will soak up the sauce. Send nudes. Okay. I want to arrange this in a manner where there will be as little possibility of spillage as we can get. So that means we will that should work. Try to bring this more like front and center because this is what you folks want to see. Loosen this. There we go. That is much better because that will actually show us everything including in the background here where I’ve got a big trivet laid out. Put my phone away because uh at this point well I mean all we have to do now is just lay down the layers. One last time, we’ll take off this uh splatter screen. And here comes once again Nana Pachitos Italian pasta sauce. Move this over. Want to be sure I can get this over close without spilling it. That is not bad. Okay. And finally, on top of everything else, I have a wooden ladle for the enameled pot here. I’m hoping we can see. Yeah, you can just barely see it. All right, let me give you one more shot of the uh pasta sauce. This is looking nice. And now finally, oh yeah, the lasagna noodles. More room. More room. Always something. I mean, you’d think I You’d think I’ve been doing this for just about five years. Holy cow. You’d think I would have this prepared in advance by now. But let’s move this over here. Move this over here. And here come the nudes. Now we’re finally ready. Which means time to start burning my fingers here. Holy cow am I ever. O crap. As I lay down little by little. And here is the part where we pretty much do whatever works because yeah, this is not going to be a work of art. I can uh guarantee that. Especially since it seems like some of these nudes have split apart. Ow. Yeah. Okay. I need a better way to do this because this is still steaming hot here and at the same time I don’t want to break the nudes. tongues. Why didn’t I think of that? Now we’re getting somewhere. What a concept. Who would have thought that you could actually have a kitchen utensil for picking up hot things without burning yourself? In fact, I don’t trust this. Let’s wait another layer down here. And just be absolutely sure. Uh oh, great. Drop some of it in the sauce. All right, let’s place some down here. There we go. There is a start because here, actually, in fact, I’m not quite done yet. One more. I did say already that there’s plenty of pasta noodles, so no need to skip. Now we’re done with the first layer. Okay. All right. Uh Chris, while you you have my compassion, I would point out that we don’t usually do here, but by means, please stay on and enjoy the content. Oh, okay. I hope we’re not having some problems here. I did miss a couple of com contents. Rinse them under cold water. It won’t change anything except cool them off. Well, you may have a point there. I mean, normally we’re not supposed to rinse off the pasta, mostly because we don’t want to get the starch, you know, rinse off the starch. Um, okay. One last thing. Now, the pattern here, uh, laying down. Okay. Ricotta, mozzarella, pasta sauce, noodles. Got it. So that means now it’s time for the first layer of ricott. And we just simply spread it out. I’m try I’m don’t want to rush but at the same time don’t want it don’t want this to take forever. This might be more than this might be enough for the entire layer. In fact, it occurs to me maybe I should even get like a an actual spatula. There we go. try to use the right tools for the job because it looks like, as you can see, this whole this amount of uh ricotta is spreading out nicely because I only have so much. There we go. That’s layer number one. Stick that there. Layer number two, mozzarella. I mean, as tempted as I am to bury everything again, I have to be sure that we can build at least a couple of layers of this. I mean, if I wanted a single layer lasagna, then yeah, you better believe I would pretty much bury this in sauce and cheese and then smother on the pasta sauce. Good. But I trying to be conservative here. There’s some um mozzarella. And next comes the sauce. Of course, I’ve got plenty of sauce here anyway. And it does look like it has reduced nicely. I mean, as you can see, it’s not really especially runny. So, I’m pleased to say it appears the sauce is a success. Oh, look, and a meatball got in there, too. Also in here are sausages. If you check the uh live video we made earlier today, you will see this pasta sauce has three kinds of meat in it. Um, I sliced up pork chops which have essentially completely broken down and dissolved into the sauce as well as eat uh sweet Italian sausages and homemade meatballs. We made the meatballs ourselves. There we go. There is the first layer sauce, which means now we repeat. And as a matter of fact, it’s already cooled off pretty nicely. Ow. Okay, my bad. Maybe it hasn’t completely cooled off. That’s all right. We’ll make it work. I just don’t want to tear these noodles apart. Even though in the long run it’s not really going to matter because as long as it’s covered, that’s all we need. Come on. There