Last night I tried the spinach lasagne from the current Cook's Illustrated. The tagline read: "We dump the mozzarella, add cottage cheese, and soak no-boil noodles in hot tap water. Is this any way to treat a northern Italian classic?" which gave me pause. But T liked it, and, you know, she's never steered me wrong.

I'd had a no good, very bad, terrible day, and I started with the spinach and put Jeff to work grating parmesan while I chopped shallots for the bechamel. Then, I realized that I'd left the Barilla no-boil lasagne noodles in my car. In my car that was not near home, but at work. Far, far, away. Jeff reluctantly agreed to go to Target for some lasagne noodles. No one wants to leave the house to run errands at 7 PM, especially not someone who, like Jeff, hates Target.

But he did, and I said nothing when he returned with regular noodles. Would those be called boil noodles? Anyway, I didn't want to bring that up with him, so I just soaked them longer than five minutes in really hot water and prayed for the best.

Then, when I stirred the spinach ball into the bechamel, I realized I was supposed to have chopped the spinach first. I did not panic, but instead remembered one of the Dorky Yankees' quick tips for chopping tomatoes in a can. I grabbed my kitchen shears and cut the spinach in the pot of bechamel. It worked perfectly.

And then there was just the layering and the baking- the noodles came out fine, and the lasagne was amazing. A bit labor intensive, but AMAZING.