Pecorino Romano

At Costco, the Parmiggiano cheese and the Pecorino Romano are lined up side by side, and the latter is significantly less expensive. Therefore, I always end up buying the latter and using it for everything. I've heard it's a bit saltier but otherwise a decent stand in, where Parmesan is called for.

In a sure sign that I've conditioned the family to like this cheese quite a bit, no one even noticed or thought it unusual that it was somehow incorporated into everything we ate tonight.


*lasagna with Romano
*oven baked cheese bread with Romano
*salad of romaine, hazelnuts, pickled onions and Romano
*baby carrots and ranch for dipping...I guess there wasn't any Romano involved there, actually...
*water (phew, at least Romano wasn't floating in it!)

The kids liked the cheese bread best. I think they would have liked the lasagna a bit more, but the top layer of noodles got pretty crunchy and that put them off. I wasn't offended, it kind of put me off too. I actually made this lasagna yesterday, which meant that tonight I was able to throw it in the oven while some friends were over for a playdate. That felt nice. However, I don't think the directions indicating that one should bake for 40 minutes with foil on, then 20 minutes off, were quite right. 10 minutes probably would have been sufficient.

I'm not leaving the lasagna recipe here because it was a super straight forward standard one from the good old Better Homes and Gardens red and white cookbook.

However, there is another recipe I'd like to introduce, tomorrow (it's getting late!). So for now, I'll just tempt you with the picture of the cafe au lait bars that I made tonight. I've promised to teach a little baking class for eight moms from Koji's school on Wednesday morning. We've already decided to make biscotti, but I wanted to make something else too and thought these might be good. Sure enough! They may look a bit strange here; the recipe presented a "mochacino" option, which meant spreading chocolate over the top. Wanting Aogu to try them without complaining, I left the chocolate off a quarter of the pan so I could give him an unadulterated sample. Chocolate or no, our verdict was that they are worthy material for the baking class. Now, I'll just have to try them alongside a cafe au lait for drinking (obviously my early pregnancy aversion to all things coffee has completely abated!). Please come back tomorrow for the recipe...

PS Ha ha! I guess the Steelers won yesterday, not the Cardinals, as I erroneously claimed...now you know the true extent of my interest in and attention to the Super Bowl...