we go. It doesn’t help that I’m getting in front of the camera, too. So, move over a little bit. There’s a nice one. All right. Yeah, I have only made lasagna a few times. I’ve loved it each time. Ow. Yeah, that is still too hot. Okay. Because it’s really not that difficult and lay at least one down the long way. There’s one that looks like it should work. As I said, this is definitely not a work of art, but again, when this thing is covered in sauce and cheese, no one, and I mean no one, is going to care. So, even though there seems to be more pieces in here that I would have than I would have liked, we are still building ourselves a sauce, a uh lasagna, which means once again, we just do what we did. There we go. Cover up any mistakes he with more ricotta. Ricott. All right, there we go. And as you can see, I’ve already gone through a large amount of the ricotta. That’s why I’m trying not to be too heavy with it. All I have to really do is spread it out. A little bit more. Hopefully there should be enough for a third layer. I mean, I’m using the whole thing. Yeah. And maybe a tiny bit more here. Come on. Trying not to be stingy, but at the same time, I want to be sure to cover as much as possible. There we go. Now it’s looking better. And next, more mozzarella. This always reminds me of the Mexican casserole with corn tortillas, seasoned beans, and ground beef cheese. I would Well, it’s hard to say which came first, the lasagna or the Mexican casserole. I mean, other than getting into history that we don’t want to that I’d rather not talk about right now, you know, namely the European conquest and all of that. Uh, just in terms of food, I’m wondering if Italian lasagna was imported to both the US and maybe places down south or more likely places down south first. Mexican food is all the same ingredients. It’s just in different forms. You may have a point there, Corey. for tonight. Anyway, I’m trying to be neutral on controversial topics like history. There we go. Getting cheese all over the place. What else is new? And that’s the first 8 oz of mozzarella, which means now comes more sauce. Still plenty of sauce here. I don’t have to skimp on the sauce. And anyway, by the time this layer is done, the next layer, which will probably be the last one, because you can see this is filling up this dish nicely, these lasagna noodles should hopefully be cooled off at last. There we are. Layer number two. Haha. Which means at last time to get to the last layer. And yeah, once this thing is in the uh Oops, I’m breaking it apart again. Once this thing is in the oven, well, all we have to do then is have another cast iron discussion because we’re not doing too badly. It is 20 minutes of nine, so we’re maybe only about halfway through. Ouch. It’s still hot. Halfway through our little uh video here tonight, but we are definitely accomplishing something now other than repeatedly getting my arm in front of the camera. Hot, hot, hot. Although I’m not burning myself much. Little by little if just dropped something on the floor. Well, this goes in the trash. Nonetheless, we are just about done anyway. Here’s a good piece. And here. and some here. As you can see, I am indeed faking it, but this is going to be the last of the uh last layer of lasagna. However, to this, I am going to put another layer of the rest of the ricotta and cheese on top of it. All right. In fact, I better wash my hands now. Last layer coming up for that matter. I might change things around a little bit because there’s no law that says I have to do it in this order. Here comes the last of the recota. to this. I think I will add more sauce and then top it off with mozzarella and also parmesan. Spread it out at least a little bit. There is 32 ounces of ricotta in here. Even if it doesn’t look at Although things like this really make me think I should have gone the distance and used two containers of ricotta. Nonetheless to this. Let’s throw on more sauce because at least we have plenty of that. We also have plent Oh, we also have plenty of meatballs too. And from here I’m speaking to my guests. We have plenty of meatballs. meaning that you can do what you want with the meatballs. Make meatball sandwiches or the or the like. Meatballs and sausage. In fact, I’m going to include some of the meatballs. Now, hold on. I hear somebody at the door. Hello. I am alive. I’m almost done building a lasagna. Okay. Yeah, definitely. Let’s decorate the top with these meatballs. Try to make sure my poor meatball doesn’t fall off and roll onto the floor and out the door and into a bush. And then over this, I think I will put another whole bunch of mozzarella. That sounds like a plan. All right, Jeans. Open this up. And it may not be the most artistic one, but I don’t think anyone will complain about the taste. Close this pop up again. Come on already. There we go. Peas and pasta with garlic butter is good. Yes, it is. There we go. I can see the cheese is being absorbed into the uh sauce. