Rosendale Ramblings By Sari Botton

1. Come up with idea.

2. Go out to garden to pick broccoli and cauliflower. Notice that much of the broccoli was eaten by groundhogs. Notice, too, that the cauliflower is sparse, and most of what remains is brown and rotted from all the flooding. Pick what little bit is not completely gross, and try to figure out how to rescue the veggie lasagna without having to make another trip to the store. Especially since your town doesn’t have a store.

3. Vaguely remember that there are probably still some chopped vegetables from last year’s garden in the freezer. Go to freezer. Sure enough, there they are – pole beans, carrots, peppers, zucchini, yellow squash. So what if there’s some snowy-looking ice in with the vegetables, and evidence of freezer burn?

4. Realize that last year’s frozen veggies smell like a combination of the plastic bags they were in and the freezer itself, with notes of everything bagels and half-eaten loaves of gluten-free bread. Say to self, encouragingly, “That’s nothing sauteing with fresh onion from the garden can’t cure!”

5. Go out in rain (of course it’s raining now) to pick a fresh onion from the garden.

6. Steam the fresh and frozen veggies together.

7. Saute onion in olive oil, then add all the veggies. Hope for the best.

8. Pick loads of basil, which has been growing out of control, thanks to 2009 Summer of Rain. Fill a whole colander with it.

9. Chop basil in food processor with indeterminate amounts of olive oil, pine nuts, and grated Parmesan cheese. Keep adjusting till it looks and tastes something like Buddha Pesto.

10. Try to remember the lasagna recipe your step-mother gave you in college. Something about mixing a quart of ricotta cheese with two ounces of shredded mozzarella and some amount of grated parmesan. And was it one or two beaten eggs to hold the mixture together as it cooks?

11. Oops. Out of eggs.

12. Oh, well. Combine the cheeses and hope they hold. Then, mix A LOT of the pesto in with it. Go ahead – add some more. One more heaping spoonful to make it a little greener? So people will KNOW it’s a pesto lasagna and not some unidentifiable or moldy thing? Sure, why not.

13. Add the veggies to the ricotta mixture.

14. Put a dash of oil into bottom of lasagna pan and spread it around.

15. Cover the bottom of the pan with boiled and cooled Tinkyada gluten-free brown rice lasagna noodles. Then add a layer of the mixture. Top that with thinly sliced squares of mozzarella cheese.

16. Do two more layers.

17. Bake for – what did step-mother’s recipe say? Well, try 45 minutes at 375. Keep checking on it. You’re smart. You’ll know if it needs more or less.

18. Wonder whether there could have been less guess work if you’d found a recipe online. Discover that, why, yes, there could have. And that you were not the first person to “invent” pesto lasagna.