A couple weeks ago, My Coffee Buddy was regaling me with a long tale of kvetch about making lasagne. Now, MCB often kvetches about how much she hates to cook but I think she is actually probably good at it. She’s just in that baggy old more or less empty nest stage of life where there are rarely any more than a couple people to feed at home, so why bother. Plus MCB gallivants the world with her globe-trotting husband to the point where I get dizzy even thinking about where she is at any given time. Switzerland? Viet Nam? Home from Alaska for 24 hours and then England? The mind boggles. Yeah, I know, I’ve been trying to figure out why this person hangs around with a baggy old kayak woman like me too. Most of my travel involves flying Honda Express up and down the I75 SUV Speedway to the Great White North and back and I can’t even keep track of what’s in my refrigerator doing that. Traveling the world on a regular basis? I would give up, I think.

Anyway, when she said something about how long it takes to cook the noodles before putting the lasagne together, I was goggle-eyed. What? You cook the noodles beforehand? Why? I said, “You don’t have to cook the noodles beforehand.” It was MCB’s turn to be goggle-eyed.

Folks. Here’s the PSA. You DO NOT have to cook lasagne noodles before you put your lasagne together. It doesn’t even matter what kind of noodles you buy. You don’t have to buy those fresh noodle sheets (although those are sure good!). Leave those mass-marketed no-boil (or whatever) noodles right there on the shelf. You can put a lasagne together with dry noodles and, guess, what? They will bake nicely with all that sauce and cheese and filling and stuff and they’ll be soft when you serve it. I promise!

I was thinking that everybody knew about the uncooked lasagne noodles but I keep encountering this conversation with otherwise intelligent folks who know their way around a kitchen. Trust me and try it. Here’s my recipe (or whatever you want to call it) but you can certainly use your own.

And so, I made veggie lasagne yesterday for the annual Courtois family party. We slithered over to Sterling Heights and back. Intermittent black ice was the theme of the day. Black ice? Heck, this is Michigan and it is winter here and, well, ho-hum. This year, I was able to actually eat some of my own lasagne. Last year, I was recovering from a nasty gastrointestinal virus and I ate cheerios out of a ziplock bag that Mouse foisted upon me against my own protests.

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