Wanted: Last Minute Eaters Recipes 21-22: Lasagna and Kabocha Soup

It took a few weeks but finally the administrator in me came out and now I have an actual “chart” (isn’t that sick?) of the coming week’s menus, with a list below each day ticking off items I will need to buy AND special notes if I need to get something started that day for the next day’s recipes. Oh, but it doesn’t end there. I now have a list of every grocery store with the phone number and extension# of the produce department taped on my cabinet. The low point came today when I started a frickin’ price comparison spreadsheet of bulk items that I regularly buy with the prices from all the grocery stores. That means I have to now bring that spreadsheet with me next time I go shopping and fill in the blanks. Once done, I’ll know who’s got the least expensive flax seeds in the area and so on. Don’t worry, I’ll post it so you can save money too.

So now that Daniel is clear on not sharing live food dinners with me, the routine is that when a recipe seems like it’s going to turn out, I start madly calling my neighbors to drop by for dinner, at the last minute. I can never give them advance notice because, what if it’s a disaster? So tonight when I lifted off the “terrine” (as opposed to a tureen, Justine-thanks, now I know what a terrine is!) and the lasagna didn’t spread out like blobby lava, I knew I had a winner. I frantically started calling around. “Sue, want to have dinner?” Not sure, she has to call me back. “Deb, want to have dinner?” I left a message. Who else to call? My husband was napping so I suddenly felt very alone. I went ahead and started pureeing the kabocha squash for the soup. That looked like it would turn out too. And then my heart was heavy. Nobody to share it with. Not even the dogs, they hate this type of cuisine.

I got the camera out and starting snapping. But I needed to actually cut the lasagna for the photo so people could see the layers. God, I hated to cut into it. What if the whole thing fell apart? Just then the phone rang. Deb saved the day! She’d be right over. Suddenly my whole world lit up. I confidently sliced into the lasagna and it didn’t fall apart. Snap, I got my photo.

Lasagne was a winner! The photo from the book was so intimidating, I can’t believe I made this and it wasn’t even that difficult. In fact it was fairly straight forward. The only hassle being I had to start the herb cheese a day or so back so it would be ready today. This dish was absolutely delicious and really tasted like lasagna, only better!!

The Kabocha Squash Soup with Sweet-Sour Sultana Sorbet was supposed to be a dessert, but I think it’s better placed as an appetizer or between-course palate cleanser, if you do that kind of thing (I don’t, but maybe I should start!). What are sultanas? Apparently they are a small, white raisin from somewhere else in the world, so it’s comparable to a Thompson grape here. That’s what I used.

So if you want to be a last-minute-call-to-dinner friend, drop me a message. I need last minute eaters.