During these seemingly endless days in quarantine many of us find ourselves, for better or worse, relying even more than usual on social media as a way to safely connect with the outside world–exchanging biting political memes (no shortage of those!) with friends (and strangers) on Facebook, hosting virtual happy hours, watch parties, cooking classes, fundraisers to support our frontline workers–all in an effort to abate our sense of isolation and somehow contribute to the social discourse. While there is truth to the saying “We’re all in this together,” our individual experience of this pandemic is by no means equitable. I count myself blessed everyday to be one of the lucky ones to have a good home in which to self-isolate, not living in a state where “shelter in place” is barely a suggestion (seriously, for the last the time this is not a liberal hoax!) and to, so far, not to have lost a loved one to Covid-19–so the very least I can do is play by the rules, stay put as much as possible, practice social distancing and wear a mask in the presence of others outside the home. Really pretty simple I think.

I’m not saying there are not days, particularly beautiful warm sunny ones like today, when I want nothing more than to hang outside with my friends. Spring has sprung and we’d all like to be sprung from this quarantine coop. These are the times when I truly envy people who can garden. Given that my backyard is nothing more than a cement enclosure–mom having done away with all greenery decades ago–gardening is not an option.

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Although it’s highly doubtful I’d manage to maintain even an herb garden for more than a few weeks before it became a graveyard of shriveled twigs. Believe me, I’ve tried…several times. Best I can do is try to regrow scallions in jars of water on the windowsill…though the jury is still out of those.

No surprise then that on a bright sunny spring day, in between walks with my dog Violet, I was in my kitchen prepping components for an elaborate (more than usual) “big lasagna.” While I like lasagna, I rarely make it at home, and then usually it’s for a crowd. So why in God’s name, you may ask, would I choose to make such a labor intensive, big, heavy, cheese-laden carb bomb when there are only two of us in the house–both of whom are lactose-intolerant? Good question.

The answer is Samin Nosrat–the effervescent NY times columnist, cookbook author and star of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat on Netflix, whose infectious laugh and warm personality can convince you to do just about anything…like spending a few hours to make an absurdly huge dairy-forward lasagna that’s about 8 times more than what two lactose-challenged people can eat in one sitting. Of course, I must also credit my friend Karen for egging me on to do it with her usual phrase, “It’ll be fun!”…followed by “then I can have a slice.” By the way, she’s popping Lactaid tablets too. True, I could’ve watched Samin live stream her virtual lasagna dinner party without actually making one, but then what’s the fun in that?

Samin posted a how-to video on YouTube last week, giving everyone plenty of time to shop and prep ahead. I knew what I was in for.

One thing I was certain–I was not making my own pasta sheets. Rolling out long sheets with a manual pasta roller is challenging enough, but no way was I hand rolling pasta sans that crucial piece of equipment…and definitely not on my cramp little work surface. Christ, rolling out croissant dough was hard enough! Dry lasagna pasta would be the way to go. Besides I was making everything else from scratch (not including the cheeses that is).

I set off to make the tomato sauce and spinach ricotta filling first, leaving the béchamel for later so it would still be fluid when I was ready to assemble. I didn’t really follow exact amounts from her video–she was more focused on demonstrating technique–and since I wouldn’t be using quite the same size baking dish I knew I’d have to make a little less. For the tomato sauce I used one large can of whole peeled tomatoes, about half of a very large yellow onion, 3 large garlic cloves, a fat tablespoon of tomato paste, a generous glug of olive oil, a big handful of basil stems, a sprig of fresh rosemary (cuz why not, I had some in the frig), a splash of red wine (again, why not), sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, and a couple pinches of chili flakes.

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In an effort to clear my frig, I added a small amount of baby kale to the spinach for the ricotta filling, sautéing the greens with garlic and olive oil until just tender (and well seasoned with salt and pepper of course), then squeezing out the excess liquid once it was cooled enough and chopping them fine, along with a handful of fresh picked basil leaves, to fold into the ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan mixture.

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Béchamel was probably the first sauce I learned how to make in culinary school–it being one of the “mother sauces.” The standard proportion is 1/2 c. all-purpose flour cooked in 1/4 c. unsalted butter to thicken 4 c. whole milk, then salt, pepper, and freshly grated nutmeg to taste. The trick is to cook the butter and flour mixture long enough before whisking in the milk (which is better at room temp or slightly warmed), which according to Samin should resemble wet sand. Making béchamel sauce is a step I normally skip when I make lasagna, mainly because the ricotta is heavy enough that for me béchamel is almost overkill. But when Samin insists on béchamel, you make béchamel–with lactose-free milk (all I ever buy)…not that it would make much difference at this point.

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Aside from the dry lasagna pasta, my only other big deviation was adding some browned turkey Italian sausage to layer in the center. Hey, if I’m gonna load up on the calories I might as well balance out all that dairy with some meat.

Assembly is the easiest part. I coated the bottom of the greased foil pan (yes, that’s all I had to use) with béchamel then laid down the first layer of pasta (cooked to just pre-al dente), followed by a thick layer of ricotta filling, more pasta, more béchamel, more pasta, tomato sauce and sausage, more pasta, another layer of ricotta, topped with pasta, tomato sauce, and béchamel. To protect the sauces from direct contact with the foil wrap, I covered the top first with a sheet of baking parchment.

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The lasagna baked for the requisite 40 mins. at 400 degrees, then I removed the foil and parchment, sprinkled on a generous amount of mozzarella and parmesan cheeses and continued baking for another 15 mins. until everything was golden brown and bubbling.

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I did try to let the lasagna cool for a good 30 mins., but alas it was more like 15 mins.–just enough time to cut my brother and sister-in-law a big slab for their dinner (it was a safe hand off), a slice for mom, and a slice for myself to enjoy while watching Samin’s live stream dinner party on Instagram.

Oh yes, I did remember to take 2 Lactaid tablets before tucking into all that cheesy decadence…though I probably should’ve checked the expiration date on the package first. Ah, live and learn.