Lost Recipe

My friend Pat gave me a recipe for Saltine Lasagna. She found it in her cookbook Cook's Country Best Lost Suppers. She remembers making it back when she lived on "the farm": a commune she lived on way back when. I had to try it. Full disclosure: there is nothing seasonal about it, nothing from the CSA box. I used zucchini and yellow bell pepper and some lovely tomatoes and all of these came from the local (and not even organic) grocery.  

But the idea of recovering lost recipes really speaks to me. We've lost so many wonderful and vital abilities. The idea of eating seasonally was completely foreign to me for most of my life. I'm having to learn it. Using what you have, putting things up for winter, making do--these things are becoming so important again. 

Here is a link to a review of Lost Suppers which also has the recipe for Saltine Lasagna. (Incidentally, if you google Saltine Lasagna, you'll find links to several recipes for it, and then farther down the page it goes haywire and there are recipes for eating your placenta. Ew, ew, ew. And why, God, why?)

So the Saltine Lasagna was simple to make, sautee' the veggies, layer everything in the baking dish. I topped it with tomato slices and lots of mozzarella and parmesan cheese. I recommend baking it for at least 30 minutes, if not more. It's like a strata, and the egg and milk mixture need to cook through.

The kids were not fans. Because of the vegetables. Maybe next time I'll leave out the veggies and substitute sausage. I told Josh that this was a lost recipe, and he joked, "maybe it should have stayed lost." But I think he liked it. To me, it was the very essence of comfort food: creamy and cheesy. With tomato sauce. Also, I felt a like a non-repressed Betty Draper while cooking it.