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve just added a whole 8 oz of mozzarella to the top of this. In fact, so they want it cheesy. They will have it cheesy. Especially since now on top of all this, we’re going to throw on parmesan. Now that I have made another huge mess in the kitchen. No, we’re talking about gumbo lasagna. Gumbo lasagna. Huh. I’ll I didn’t know that was a real thing. I didn’t either, but now that I’ve heard of it, I’m sure somebody has made it. I mean, really, this is almost like internet rule 34. If it exists here, and that’s about all I’ll say there. If it doesn’t exist, someone will make it. First thing we have to do is bake it covered for 25 minutes. Then we bake it uncovered for 25 minutes and we are done. Might, in fact, it might actually extend this video. However, at long last, we have ourselves a lasagna. So that means you Hey, you out of the way. Out of the way. Here we go. In we go at 375°. Oh man, this thing is heavy. This thing is packed solid. Yeah. And we set the oven timer. Yeah, I have a kitchen timer and I almost always forget to use it. 25 minutes. There we go. Having done that, is this cold? Okay, it’s cool enough to get with my hands. Let’s put this back on the stove where it’s nice and safe and where you can see the cast iron and the sauce. Wow. All right. Here we go. Let me make sure here. Lasagna is good, but growing up we had cabbage rolls more. Well, well, Christopher Rice, I mean, lasagna takes a lot of effort and a lot of resources, especially at these today’s prices. I’m probably not going to say how much I had to spend to make these ingredients here. And that included a pound of um uh sweet Italian sausage, a pound of pork chops, two pounds of um of uh ground beef. I just use 8020. Four cans of uh crushed tomatoes, not to mention all the cheese, you know, a 32 oz tub of high quality ricotta, 16 ounces of mozzarella cheese. So, all of that came to something, but the results are definitely going to be worth it. And anyway, as I said, we’re celebrating tonight. That’s why I’m doing this as a kind of like, you know, an an unusual celebration. And besides, uh it’s been a while since I’ve gone all out and done a real cast iron cooking project. I mean, it seems like almost everything I’ve done in cooking for I don’t know how long has been, “Oh, here’s an easy dish. Here’s a dish that takes almost no effort. This dish will be done in in no time, which is all great, of course, because who has time or energy these days, it seems. But as I said, for tonight, I really did want to uh go all out and uh put a lot of effort into something. And here again is the result. In fact, again, um, if you folks want if you want a small bowl of the sauce and meatballs, I would say help yourself. And I’m saying that to my guests. Okay. Other than that, Miss Mobley is alive. Yes, Miss Moy has in fact spent a lot of time outdoors, but I did manage to get her inside tonight, which is good because we had a thunderstorm this evening, and that’s why I wanted to get her inside. When she’s inside, it’s like she switches to indoor cat mode. She runs into my bedroom and pretty much stays there and when it’s time for bed, she will jump right up for her evening attention pets, which is good with me. I want lasagna now. Well, unfortunately, I’m I’ve got some baking to do, but once we do this Oh, did you try the carbon off? Um, okay. I still say fruit cake. How long is the drip drop? How is the drip drop roaster uh coming? Well, as a matter of fact, it is in the garage right now. And I did coat it with carbon off. As usual, today has been so busy I have not had a chance to get out there and check it out and but I’m going to I intend to do so later tonight or maybe tomorrow morning. Uh you carbon off and it is amazing. Well, that’s what I hope to find out. All right. And Rick Stumbow again. I’m never going to forget that fruit cake. Don’t you worry about that. On the other hand, it has not put me off fruit cake. I will be making another fruit cake come this Christmas. Hopefully again that one won’t be a disaster. Instead of noise, use rice for the layers. Oh, nudes. Use rice for the layers. Yeah, that’s actually one possibility as well. I mean, yeah. I mean, again, I mean, you it’s your dish. You can build it in pretty much any way you want. People have made lasagna in all kinds of ways. And the this is the way I was taught to do it as I was growing up. There are probably folks out there, well, there are always folks on YouTube, no matter what you do, they will say, “That is terrible. You did it entirely wrong. Uh, it’s a shame to call yourself a cook or or the like.” But hey, if it tastes good, that’s the most important thing. Anybody remember Good Eat? Well, yeah. Alton Brown’s Good Eats, we’re talking about like the first series, which could have been like 20, 30 years ago. The first time he did a lasagna episode, he did this weird vegetable laden lasagna that I