Lasagna Bolognese and Lemon Cheesecake

Yesterday, I made two time-consuming dishes. It was almost too much for one Saturday, but it was worth it. I have been craving traditional lasagna bolognese and CI's lemon cheesecake. I wanted the lasagna to have fresh spinach pasta, bolognese, bechamel, and parmigiana reggiano. I started the sauce about 4 1/2 hours before dinner time. I used CI's recipe, but I added some leftover pancetta as well. I sauteed fresh spinach, shocked it in ice water, squeezed out the water, and made the pasta dough using the recipe in How to Cook Everything. I let the dough rest at room temperature in a Ziploc bag.

While the  bolognese was simmering (that smell makes it so hard to concentrate) I made the cheesecake. I decided to make this very last minute. It is another Cook's Illustrated recipe, and the crust is supposed to be made with animal crackers. I was out of animal crackers and graham crackers. I thought about making my own for a while, but I just had too much happening. I used the Ritz crackers I had on hand. The filling has lemon juice, lemon zest, and heavy cream in it as well as the usual ingredients. It is awesome. While the cheesecake is baking in a water bath, you make a lemon curd topping. After the cheesecake has cooled to room temp you spread on the curd and refrigerate it for 4 hours,

Around this time, I made the bechamel and let it cool down some. Then I used my Atlas machine to make the lasagna noodles. The kids hovered about in awe of the process. It is pretty cool. I enriched the bolognese with a little of the bechamel. Then I cooked the pasta sheets for about a minute or two. This is the hardest part for me. I used my pasta insert. Once the sheets are cooked I removed the insert from the boiling water and swirled them under cold running water. Then you have to quickly layer them on greased foil sheets. Anywhere they touch will stick, so it uses a lot of foil.

I layered all the ingredients together. These sheets are paper thin so there are quite a few layers.

The problem with not really using a recipe is that I have to make the hard decisions, like what the top layer should be. I decided that I would put one layer of bolognese on top of the last sheets and then sprinkle with the remaining parm. I put it in a 400 degree oven until everything was bubbly and beginning to brown.

It turned out really great. I only noticed one problem. The last time I made this a used a white wine/herb reduction in the bechamel. I got this tip from my friend Amy on the CI board. This time I skipped it because I was out of white wine. I think I missed that bit of acidity.

Luckily. there was plenty of acidity in the dessert.

I am not a fan of plain cheesecake so I rarely make them. My husband and children are huge cheesecake fans. They were thrilled with this cheesecake. It is almost completely gone. The texture was perfect thanks to the water bath. I am happy to say I loved the crust. The saltiness of the Ritz were delicious in the buttery sweet crust.