Lasagna for Deux: If the Pan Fits

When I think about loaf pans, I think exclusively of banana bread. Whole-wheat banana bread with walnuts and occasionally chocolate chips to be exact. To blog as a stereotype, my mother is well known amongst our little community of family and friends for her banana bread. She always makes two loafs at a time-- one to share, one to keep at home. The one that is kept at home is usually on a wooden cutting board, quickly consumed till the last piece sits sadly around for two or three days. Then, someone honorable soul always makes it his or her duty to pop it into the toaster and get on with eating the last piece. I know, its an unbearable burden, but must be done.

See, that story was literally a text-book food/family blog narrative. Sure, food is obviously strongly tied to family and identity in a way that makes it pretty clear why everyone tells stories about their mamma's and father's home cooking and the childhood memories that go along. However, it really does seem like after the 100th Chopped episode or 500th ~best homemade shortbread (now vegan!)~ that everyone has the same story. It's like dreams and conversations. You find your dream fascinating and deep, but others find it just to be their down sleep and consequently dream inducer.
Perhaps unlike a normal, rational, well-thought out blog, this post is not actually about banana bread. No, I am not going to share my mother's recipe. One, because it is printed in a cookbook we bought at Costco. Two, it's pretty obvious that this is a post about lasagna by now. Unless you're using the speech-to-text feature to listen to my blog as your eyes focus elsewhere.

So technically this is out of order- should be noodle, ricotta cheese mix, then turkey-tomato sauce.

This little loafpan turkey lasagna was from my The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen. Lasagna noodles really do fit quite perfectly into a loaf pan. While this lasagna is mini in size, it isn't so mini in prep time. However, it's hard to resist the beautiful, delicious layers of noodles, cheese, turkey and tomato sauce. Oh the cheese. This was my first time buying parmesan by the block and grating it myself, but it was so easy. I'm happy to spend half my groceries on cheese if I can eat like this all the time. Seriously, you just throw a chunk of parmesan into your food processor and you have powdery parmesan in seconds. It's a beautiful thing. 

As I alluded to earlier, despite all the work that goes into making a lasagna and the bubbling burnt goop that makes your oven want to cry, I was so elated by my first lasagna, that I made another a week later. Plus, I have like a gazillion no boil lasagna noodles I need to get rid of (#cookingforone). This time, I made a chicken pesto lasagna. Winging a few things, it turned out less flavorful, but the extra veggies and basil made me happy. Plus, I added a cookie tray to keep the bubbling goop from hissing onto my oven, which saved me from the stress of worrying about my fire alarm. Lasagna may not be an easy weeknight meal, but sometimes you gotta do the right thing in the name of bubbly, melty cheese.

Recipe from The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen.