A Delicious Mess

            Home cooked lasagna is supposed to be better than school lasagna. Heck, anything is supposed to be better than school lasagna. The slushy tomato sauce that smells like dish soap. The lasagna that resembles a big pile of slush. The pitiful cheese that tastes like sour water. There is no question that school lasagna scarred me for life.

When someone offered me their spiced, exquisite Romanian cheese and aroma-filled lasagna, I tried not to be rude. I said politely that “I’m good, I am famished from your delicious banana nut bread.” Well to this I say no more. No more hiding from the word lasagna. No more running away when I smell that ever-familiar blend of cheese, noodles and sauces. I will make my own lasagna and I will eat it knowing that I have overcome my past fear. Today is lasagna day.

            Being the vegetarian that I am, I searched for vegetarian lasagna recipes on the infamous google search bar. To my dismay, my screen was suddenly crowded with thousands upon thousands of “vegetarian lasagna recipes.” This might be more difficult than I imagined…

After several hours of looking I reached a verdict. Goodhousekeeping.com supplied me with a vegan tofu spinach lasagna recipe. Before choosing this, I realized that I had tofu in my refrigerator and I wanted to incorporate it into my scrumptious-to-be lasagna. Looking back on this verdict, I wished I had not gone with the tofu…

The ingredients were all laid out before me and I thought “this better be good.” I began mixing and stirring and blending. This, by far, must be my favorite part of cooking. I loved putting my hands in the mixing bowl and massaging the mixture of spinach, tofu, milk and spices. I probably had too much fun, as I apparently spent 30 minutes just playing with the lasagna filling that had the texture of kinetic sand. Then I preheated the oven to 350 degrees F and started cooking the lasagna. I wondered if lasagna shells were a type of noodle. I revoked this claim by saying that lasagna did not look like noodles.

After everything was made, I put it all together. The lasagna kept slipping out of my hand like a slippery snake. I eventually got control by pinching it with my nails to get a better hold. I put the lasagna filling on top of the lasagna and the sauce on top of the lasagna filling. This pattern was repeated awhile before I realized that I was out of filling! Though frightened at first that this recipe was turning into a disaster, I managed to substitute the filling with extra sauce.

Into the oven went my questionable vegan tofu spinach lasagna. While it was cooking, I went to play with some actual kinetic sand and reflect. I thought of all those years when I would stuff clumps of my vegetarian school lasagna into my friend’s milk cartons. They would retaliate by putting clumps of the meat from their beef lasagna onto their forks and chasing me around the cafeteria with those vicious meat kabobs. “Those were the good old days,” I thought  “Things are going to change now.”

“BEEEEPPPPPPP,” yelled the kitchen alarm.

I ran over to the oven and carefully took out the steaming lasagna. Though the recipe said to wait a few minutes before eating, I dived right in. I hesitated a bit before my first bite, blowing on the lasagna to cool it down. When I finally ate it, I almost cried. The tofu reminded me of the sour water cheese. The tomato sauce was like watered dish soap. The lasagna was falling apart and it resembled a huge pile of mush.

“Well, I guess some things never change,” I said glumly as I washed down my mouth with soap.