A great meal.

You know the one...a meal that you'd make a million times over again, no matter what the season or what you feel like...it's your back-up. I so tried to make a meal that I'd hoped would become one of those. "Tried" being the operative word.

Of course, this recipe originated from my newfound food-love, The Pioneer Woman Cooks!. My mother's group members, I believe, have actually become more orgasmic just because of the food on this woman's website...her recipes are that good. We all post about "trying another Pioneer Woman recipe tonight" and of course, get ooohs and aaahs in response, and questions of the reception (although the answer is already known).

I'm making her lasagna. I've had the ingredients for over a week for this dish, but couldn't make it because some family members decided that eating sliced mozzarella cheese out of the package is way more fun than eating it in lasagna. And of course, I bought only enough sliced mozza for the recipe (I never buy sliced cheese...only shredded).

So...I start the recipe...the meat/tomato/basil/parsley mixture looks just like it does on the website (except that she must have some monster pans, because mine is practically overflowing, whereas hers has plenty of room leftover at the top). It looks incredible. And I'm not a meat lasagna eater...purely a cheesy girl here. Then I boil the noodles (which I also never do), and mix the cottage cheese/parsley/egg/Parm mixture up, and set up my little assembly line, just like she does on the website. I start assembling, using my memory as my guide, even though I have the basic instructions written on a notecard not 5 feet away from me (I have, after all, made lasagna before, and good grief, it's just not that difficult, layering this stuff).

So I layer...and I layer again.

I'm on my second and final meat layer, when it dawns on me:

I've forgotten the cheese. Yes folks, that glorious, melty, my-family-likes-to-eat-it-out-of-the-package cheese.

I'm ALL. ABOUT. CHEESE. How could this have happened??? I feel deflated. I feel desolate and stark. I feel like a complete moron because I didn't just walk over to the nearby notecard where it, quite clearly, says "layer noodles, cottage mix, MOZZARELLA, meat mix, repeat".

I'm feeling somewhat one brick short of a full load.

So, I did what any mother does under these circumstances: I cried. I wailed and moaned and caused Big Boss Man to come running. Then, I improvised. I put the cheese {gasp} on top of everything else. I mean for goodness sake, it all goes to the same place, right? (I've officially become my mother now).

So now I'm waiting for a garlic version of Buttery Thyme Bread to come out of the oven. Of course, I'm sure plain Jane garlic isn't what she had in mind when she posted that recipe, but I'm just not as cultured and high-falutin' as she is (and she's a self-proclaimed former food snob, so I'm totally allowed to say that).

My family will eat well tonight. And with any luck, this recipe will be stuck into my box of "back ups", as all great recipes are.