[The following column was previously published in May, 2003. There is not a frozen ‘super market’ lasagna that even comes close to my wife’s recipe, especially if I make it. ‘Nuff said. gah]
A sale on lasagna and the ultimate chef challenge
Frozen lasagna in a grocery store’s flyer caught my eye the other day. Five pounds - $9.99. That’s incredible, I thought. Who can beat that?
“When you make lasagna how much does it cost?” I asked Pat.
“It’s pricey. Why?” my wife inquired as she looked up from her magazine.
I pointed to the flyer and said, “Can you make better lasagna than this for less money?”
“Ours might be thicker and tastier but I doubt we could beat the price,” she said.
I heard a touch of cynicism in her voice. The Harrison cook-off was born.
In the past I have been involved in a cook-off or two at Aberdeen Public School. Staff members vied for the prize of light-hearted, short-lived cooking glory and meager recognition. By the time afternoon classes began the winner was left with piles of dirty dishes and a few left-overs.
But in my kitchen it was about the glory, the honour, and ten bucks. I perused Pat’s recipe, made slight modifications and prepared to walk to Valu-Mart in Wortley Village for enough ingredients to fill a 9 by 12 inch pan.
At the store it took me all of 30 seconds to discover that $10 wasn’t going to get me very far. Mozzarella cheese was $5.69 for 600 grams and a pound of lean ground beef cost about $4. I decided it would be wiser to make two batches at once and try to beat the average sale price of $2 per pound.
A customer informed me I could save money by purchasing regular ground beef instead of lean. I resisted. A cashier said she had stopped making her own lasagna because she couldn’t match the price for five pounds of the PC brand. I pressed ahead.
With noodles, mozzarella, pasta sauce, tomatoes, cottage cheese, beef, peppers and mushrooms, I figured I had about 8 pounds of ingredients. Total cost was $17.08. Oh, it was going to be close.
The next day, an icy morning in early April, I assembled the ingredients, then sliced and diced, grated the cheese and cooked the noodles. By 11 a.m. the delicious aroma of fried onions, peppers and spice filled the house and by noon all was ready to spoon into two casserole dishes. An Italian sausage, onions, garlic and a few spices I had on hand brought my total costs to approximately $18.50, so I needed nine pounds of very tasty lasagna to win household glory.
“How are you going to weigh it?” Pat asked innocently.
I stopped stirring the sauce and replied, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
After a short pause I said, “We’ll go by the total volume. I’ll measure the sides of each pan and multiply by how deep it is to calculate cubic inches."
I arranged fat layers of noodles, cheese and sauce in the greased pans, and quietly celebrated as the ingredients approached the rim of each dish. After careful measurements and calculations I estimated I had 24 cubic inches more lasagna than two pans of store-bought - for $1.50 less.
After 35 minutes at 350 degrees the steaming lasagna was served.
“It’s delicious,” Pat said. “Perhaps I’ll take some to mother’s house tonight.”
That one vote of confidence was reward enough.
***
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