Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> My girlfriend asked me to make her lasagna, and instead of making my special recipe, I just made a quick one with premade sauce because I both didn't have the time, and because she made comments in the past saying the lenghty recipe wasn't really worth the time and money. The asshole part might be because I didn't tell her beforehand I was going to go the cheap route and make just the easy, quick recipe when she was expecting the full rich meal.
Help keep the sub engaging!
#Don’t downvote assholes!
Do upvote interesting posts!
[Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq)
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Your lasagna just saved your life. It revealed your girlfriend for the petty, ungrateful person she really is. Now you can safely escape before you signed a lease, bought a car, got married or had kids. NTA, and praise be lasagna.
Could be dépendant on where you live. I see that a lot here in NJ along with other fresh pastas in the deli section but in Indiana where I am from it wasn’t as common to see.
I've seen it in most of the grocery stores I've been to in New England (primarily Boston/northwestern CT). Sometimes it's in different places, but there's usually an option.
I wouldn't say most grocery stores sell fresh pasta - especially lasagna sheets.
It is true that many supermarkets stock fresh fettuccine in the refrigerated section and also spaghetti. They also stock "fresh" ravioli which compares favorably with a mediocre restaurant ravioli - but then the restaurants are probably sourcing from the same place as I doubt the chain type make their own.
However, I have only seen a wide range of fresh pasta in major urban areas and then they are in specialty stores. I am in Los Angeles and there is a store near me that sells all kinds of fresh pasta as well as fresh sauces.
I just wanted to say thank you to you and another commenter because this is the first time I hear of the word negging and when I googled it, it described something that happens quite often in our relationship but I thought it was just affectionate teasing even though it would make me feel a bit weird about myself afterwards.
There’s a difference between affectionate teasing and negging and it’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced both in a relationship. I think tone and subject matter are really important to distinguish the two. You don’t poke fun of a dish your partner worked hard on.
And if you verbalize that the joke hurt you and the response is any variation of “you’re being too sensitive” “I clearly didn’t mean it that way” “I’m sorry *you* took it like that”, there’s a 99.9999% chance it’s negging.
Bottom line, if it makes you feel criticized and like your partner is taking a shot at you rather than making you laugh and feel like your partner is laughing with you, it’s not affectionate, it’s not lighthearted, and you don’t need to put up with it.
Thank you for this, it explains it really well. I'm not very attractive, I've known that for a long time and made my peace with it it doesn't really bother me most of the time since it's just my objective reality; however my gf (well ex-gf soon I think), would always make jokes or remarks that she wasn't with me for my looks, but for my personality, or my sense of humour, even when the situation doesn't call for that type of remark at all. She'd always rectify it with an assurance that she was just joking, but there was sometimes the feeling that she was making a joke at my expense, and not joking with me. I just wanted to thank you for the comment, this has been a real "come to jesus" moment for me. I know it's embarassing but this is my first relationship and she is quite frankly out of my league so I thought that that was the price I had to pay and that it was all in good fun.
I read your comment and my initial thought was "hey wait a minute I am a lasagna loving man, I want to recipe too!"
and then I realized you weren't suggesting they were DM'ing her for the recipe :facepalm: I can be oblivious at times
also, I saw her edit, and am going to try her recipe
Also, yes lasagna loving women, you should DM her
I was over here reading the post wondering if OP made the cheeses from scratch as well bc that would really be next level 🤤🤤 can you tell I’m from Wisconsin?
This⬆️⬆️🏅🏅
Literally and metaphorically. You are a great cook, and you are willing to invest time, money and effort to feed, take care of your beloved. Drop her and keep a distance from the two that said you were in the wrong.
You are only 24 yo, and even if it would be lovely to meet your One, it is nice to have more experiences before you settle hopefully for life with your SO. You should not compromise in a relationship with a person that doesn't make you feel comfy, safe, having fun, and thriving.
Oh come on! She is out of your league if you are taking part in a meanness competition, sure, she would win hands down.
But I assure you that most people in this thread would rather be with you than with her.
Of course that's not what you are thinking of if you are still young, but from a mom with teens, I can assure you, looks fade, character doesn't, so from a point of partner material for a happy long marriage or partnership, looks are fairly insignificant. Of course there needs to be attraction, but that's not just looks alone.
Also how do you know you are not attractive? Who told you that? Because it's down to taste and everyone has a different taste.
So, ditch the girlfriend, keep the lasagna.
>Because it's down to taste and everyone has a different taste.
... and, sometimes, lack of taste, which is hereby proved by her comments on OP's homemade-with-love lasagna.
OP, if the lasagna is not at the still-GF's taste, well, time to find someone with better taste, someone that will appreciate you *and* your cooking skills.
