The back yard needs a day's work on it to prepare for winter. I've been slowly cleaning out the basement for a few weeks and it really needs to get done. There is clutter in every area of the house. There is the week's laundry to do.

So instead of dealing with any of those important concerns I decided to embark on a project to make the greatest lasagna I (and perhaps anyone) have ever eaten.

Step 1 - The (24h) Ragł To End All Ragłs

For this meat sauce I will procure the best possible meats and grind them myself. So my first task is to drive across town to one of the better butchers in the city. The meat is all local organic-type stuff. Their main clientele is rich people looking for fancy expensive cuts of standard meats. The counter staff are accustomed to dealing with such.

So my request for three pounds of chuck and 1.5 pounds of pork shoulder was met with a puzzled look. She went to get a butcher who seemed pleased to talk meat with someone. I asked for some suet as well, which he shaved right off a nice aged piece of beef they had in the fridge.

Next I need to get a meat grinder. I stop at a kitchen supply store and get the grinder attachment for a KitchenAid mixer. I also pick up a new food mill, since my old one was cheap and is prone to rust.

At home I am excited to get going, so I wash the new grinder and set it up man-style (you'll see what I mean in a minute). I trim the beef and pork of all the fat and tendons and cube what's left, along with the suet to add some good fat back in. I put some in the grinder and turn it on. Nothing comes out except for a little squishy meat puree. Yuck.

I figure I had used too small a grinding face, so I pull apart the now-gummy grinder and try again with the larger gauge face, but the same thing happens.

In desperation, and as a last resort, I read the directions to the grinder to see what's going wrong. I had forgotten to put in the little blade that actually cuts the meat before forcing it through the grinder holes. So I put it all back together properly and this time the grinding goes well. I put it all through twice to end up with a beautiful big pile of fresh ground chuck, shoulder, and suet.

I'm making a pretty big batch of ragł (about 15 cups), so I have some dicing to do, of two onions, three big carrots, and three celery stalks to end up with about 3 cups. The onions go first in some oil and butter in a big skillet, followed by the other vegetables for a little bit. Then I take it all out and brown the meat with plenty of salt to bring out the juices. The process is much quicker and smells much nicer than with store-bought ground meats.

By the time all this has taken place I actually have to pause what I'm doing to make dinner. After dinner it all goes into a big enameled iron pot, to which I add about three cups of whole milk and set it to simmer off the milk for about an hour (put the kids to bed). Then I put in about two cups of white wine and set it to simmer for another hour (watch Desperate Housewives with the lovely Mrs. Zorn). Finally, about four cups worth of San Marzano tomatoes go through the food mill and into the sauce.

At this point it is 10:15, and normally it would simmer for a few hours. But you'd have to check it every once in a while to make sure it doesn't dry out, stick, and burn. So instead I set the over to 215 F (around boiling point) and put the whole thing in the over to simmer overnight.

This morning the whole house smelled of the sauce, which is was a nice smell but a little odd to wake up to. I checked the sauce and it looked fantastic. The ingredients had practically melted together. I think the quality meat has made a big difference. I put the oven down to 170 F and will let it simmer throughout the day.

We'll give the sauce a test run tonight over some penne or something.

This weekend, rather than doing chores which will now be even more desperate, I will instead make the spinach pasta and assemble the Lasagna Heard 'Round The World.

The other possibility is that something went wrong with the ragł and I will discard it all in a fit of rage and become despondent for the rest of the week.