think was considered to be one of the worst episodes of his entire show. It was weird and know I never made it either. Um, on the other hand, this is this is, as I said, is uh more traditional. You make it the way you like it. Yes, exactly. Said to put foil under your pan. Oh. Oh, yeah. Wait a second. I know exactly what you’re talking about. You’re talking about the drip over. Yeah. Haven’t I learned my lesson yet? Okay. Well, in that case, we’d better uh do something about that right now, which means And thank you again for your advice. Time to break out the old sheet pan, which I inherited from my mom. Goes underneath the lasagna. And I have to adjust it a little bit. And I want to do this without burning myself. Move this over. Maybe move the lasagna over a little bit. There we go. I think that will catch the drip over. Once again, thank you for your advice, folks. Hopefully, this will avoid the smoke detector going off, or as you guys like to call it, the chaos detector. I’m saying sheetpan. It took them five minutes to realize that foil is your friend. Yes, it is. Well, I have foil on top. I did completely forget once again to line the under one with foil, but now we have the sheetpan. All right. Glad it worked out. And a can saved up easy off. Yes. Yeah. I think I’m a little tired of that smoke detector going off, but then again, aren’t we all I’m happy it worked out for you? Really? It’s like I got to put a big uh bulletin up or a post or something like saying that don’t forget to uh catch the dripping grease or something like that. All right, seven kinds of cheese. Oh, that sounds like a ma it sounds like you’ve got a major lasagna project going on right there. I mean, this only has three kinds of cheese. The ricott, the the mozzarella, and the parmesan. Uh, I can only imagine the kinds of cheese that you put in yours. Pecarino, perhaps Romano. All right, it’s still safe for gig. At least you know the detector works. Well, yeah, it definitely works. There’s no question about that. I mean, that in fact I mean this that is one of my rules of cast ironitis. As you know, if uh half of your recipes involve uh preparing for when the smoke detector goes off, you might have cast ironitis. Even a while since the chaos detector. I thought we had it last week if I remember right. Nonetheless, okay, your detector isn’t hardwired to the fire department. Oh, tell me about it. Sheesh. If that’s the case, I would either be their best friend or they would probably be finding me by now. So, I’m just glad that at least, as you said, it works and that’s enough. I do my best to take at least some basic uh safety procedures and I can only hope that will help with my wish to live in this house for the rest of my life and for the rest of my life to be well at least a couple of decades or more. All right. Yeah, I fell off a bit. And oh, you’re still here, Cynthia. Don’t worry. Mrs. our requests that you make an apple pie. We are getting into that time of year again, aren’t we, Rocket K? We’re the time of year for apple pie. And that is going to have to come soon, that’s for sure. Uh right now it is still hot. Um in fact, I am quite frankly dripping with sweat right now. But it was my choice to do this uh all of this cooking tonight over a hot stove and a hot oven. But that’s okay. Once we’re done here, I’m going to uh drink my fill of water and Diet Pepsi and then go to bed and relax. But until then, we simply have a uh just that. We have a lasagna to finish. Okay. How about this? Let’s talk cast iron, folks. That’s what we’re here for. Um I did mention already that this is a stove enamel Dutch oven. Uh there are a lot of topics we can bring up including the topics of I’m sure there are some folks here with enamelled cast iron. It may not be as what they consider to be as elite as stove or lorrace, but I have no doubt your enamelled cast iron gets a lot of use anyway, especially since I mean we know what it’s used for for things like tomato dishes like making the sauce as you can see right here. Um, not to mention where you find your enamel cast iron, you know, besides the flea markets, of course. I mean, you can find enamel cast iron just about anywhere. You can get it at W-ally World. You You can get it at um TJ Maxx, Marshalls. Uh, once again, the door is Oh. Oh, hi. I see people here. Okay. Oh, sorry about that. All right, people. Just uh step this way, please. That’s okay. I’ve got a live video going on. The camera is not pointing at you. I promise. Looks like, as I said, I’ve been having a lot of guests in my home lately, and that’s about all I’ll say here online. I love my Okay, just cook for the fire crew. They will show up early. There is that. Good. That’s a good piece of advice, actually. I love my little BSR number five. Great yard sale find. Well, congratulations on that, Val. That’s why the power bill is so high. The hardwired detector. Yes. Uh, tell him to keep out of the sauce. Well, actually, we don’t