Best ever?

Sometimes the most ordinary things get labelled The Best, which is always a pleasant surprise. The trick, of course, is finding out what was so Best about it, in order to replicate.

I made this lasagna that wasn't very different to our usual lasagna (though to be honest, we don't eat lasagna all that often)... tomato sauce and veggies, layered with noodles and cream sauce.

But somehow, Andy labelled this The Best Lasagna Ever--that is, not just the best lasagna I've made, but the best lasagna he's ever had. So that's pretty good. What about it was so great? I think it had something to do with cooking up the sauce/veggie mix a few days before putting the lasagna together. And the other factor was the abundance of cream sauce. I often run short, so I made lots this time, and layered it in one of the layers as well as on top. The result was obviously good.

Edited to add a lame-ass recipe:

For the sauce--saute an onion until soft, stir in garlic and mixed herbs. Add about 200 g. of finely chopped eggplant and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in 1 small zucchini, diced, 1/2 c. of red capsicum, diced, and 1 c. of broccoli, chopped quite small. Cook for another five minutes. Add 1/2 c. frozen peas and 1 jar of pre-made pasta sauce (or, you know, make your own!). Let this cool and store in the fridge until you are ready to make the lasagna, preferably a few days.

On lasagna-making day, make the cream sauce by combining 3 T. flour, 1 T. chopped garlic, 1 T. miso and 1 t. mustard with 1/4 c. olive oil in a small saucepan. Heat until bubbly and whisk in 3 cups of soy milk, whisking until it thickens. Then layer the lasagna with noodles, red sauce, white sauce, etc. Bake for about an hour at 180 to 200 degrees.

Sorry, I don't have any more description than this!

And these cookies are another example. They were a last minute thing. Andy's dad's birthday was in three days and we had meant to send something sooner, but forgot. In order to get them to him by his birthday, we had to express post them the next morning. The only catch was that we didn't have much in the house. So I found a recipe and bastardised the hell out of it.

In the end, the post was slow and the cookies didn't get there on time anyways, but it didn't matter--Andy's parents thought the cookies were fantastic and have asked for the recipe. Since I'm typing it up for them, I thought I would share here.

½ cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 c. soy milk
1 T scotch

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarb soda
1 T soy flour
50 g shredded coconut
100 g chopped dark chocolate
100 g chopped walnuts
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 190. Cream together peanut butter, brown sugar, soy milk, and scotch.

In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and soy flour until well blended. Gradually add dry ingredients to the peanut butter mixture, until everything is incorporated. Fold in the chocolate, coconut and walnuts. Drop balls of the dough onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and flatten. Bake for about 9 to 11 minutes or until golden.