Daring Baker Challenge - Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna

"Behold, God is my helper;

The Lord is the sustainer of my soul." 

Psalm 54:4

I was so looking forward to this challenge. I love to make lasagna, and I was up for a new recipe. I even bought the cook book that the recipe came from. But unfortunately I came down with pneumonia last week, and the doctor even told me to go to emergency on Friday evening with a temperature of 104.  So I do no have the energy to tackle lasagna this weekend.  And besides, I can't smell anything.  I can only taste salt, sweet, sour, and bitter.  Yesterday I put chopped fresh jalapeno in my chicken soup and I didn't even notice it.  I had originally planned to do it for my husbands birthday dinner earlier this month. But he had purchased a big standing rib roast for me to cook, so what was I to do. I feel like a real flake of a daring baker, and I really hope they don't take me off the list.



But since I can't talk about my db event, I will talk about my lasagna for last Christmas. It was the snowiest Christmas any of us had ever seen, and our car was of no use to us. If you wanted to go anywhere you walked, unless you got someone with chains to give you a ride. I talked some about all this snow business on a blog in December, but I never got it finished. Everything was so hectic. But because I wasn't able to get to my Italian market to pick up fresh made pasta sheets for the lasagna we were compelled to make our own. Luckily my daughter Annie is an expert at this, and in our usual fashion we all dug in to get the lasagna make.



I was lucky to find all the ingredients needed for my sauce in the freezer, including a secret ingredient, which has become somewhat of a tradition.




And to my great amazement, there it was, Christmas Eve Lasagna, even though I didn't think I could do it. And we even had dinner on time (well, almost on time - 8:15).



And the nicest complement the lasagna got from my oldest daughter's French boyfriend, who said it was the best lasagna he'd ever eaten, and he had two pieces.


We all enjoyed the lasagna very much, and had a lovely Christmas eve dinner.






And then we follow dinner with our traditional buche de Noel:


The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

And I know there are many many wonderful daring bakers out there who actually managed to do this month's challenge

"If I knew I was going to live this long,

 I'd have taken better care of myself." 

Mickey Mantle