even have to do that because the sauce is done at this point. Bangai wants to take a look or have some uh homemade meatball sauce. I mean, please feel free. In fact, we’ll get out we’ll get out a bowl and or two and uh you can certainly have some. This would certainly help fill you up. tell them to. Okay. Yeah, I would rather use the sauce than have it sit here forever. Besides, it’s done. It’s served its purpose. I have uh made I I’ve got the lasagna in the oven. So, everything here I’m considering to be a bonus. So, in fact, is anybody hungry at all? Okay, everybody’s all set right now. Okay. Well, it’ll be here later then when the when the camera is turned off. in fact. So, okay. Picked up a vintage food chopper. Stainless steel blade, cast iron handle, $1. Nice. And I only hope it’s not too stained. The problem I found with a lot of those food choppers that they have at the flea markets is that they’re nearly impossible to clean. I pretty I mean, I’ve pretty much given up trying to restore those. I I just it just does not appeal to me, I’m afraid. Oh, now what? Somebody else is here. We are getting some real traffic here tonight. Okay. All right. One more. Okay. Anyway, fuzzy is cheap. The only enamelled cast iron I have is is a trivet. Yeah. Uh I would eat a bowl of that. Yeah. Chaos. Yeah, I know. It always seems to be chaos in this kitchen, doesn’t it? Now you need to bake some sub rolls so you can make sub sandwiches. Only problem is is that I’m just about out of energy at this point. So I’m not ready to uh do a little bit of baking here. Yeah, they smell the sauce. Yeah, you’re probably right. Actually, they smelled the sauce and they came running. But anyway, okay. Yeah, I’m starting to think unfortunately that the lasagna may not be done by the uh when this uh video ends, unfortunately, because even if we keep this going for another 20 or 30 minutes, um the timer currently says 12 minutes before we take the cover off and then we have to bake it for another 25 minutes. Meaning that that would mean uh the earliest this would be done would be in about another 40 minutes or 20 minutes of 10. That’s probably why the Amazon guy delivering more cast iron one wants a taste test. You smell the sauce, too. We found a number eight Red Mountain Dutch oven. Really? At an auction last week for a pretty good price. Well, congratulations on that, Rocket Caver. Yeah, because even though uh BSR is getting so popular on the internet and on eBay, uh it there are still quite a few places, auction houses, antique malls, and the like that really don’t recognize uh BSR or at most they might simply put a label on it saying BSR. They really don’t know what it is. However, you do. And so it sounds like again, congratulations. You made a good score there on that Red Mountain Dutch oven. Congratulations there. I’d take those meatballs and sauce and freeze to have with spaghetti another day. That’s probably what I’m going to do after uh folks eat some. That barking barking enamelled your question. Oh yeah. Uh sauce and apple pie make the people come. H she made a live appearance tonight. Oh, okay. Yeah, Miss Mo. Oh, so you did see Miss Moy. I’m glad to hear that. I would make meatball sandwiches. All of this sounds good and I am regretting that I didn’t get bread today. Okay, good score. Um, all right. I had asked earlier before, I know that there are folks here who have their own enamelled cast iron. Uh, let’s come clean here. Where did you find some of your enamelled cast iron? And it’s perfectly acceptable to say places like Walmart or TJ Maxx or the like because there’s uh nothing wrong with that. Um I uh have previously bought Dutch ovens from U TJ Maxx. Most of them only seem to last about two or three years unfortunately. Whereas on the other hand, one of my uh most longest lasting pieces of uh cast iron, enamel cast iron was a traantina uh well uh Dutch oven and they do sell those at Walmart. Traantina is actually a pretty good brand as far as the enamel goes. Uh wifey got mine from Canadian Tire. I’ve heard of Canadian Tire. I mean, I’ve only been to Canada once, but apparently they do sell a lot of interesting stuff in addition to tires. the Lodge factory outlet and Bed Bugs and Beyond. Yes. Uh Oh, yeah. I still have my Lodge uh Dutch ovens as well, the the uh USA enamelled ones that I was lucky enough to acquire at Christmas. On the other hand, I wanted to use this particular one tonight. My hope was that one big pot might get them might get the uh sauce done quicker, but it does seem like it did uh it did what it needed to do. a two quart from a yard sale. The seven quart was a gift. Nice. Yeah, I have like about a one or maybe two quart enamel Dutch oven. Not Dutch oven, an enamelled saucepan myself, which I’ve used a couple of times. And it’s small enough and convenient enough. I might as well uh take this out here. I found this one at the flea market for $10. It is um actually it is Belgian made, desk wear, no