la-la-la-la-la-lasagna

(If you don’t now have this song stuck in your head, we might not be friends anymore.)

Nearly every Wednesday night for the past three and a half years, I’ve made tracks for my friend Debbie’s house for Soup and Game Night. As the name implies, we eat dinner (usually soup, although the summertime usually brings lighter fare) and play card games, board games, video games — you name it. I love the group because we’re all smart, funny, and able to take a joke, so we spend a lot of time discussing intelligent things, which then devolve into ragging on each other about pretty much everything. Debbie, the matriarch of the group, usually takes care of dinner, but was all too glad to turn food-making duties (ha!) over to the Dumbass Gourmet.

I’ve found that lasagna is fairly foolproof, even in my hands, so I decided that’s what we’d have for dinner. I love making lasagna because of the part where I get to mix the ricotta/mozzarella/seasonings/egg blend with my hands and then smear it on the noodles — I’ve always been a fan of mixing things with my hands, which is why there is at this very moment a meatloaf basking in the summery heat of my oven. Like Play-Doh, I like to feel it squishing between my fingers.

Anyway, I constructed the lasagna in my kitchen and transferred it to Debbie’s for the cooking phase. She offered her kitchen for the whole process, but I declined because her kitchen looks like this:

Jealous!

… and mine more often than not looks like someone threw up dirty dishes and tomato sauce all over the place anyway:

The floor is equally grody.

I seem to learn things the hard way, like don’t wear a sleeveless shirt while poking sizzling ground beef with a spoon because you will get burned, then flail around like an idiot trying to find a towel to wipe off the grease. Sometimes I just don’t learn, though, because for as long as I’ve been making lasagna, I’ve forgotten to rinse the noodles with cold water before grabbing them to layer in the pan. (That burns, by the way.) I built a respectable lasagna and covered the dish with foil, then set out for the short drive to Debbie’s house. I watched with nervousness as the dish gently slid along the passenger’s side floorboard — hills are the norm in Bowling Green — but we made it there, me and the lasagna, and it emerged from the oven an hour later looking like this:

Weird Al accordion solo!

I’ve recently discovered a love of artichokes, so I was delighted to see Debbie’s offering:

Artichoke salad with onions, red peppers, and cheese/vinaigrette dressing

I’m pleased to say that dinner was a hit! It’s been nearly a week and no one’s died yet, so I think it’s safe to say that yet another dish escaped ruination at the hands of the Dumbass Gourmet. We’ll see if tonight’s meatloaf is so lucky.