DB March Challenge: Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna

This month's Daring Baker's Challenge wasn't bread or some tasty baked good, but Lasagne made with homemade spinach pasta. We like lasagne so we were pretty happy with this one. The requirement was that we make the handmade spinach egg pasta, use bechamel sauce, and a ragu sauce.
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.

Look at that beautiful green ball of pasta!


A great opportunity to use my ravioli cutter.

The pasta drying in my living room.

Making bechamel sauce was a new one for me. I didn't even know what it was. In the end, my kids say, "This tastes like regular lasagne!" Great...after all that hard work...

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The Daring Bakers now have their own website, you can check out the recipe here, and also check out the wonderful creations from the rest of us!

Pound Cake

My first pound cake experience...I had never had pound cake before so it never crossed my mind to make one. Until now. It was 5 pm and I wanted to bake something for dessert. Cinnamon buns sounded really good but was too time consuming. Flipping through one of my baking books I came across a pound cake recipe. The process was like making a quickbread, simple and quick, and I remembered I had some strawberries in the fridge that would go great with it.

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The traditional American pound cake would contain one pound each of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar, hence the name "pound" cake. And who knew there are British, French, Mexican, and Columbian-style pound cakes.

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Pound cakes are very versatile, by adding different flavor extracts or add-ins, you can create a new cake each time.

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Pound Cake (Better Homes & Gardens Old-Fashioned Home Baking)

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1 c. butter

4 eggs

2 c. flour

1 t. baking powder

1/4 t. ground nutmeg (optional)

1 c. sugar

1 t. vanilla

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Bring butter and eggs to room temperature. Grease and lightly flour a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. In a medium bowl stir together flour, powder, and, if desired, nutmeg. Set eggs, pan, and flour mixture aside.

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In a large bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed about 30 seconds or till softened. Gradually add sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating on medium to high speed about 6 minutes total or till very light and fluffy. Add the vanilla. Then add the eggs, one at a time, beating on low to medium speed for 1 minute after each addition; scrape sides of bowl often. Gradually add the flour mixture, beating on low speed just till combined.

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Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake in a 325*F oven for 55 to 65 minutes or till cake tests done. Cool cake in pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Then remove cake from pan and cool completely on rack.

Cheep Cheep Cheep

We just got three more chicks, they are Ameraucanas which lay blue eggs. Each one has a distinct color scheme so it's easy to tell them apart. The kids are having a hard time coming up with names, but are having a fun time watching them. They cheep all day, they are just soooo cute!

Emi's, this one is the smallest and the most mellow. Just adorable.

Abby's, a little bigger then Emi's, and kinda has a "duck" look when you look at it from the side.

Sage's, probably the biggest of the three and the bossiest. This one may be a cock (hope not...)

Oh Yeah!

That hit the spot! Mmmm, mmmm, mmmmm. These were so easy to make and delicious too. I used dark chocolate, sinful...

Trail Bars Again

This time instead of microwaving the marshmallow/butter mixture I melted them in a non-stick pan. My mix-ins were just granola, rice crispies, dried cranberries, and white chocolate chips which went into the pan (like when you make rice crispy treats) which wasn't a good idea. The chocolate chips melted and spread everywhere. Next time if I use chips I'll pour the marshallow mixture into the bowl. But they were still tasty!

Motivational Poster

Make your own motivational posters!

Homemade Sausages & Buns

Tried making sausages again. Last time was a little dry so I added some pork fat, but it was still dry. Maybe I need to grind my own pork instead of getting ground pork from the store. This little gadget I got is neat but needs some extra hands to make it work. Abby and Emi were glad to help. I couldn't of done it without them.

Made some hot dog buns to go with them, used a hamburger bun recipe but just shaped them into logs.

I made a double batch of dough so with some of them I tried making cheese breadsticks, like the ones from Costco. Just sprinkling cheese on top didn't do it, I need to add something to the dough. But it sure looks nice.

Kiwifruit Sorbet

Another recipe from the great book "The Perfect Scoop" by David Lebovitz. I need to buy this book instead of renewing over and over from the library! So many great recipes...

Mediterranean Loaf

Made a non-sweet quickbread, Mediterranean Loaf. This one has olives, oil-packed sundried tomatoes, and feta cheese. I had high hopes for this one, but it was quite bland despite having salty things in it, and very crumb-y. It might have be been better is a yeasted bread recipe. Live and learn.

Ernie Maxwell with Marmu

Marmu's back, this time for about a month while Dave's off to Europe. She and I both need to exercise so we hiked the Ernie Maxwell trail today.

Was surprised to see some snow still on the ground. It was very cold, so glad I had my mittens.


Looks like I have a new photo subject. ^_^