less. And that was one of the reasons why I decided to get it. I paid 10 bucks. There’s a little bit of crazing, especially around the rim, but the uh interior looks very solid, and so I felt 10 bucks was a pretty decent price. I have not found a cast iron lid for this, but I found an equivalent lid so far uh that does its job. And I can and with any luck, I might be able to find a better fitting lid. At least that’s my hope. Ah, Str Strongs, Ross, and TJ Maxx. Yeah, I’ve only been to Ross a few times. It finally opened up here in my town, and I tried it for the last time, and I found out that Ross is essentially a clone of Marshall’s TJ Maxx, which is not a bad thing because it it it does have some interesting stuff. Costco and Sam’s, they sell Traantina. My daughter cooked my, you know, ordered my 7.5 Dutch oven from Lodge. It’s great. The bigger ones over I like bigger ones over smaller ones. Yeah, you could get a lot of use out of those big pots, can’t you? I mean, especially for things like this, for instance, making enough pasta sauce to feed your entire family. And then some big recall on coffee sold at Dollar General. Oh, that’s interesting. Okay, we’ll just have to keep that in mind. Yeah, we like to call it crappy tire. Yeah, I know the feeling. That’s why I referred to that earlier as Bed Bugs and Beyond. Although I have to say I can’t take credit for that name. That belongs to my brother. He said that one and I never forgot it. Greg Hart got my lay from the factory. They have sales every once in a while. When they discontinue a color, they can lower the price. Well, I hope you got it at a at a nice affordable price then. And just from the experience I’ve had with when I had a look, you’re probably going to be able to use that for a long time to come. I have to admit I am kind of regretting that I never did make the $400 investment and get the hand solo in carbonite lay uh casserole because that because that particular piece is selling for like about $2,000 and more on eBay. So that’s one that I might actually want to consider reselling. Okay, balance black cats rule. My big seven court uh oh ads. My big seven court was a gift from a fellow who works at a dump. It was new in box. Can you imagine throwing that out? Yeah, you never know what people are going to throw out, can’t you? Um there’s really any number of possible reasons for that. I mean among other things, of course, there are marital disputes. you know, somebody who threw out a brand new piece, a brand new piece like that, maybe because, oh, I don’t know, he got it for his mistress or something and then she found out. That’s just one possibility. Of course, you never know. Uh, J finishes. I got my croissants from an estate sale 20 years ago and it’s still very useful, although a little stain. Yeah, the staining is inevitable. I mean, uh, in the long run, there really doesn’t seem to be any way to get rid of all of the stains, but as long as you, you know, as long as the enamel isn’t damaged, then I would definitely say keep on cooking. Nice score, Val. Nice. Yes, exactly. It weighs a ton. Bakes the best beans. Eyes closed, so I must say enjoy. Oh, really? Oh, I see. So, you’re kind of uh falling asleep then, Cynthia. Well, in that case, yeah, in that case, I can only definitely wish you a good evening as well. Um, we are at four minutes until Yeah, we are at four minutes until uh the cover comes off of the lasagna. And I am thinking that maybe I will probably call it after that because all we can do at this point is wait until the lasagna is done. So, I’m just going to have to do a short unveiling video when the when the lasagna is done. But not not bad so far in anyway. Uh I’m happy at least so far that we seem to have accomplished everything that we set out to accomplish. Namely that as I said earlier today I made my family recipe for pasta sauce and we have plenty left of that. Although we used a lot of it in the lasagna. I mean look at this. We’ve got this mark here going all the way up to here. So yeah, we use this much uh pasta sauce just filling up that casserole dish. So I don’t think anybody is going to say that there is no flavor to this lasagna. And I’m quite happy about that. All right. Having said that, I mean we are at this point only the second uh cast iron Wednesday of the month. So that means I do have to start considering next week. Well, there’s always I mean you I mean these cast iron Wednesday videos, they pretty much really whatever catch my fancy. I mean I it’s like a lot of times I really don’t know what I’m going to do until pretty much the same day. Although this one I had the idea of doing it back on Monday when again I realized it was my nana’s birthday and I realized I need to make some uh pasta sauce in memory of her. And that’s when I thought, well, I should probably do that on Wednesday’s live. And then I thought, well, then why not just go the distance and make a full lasagna? And so that, oh