PRESENTING: FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA: THE DINNER SERIES

NFL WEEK 11: TOP-ROPE TAG-TEAM LAMB-RAGU LASAGNA

In the spirit of the fast-approaching holidays, The whole family collaborated on a laborious lasagna, made completely from scratch. Step one started during the college football schedule, Michigan tanked against Northwestern while 6 pounds of lamb shoulder caught a quick brown before stewing in a bottle of montepulciano d'abruzzo for 10+ hours. Saturday afternoon I loaded the meat along with 3 chopped onions, 5 diced tomatoes, 2 heads of garlic, and a handful of jalapeños into the slow cooker for 6 to 8, 10, 12 + hours... the resulting ultra-tender meat slurry would define the base of this monumental lasagna.
early in the game, the cuts of meat are still defined and the Wolverines still lead...
Like Michigan's lead, the meat begins to breakdown and separate from the bone....

Ben spearheaded the homemade pasta, which consisted of a dozen egg yokes and plenty of semolina flour. It was obvious he'd been itching to use his new rolling pin; After rolling out 18 sheets of lasagna, his hands and forearms are now strong enough to pierce steel. We somehow resisted the urge to eat all 18 sheets of pasta raw, but did scarf down most of the sizable pile of leftover scraps (anyone who follows this blog already knows that food-borne illness is generally one of our lesser concerns)
Smokin Hot's first ever video post!! YEAH!!

Lauren handled boiling up all the pasta, before layering it in with my lamb ragu and 4 pounds of cheeses: mozzarella, ricotta and parmesan. The finished lasagna weighed over 12 pounds and neccessitated a fork lift to load into the oven.
Boiling the pasta, did someone take a bite out of that one??

While the dish baked in the oven for 2 hours, we tossed the pigskin on the artifical turf under the lights on Pier 46. This served as the perfect way to work up an NFL-sized hunger for the evening's "Football Night in America dinner". As the Baking concluded, I prepared 2 loaves of garlic bread. I thought roasting 1 head of garlic per half loaf would be sufficient (if not overkill), but in the end I think I should've used even more.
why does this garlic bread slicing photo look so theatric??

The finished dish was a thing of beauty, flawed only by the occasional chunk of lamb bone (sorry about that one guys). The homemade pasta element gave it a masculine thickness comparable to 5 pizzas layered together and baked for 2 hours.
In the end the best part was the fact that the three of us all came together in a perfect collaboration (heart-warming, I know), each of us utilizing our own personal expertise: Me - Slow cooked meats, Ben - Rolling pin skillz, Lauren - Lasagna layering technique...
click to check out the high-res on this one, mmm...

and of course the addition of Dante Culpepper couldn't get the Lions a win...