Lasagna - A Tribute to One of the Most Popular Pastas

It's quite the challenge for me to write about my favorite pasta. Frankly, I've never met a pasta dish I didn't like...make that LOVE! But this week in particular...

...the big One Year Birthday Bash I plan on sharing some of my personal pasta favorites. But where to start?! Do I think about the sauces? the pasta itself? baked? quickly thrown together? spectacular?....hmmmm.

Well, there's always...lasagna. Over the course of the last year there have been more than 3 dozen different variations of it at Presto Pasta Nights. One week even had 4 lasagna entries! And I personally have shared a few of my own... Crockpot lasagna - not picture worthy, but a great easy dish for those days when there really is no time to cook. I even made two without pasta...

Eggplant Lasagna South Beach Diet friendly,

and this one for Passover...Mazzagne al Pesto.

My daughter Joanna (and a team of sous-chefs and baby sitters) even made our own pasta for this Spicy Olive & Sun-dried Tomato Lasagna.

But the one lasagna recipe I cherish the most is in my cookbook - Every Kitchen Tells Its Story.

I call it Auntie Shelley's Lasagna...and it really does have a history.

While I was growing up, my Auntie Shelley (one of my mother's sisters) lived in Cornwall, Ontario, about an hour drive from Montreal and we would spend the weekend several times a year. The dish I remember best is her lasagna. It was the dish that greeted us when we arrived. It was the dish that any of the sisters made when they were having company and it was the dish I chose to make for my first dinner party. I was 16 and I served it with garlic bread and Caesar salad to my friends - who were very impressed (so was I!). There was a secret ingredient that truly did make is special...shhhh, don't tell (too bad I can't find any to actually make it true to the original) Piazza Tomasso's Meat Sauce.

It’s umpteen years later and these days I make it with my own Lazybones Marinara Sauce, but it still reminds me of growing up and visiting Auntie Shelley, Uncle Eddie and Mel & Carole.

So what's the pasta dish that really takes you back to the "good old days"? And what are you bringing to the big Presto Pasta Night Birthday Bash!