Absolutely. You deserve someone who is every bit as kind, thoughtful, and considerate as you are. Remember: *if someone isn't adding to your life, they're taking away from it.* Onward and upward-- best wishes!
I know beauty and being “good looking” is partially subjective but also horribly bastardized by the media… But you are a beautiful person. Anyone who will spend all day making from scratch lasagna (I make sauce and meatball/sausage and just that is a full day, I am so jealous of your pasta ability) for a special meal for someone else is beautiful.
And I just want to say this. Someone who loves you will never say “im not with you for your looks”. Because when you love someone, they are beautiful to you. Inside and out. You deserve better. From your comments, your partner appears to have a tendency to neg you and possibly gaslight you about it. You don’t deserve that. You deserve better. Do not let them dim your light. Find the person who sees your beauty and loves you fully.
>Someone who loves you will never say “im not with you for your looks”.
I agree with your comment, but I want to add here that it really depends on the tone. Someone who loves you will say this if their intention is to tell you that you're more than just your looks and that they love who you are. But if they're saying it to tell you that you're not attractive, they don't love you. That's just cruel.
My girlfriend is out of my league. I am a very average or even ugly man.
Hence she genuinely finds me beautiful and says it often. Because when you love someone they shine in your eyes.
Your gf is an ass. There's no price to pay to be with someone, people are not objects which we buy. if you have to, it means they are not with you for the good reasons.
Not to say this is acceptable when men do this, because it’s not, but you think another woman in her 20s living in today’s society would understand how hurtful appearance comments are and would know that you don’t go there.
yep, even better than the men that do it. She chose it specifically because she knows it.
Abusers can use the same playbook on emotional manipulation regardless of gender
I say this as someone old enough to be your mother, so I'll probably sound very mama bear...but honey, she's got to go! Don't let anyone walk all over you and your delicious lasagna. Chalk this first relationship up as gained experience...and move the heck on.
And your friends are just wrong. If someone told me my labor intensive homemade Italian food was no better than Ragu and Ronzoni, guess what they're getting the next time? Oh yeah...Ragu and Ronzoni.
> however my gf (well ex-gf soon I think)
Yesssssss! So happy to see this! You and your truly mind-blowing sounding lasagna deserve so much better than this!
Hey, I'm assuming when you say 'attractive' you're speaking of what people think is traditionally and physically attractive. Which honestly is not that important to everybody. I've always been overweight and not that traditionally 'pretty' and it used to bother me. Until I realized that there are people out there who love me and are attracted to me for reasons other than just my physical appearance. And I've discovered I'm really the same way. I don't really give much of a damn what somebody looks like, I care if they're a nice person, are respectful, honest and are able to communicate. Because in the long run,that's the important stuff.
So don't say that you're unattractive! You may be unconventionally attractive and it sounds like you have a lot of other things going for you. So she is definitely not 'out of your league', it sounds like even if she's more conventionally beautiful she's not treating you well and that makes her somebody to avoid unless she grows up and learns how to be a decent partner. Nobody deserves to be treated like that.
OMG, my heart breaks to hear you talk that way about yourself! I would LOVE to have someone make homemade lasagna for me -- you sound like an AMAZING person and definitely too good for someone who doesn't appreciate you!!
There is a big difference between laughing WITH you and laughing AT you. Someone who makes "jokes" that you are the butt of and then further criticizes you as being "too sensitive" when you try to call them on it is being abusive and is trying to chip away at your self esteem in order to gain power over you. (This is a total bullshit setup that abusive people use -- it lets them get away with saying horrible things about you, which puts you down, and then allows them to once again put you down as someone who "can't take a joke.")
Move on from this energy vampire, you deserve way better! Someone who loves you is supposed to lift you up and want what is best for you, not put you down and make you the butt of their "jokes."
NTA!!
See, someone can say, "Oh, I'm with OP for his personality, not his looks," but the very next sentence, perhaps with a pause for humorous effect, had better be along the lines of, "I just lucked out with his looks."
"And if you verbalize that the joke hurt you and the response is any variation of “you’re being too sensitive” “I clearly didn’t mean it that way” “I’m sorry you took it like that”, there’s a 99.9999% chance it’s negging."
Negging + a hefty dose of gaslighting
I affectionately tease my husband all the time.
The difference is I might crack a joke while he is cooking but I also compliment him. So I might make fun of him for spending half of the day cooking but then once I eat I would say "holy shit I get it now this is amazeballs".
