#legitimately was still doing the maths in my head literally the first 10 pull (on 5 pity) i will never ask for anything again

[hawflake-folk]

brought jiaoqiu out to pull for them and the absolute speed at which they arrived...

[themillennialwhocantcook-blog]

The other day, I attempted to make “Classic Lasagna” from the cookbook “The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook” except I made one mistake: I wanted to make it for four. Why did I choose a cookbook that is specifically recipes for two when I needed a recipe for four? I honestly couldn’t tell you. My house is OVERFLOWING with cookbooks; I get a new one every birthday and Christmas, and a new cooking magazine every month. Lasagna is such a classic recipe (as seen from the title of this recipe) that there is certainly no shortage in the 14 new cookbooks/magazines I acquire every fucking year. Now, had I made this specific recipe before, I could have the excuse of “well it’s my favorite lasagna recipe”. But I hadn’t made this recipe before. There is literally no logic behind why I chose to make a lasagna for two recipe for four people.

It all started with a trip to the grocery store. This particular recipe called for 8 ounces of meatloaf mix for the sauce, and that was cool with me I have no problem with some fatty protein. I get to the grocery store and problem number one: I didn’t know where the fuck the meatloaf was. My mom had made it once before in my entire life but we never ate it again because my dad hates it. I legitimately didn’t know that meatloaf came as raw meat in the meat section with all the other MEAT. My 21 year old, college-educated brain seriously thought it came in a can. I strolled through every single canned-goods aisle of the grocery store looking for canned meatloaf. And no, I didn’t ask for help, because I’m a millennial who is afraid to approach and engage with anything else that has a conscience. After wandering around and googling “what aisle is the meatloaf in” for about 15 minutes, I finally considered that it might just be in the raw meat section. It took me about 3 laps (because I’m still not asking anyone for help) to find the package that screamed in big, bold letters “MEATLOAF MIX”. FINALLY, THE HOLY LAND. Good God was I pleased with myself.

Now remember, the two person recipe called for 8 ounces of meat. This means that for four people, I needed 16 ounces. Simple right? You just double it. However I, a college-educated intellectual, forgot one of the most basic rules of cooking: 8 ounces in a cup, 16 ounces in a pound. I thought it was 8 ounces in a pound, meaning that I seriously thought that this four person sauce recipe called for TWO POUNDS of meatloaf. I sifted through every package of meatloaf I could find, each one ranging from 1.37 pounds to 1.69 pounds. “Dammit”, I thought, “this just isn’t going to be enough meatloaf :/”. A little disappointed, I took the 1.69 pound package and headed for the checkout.

Once I returned home, I was ready to get this party started. Friday was normally Italian night but fuck it, I’m grown and I was gonna make lasagna on Thursday. I prepped all my stuff: preheated the oven, mixed the garlic and onion together (even though I was supposed to cook only the onion for 5 minutes first), opened my cans of sauce, mixed the cheeses together (I accidentally bought romano instead of parmesan because I can’t read), and pulled out the casserole dish. As I was cooking the onions before I threw the meat in, I realized how much extra I had bought. I needed one pound and bought a pound and a half (which I’m sure you as a reader have caught on to by now). Then I guess I blacked out because I just threw it all in the pot. All 1.5 pounds. I had just been thinking about how much extra meat I had, but my arms apparently didn’t fucking care. The meatloaf was in and there was nothing I could do about it.  

All of the cooking actually went pretty well and it wasn’t until I started building the lasagna that I realized how much food I truly had. It was four layers of a lot of meat, thin noodles, and way less cheese than I expected, like if there was any part of the recipe I wouldn’t have minded doubling, it would definitely be the cheese. But it wasn’t. It was that goddamn meatloaf. So I’m building my lasagna, and the sauce is all over the place, there is just waaaay too much of it. But I’ll be damned if I’m wasting that sauce, I always feel bad throwing away leftovers and I was going to make all 27 ounces of meat fit in there. That was definitely a very unnecessary thing to do.

One thing I did do right was put the casserole dish on a baking sheet. The recipe didn’t even tell me to do that, I was just so innovative that I thought it up all on my own. As I picked up the baking sheet, casserole dish placed nicely on top, the lasagna was sloshing around like an inflatable pool at an 8 year-old’s birthday party (if you don’t understand that analogy then you’ve never seen 8 year-olds in a pool). The lasagna cooked for 25 minutes with foil on top then another 10 without the foil. Within these 35 minutes, the sauce did an excellent job of bubbling and spilling over the edge of the dish (on to the conveniently placed baking sheet). This, however, lead to a bitch of a cleanup. By the end, the dish and baking sheet were greasy, sticky, and had cheese baked on tougher than plaster. And because I’m an impatient millennial, I didn’t let either soak in hot soapy water for a reasonable amount of time. I wanted that shit over with and I scrubbed for probably 15 minutes straight.

As I sit here eating my leftover lasagna and writing this post, I can’t think of a proper closing. The lessons learned? ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK YOUR MATH. No one needs 1.69 pounds of meatloaf, absolutely no one. I also probably could have put foil under my casserole dish so I didn’t have to scrub the baking sheet. Beyond that, I have no climactic joke. If you’ve read this entire post: congratulations. You wasted your time essentially reading about how a 21 year old can’t do basic cooking math, and I wasted my time writing it. And because I didn’t write this until two days after I made the recipe, here’s a lovely picture of my leftovers!