yeah, you have to taste the sauce. Okay, you have to taste the sauce. I I hear you. Let’s uh let’s do that right now. There we go. See, here is the sauce. Let me go up here and you know what that tastes most like to me? Nostalgia. The taste brings back the memories of having this sauce at Nana in from Nana’s kitchen. So, I am quite happy with that. We’ve just had the one minute beep that uh the timer is about to go off. Would like to see some more bunt pan cooks. Um and we are getting into that time of year too. Maybe I might try doing some baking I think next week. I guess I’ll Yeah, I guess that might not be a bad plan. I think I might plan that. We might look into doing a couple of cakes next week or even just one. But thank you. But thank you again and congratulations on three years. Well, thank you very much, Rick Stumba. And here’s hoping that there will be many more years to come. Um, but right about now, actually, we’ll do it this way. because the timer is going off. However, this thing is so hot that I really have to be careful taking this uh foil off. So, I think I better break out. Here’s one. Here’s a heavy glove. This should be enough. Now I just have to be sure do this without spilling it all over the place. A little bit here. A little bit there. There we go. And we’re not off. And we’re off to a pretty good start already. Let’s take Let’s do a quick look for all of you folks here at this lasagna. And again, this is why I’ve uncovered it. So that now we can brown it because this thing is definitely baking. That’s for sure. And yeah, I can see and you could see as well there’s there is going to be a lot of liquid drip, isn’t there? So I had better put this back over the uh tray. Set the timer for 25 minutes. And with that, we just have to wait and the lasagna will be done. As I said, I am going to have to do an unveiling of the finished lasagna and that’s definitely what I intend to do. O yes, William, I’d eat that. I thank you for saying that on every one of my videos. I have so many things I have to do yet. I have to check I have to use carbon off on that vintage pan. I have a couple of other short chicken videos I have to do. I’ve done my favorite videos on my favorite ways to make chicken and cast iron number four and number three. I have to do number two and number one as well as well again prepare for the weekend. See what we’re going to be cooking this weekend. But right now at least again I did this as a celebration and I can only thank everybody who’s been kind enough to have this done. Yeah. to uh be here tonight to help with the celebration. Uh because yeah, as I said, it’s been three years and who knows what’s going to happen next. I can only hope things go good. So, thank you to everybody who’s been kind enough to uh show up here to show up here this evening. Let’s go back to the uh pot, shall we? There we go. But thank you very much to everybody. Uh yeah, you need to push me out of the way. Thank you to everybody who has been kind enough to show up here uh this evening. We’ve got about 37 people now. So, so we’re not doing too badly here. But thank you as well to Rick Stumbow and William Hurt and Rocket Caver Blackheads Rules and Strong’s Adventures. Thank you for Christopher Rice and thank you Greg Hart. Thank you to everybody who’s been uh kind enough to show up and especially to comment here on these u in these live videos because that’s really what makes these all so much fun. I mean, I’m talking and talking and talking and doing my best to read your comments here. Is there enough garlic in the sauce? Well, I certainly hope so. I started by uh toasting some uh garlic when I first started the sauce and then added a bunch of uh garlic powder to it. And then furthermore, at the uh suggestion of uh my of my guests here, I added a lot of garlic powder to the meatballs. So, there is definitely garlic in it because yeah, you can’t have an Italian dish without garlic. And having said that, I think we’re about ready here because I think I’m I think I’m finally uh No, that was just a notice from my security cam, but I think we’re finally ready here to uh serve some um meatballs to the kids. So, things are doing pretty good here. And thank you to everybody. Yeah, thank you to everybody who’s been kind enough to uh be here this evening. And all we can do is wrap this up and we will uh continue once again next week when hopefully my kitchen will be a little cleaner and uh we will see what happens next. Your guess is as good as mine, but my best hope is that I’ve been able to entertain you and that we’re going to have some fun. So, thank you to everybody and have yourself a good evening here, folks. And stay cool. It is hot here and I’m sure it’s hot there, too. And so far, August is not even half over. So yeah, stay safe and healthy out there everyone and thank you and good night. And once again, as I’d like to say, see you next Wednesday.
1 Comment
HAPPY 3RD YEAR , WITH A PERFECT DISH !!!