I made meat lasagna...but don't call me Joan Cleaver

If you read my blog long enough you'll notice that I love food and I love to cook. Whether or not I'm a good cook is up for debate. My husband always says he loves what I cook, but I have a sneaky suspicion that if I served him a dish with flies hovering over it, he'd declare it my best dish ever.
OK, I'm not bad. I think most of what I cook, I actually like myself.

Still, even if I doubt my actual cooking abillities, I love to try a new recipe. With time on my hands and the fact that no one in my house cooks, I have been on a cooking spree.

Last night, I made meat lasagna from scratch (nope, no Stovetop this time). I've always wanted to try this recipe because it looked so easy peasy...and it was!

My first attempt at meat lasagna (Personal Photo)

I used a meat lasagna recipe from one of my favorite food blogs, Wandering Chopsticks. It was a hit with the family and everyone said they loved it. It actually was pretty good!

One interesting note about this recipe is that WC says you don't have to cook the lasagna noodles before you bake it. I tried that, and when you first eat it after cooking, the noodles are definitely cooked...al dente, but cooked. When the noodles soak the sauce overnight, they become much softer.

In the future, I think I might modify the recipe a little with less meat (I ended up using much more than what was called for because I wanted to get rid of all the ground meat we had), less riccota cheese and more mozzarella.

As an avid tweeter, I had been updating my friends on my latest kitchen adventures. One teasingly remarked that it seemed I had become "little miss Joan Cleaver" since I had gotten married a month ago.

The remark made me uncomfortable. True, since I'm not working, much of my day is doing what housewives usually do and I love to cook. But I refuse to be seen as a housewife. I am not Joan Cleaver.

In my younger years, I used to diss the idea of being a housewife. I couldn't understand why you'd want to stay home all day. I thought being a stay-at-home wife and mother was so boring. Now, I understand why a woman would choose to dedicate her life to her family...I respect and honor it. I love, love, love my husband. We both want children someday, and I know my family comes before anything...but cooking, cleaning and taking care of a home is not what defines me.

So just because I'm married now and I like to cook for my husband, doesn't mean I'm Joan Cleaver. Don't label me with that stereotype, please. I'm much more than that. Much more.