SO'CS: Day 1

When I worked at Woman's Day we had a feature called month of menus: a calendar that had a menu suggestion and sometimes a bried recipe for every day in the month. We squeezed all this information into those little boxes, and it was a bear to copy edit. So we weren't too unhappy when it was phased out.

Unfortunately, the readers were. There was such an outcry that the menus were brought back. Because, as I now realize, sometimes the biggest burden with dinner involves coming up with what to make. So I was excited to receive the Six O'Clock Scramble in the mail. It's organized by season, with five recipes for each week (one for each weeknight). There's tons of great, down-to-earth advice, like incorporating fish into your kids' diets without exposing them to too much mercury or what types of fresh fruits and veggies are lowest in pesticides.

Last night we had the Chinese Lasagne, which was really regular lasagna that uses egg roll wrappers instead of pasta. They don't need to be precooked and you end up with a lasagne that's heavy on the meat, cheese and vegetables and a bit lighter on the pasta. The layers: 1 cup pasta sauce, 4 egg roll wrappers, 1 pound browned ground turkey, 1 cup pasta sauce, about 2/3 cup shredded mozzarella, 4 egg roll wrappers, 1 cup pasta sauce, a ricotta-spinach mixture (16 ounces ricotta, 1 egg, 10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan), 2/3 cup shredded mozzarella, 4 egg roll wrappers, 1 cup pasta sauce and, finally, 2/3 cup shredded mozzarella.

I guess some additional info is needed: 9 x 13-inch pan, 30 minutes, 375 degree oven.

It was amazingly good, although I felt the ricotta layer was a bit thick. August loved it (so did my folks), so I got some spinach and tomatoes into them. There were plenty for leftovers the next day, too.