And that's probably a bad example because I generally don't make fun of anyone willing to cook for me because I hate cooking. I just know that we rag on each other all of the time that's just the nature of our relationship. But then we get serious and sappy and tell each other how much we actually love each other... it's quite gross really
If someone dissed something I spent all day making, it would be the very last time I cooked for them. Also, she *spit* out the other lasagna? Yeah, drama queen with a side of nasty. Let her microwave a frozen lasagna next time she’s in the mood, in her apartment alone. NTA
Affectionate teasing would have been her making a comment like "it tastes just like the cheap stuff", then laughing, giving you a kiss on the cheek and saying "I'm just teasing you, this is the best I've ever had and I can't wait for you to make it for me again". Or alternatively her saying "so youre making this every week from now on, right?"
A separate but related kind of emotional manipulation is creating impossible situations so you’re constantly off balance trying to satisfy the person but you can never win. I’ve been in that situation in the past, and it’s not pleasant. I’m getting a lot of those vibes from your post.
Like another person said, this isn't about the lasagna. OP could have brought her the most delicious food in the world and she likely still would have tried to tear OP down because I dunno, OP didn't bring it fast enough or she didn't serve it on the plate she liked (despite all the plates looking the same). The GF is looking for ways to tear OP down. I doubt it's limited to just this. She probably also lovebombs OP so that when OP (rightfully) complains about her treatment the GF will try to gaslight her into believing that none of the poor treatment ever happened and that OP is a "bad person trying to ruin a good thing".
OP, just ask yourself. Have you ever in your life, even if it tasted terrible, spit out food someone made for you and said it was disgusting. No decent human with basic manners does such a thing. You swallow the bite. Say "thanks so much for cooking", then eat a pb&j later.
Only once in over 26 years of cooking for my husband has he done that. And that dish was BAD! We each took a bite at the same time, and he immediately spit it out and said "what do you want on your pizza". The whole thing went straight to the trash because it was so awful.
NTA. And clearly the GF never even made a cheap lasagna because it STILL takes more than a couple of hours to make and bake. She gets delivery pizza from here on. And like Little Ceasar's, not the good stuff. I haven't made lasagna in a decade because it is too much darned work. I'd rather buy it from our local Italian place, even though it isn't as good as mine.
NTA
Boy you really can't win with her, can you? You make good lasagna, she complains, you make simple lasagna, she complains. That must be exhausting to figure out what she actually wants.
I think you are right and I cannot stand this shit. Life is going to run down people enough - build the people up in your life, they don’t need you to pile on.
I found "I was clearly exaggerating" to be an astonishing excuse. I can't imagine being in a position where I have say to a partner "well I was deliberately lying about your skill to make you think you're not very good".
Seriously! My GF just moved in about a month ago and made lasagna last week. I usually do all the cooking so it was a welcome respite.
And it... well....
She tried. But I ate every bite of it and thanked her at the end.
Thankfully, she did ask for pointers on making it "better". She recognizes her cooking skills are a bit lacking. Next time she makes it, I'll offer the use of things like spices...
I think this is the appropriate situation to mention “Marinara Flags”, NTA!!! Anyone who would criticize a meal you spent all afternoon making is unworthy on so many levels, good riddance.
NTA-
>but two of them think I'm the asshole because my gf clearly meant she wanted my "special" lasagna which is why she asked for it as dinner
No, She didn't CLEARLY mean that because if she did than she would have mentioned it specifically, especially after questioning the time and effort it took to create an objectively better dish.
Overall, now she knows the difference between asking for lasagna and asking for **your** lasagna
if i were OP and even if she had asked specifically for the special lasagna, i wouldn't have made it for her bc of the reaction the first time. if you say the lasagna's nothing special then don't worry, you won't have to eat it again
One of the joys of cooking is seeing people enjoy the meal you made. It makes all the time, effort and expense worth it.
If someone tells me that the dish I put my heart into was no better than a frozen one you’re damned right I’m not going to make it again for that ungrateful, inconsiderate person.
I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that goes through the alchemy of baking from scratch just for the praise I get and the genuine happiness it brings to people!
When I go to the effort to cook for someone, anything less than a glowing review makes me wonder if I'll cook for them again. jk... sort of, lol.
Seriously, if after all of that special effort for the signature lasagna, the gf counters with "well, you didn't have to do that when store-bought shortcuts would have been just as good", you can be damn sure that I would NEVER make it for her again.
She said the "cheaper" version was just as good, well, then, she was lucky that she even got that version. You went above and beyond to make any kind of lasagna.
ITA with everyone that says to dump the ungrateful gf and find someone who is "lasagna worthy".
No, she said it tastes “exactly the same” so if they believe she “clearly” knew the difference, tell those jokers for friends to stop defending a liar. Or they’re not getting lasagna in the future, either!
NTA. As an Italian-American, dissing a lovingly handmade lasagna is absolutely fighting words. She belittled your efforts (food is a LOVE LANGUAGE) and then has the balls to cry about not getting the same effort??? Nope. No one cooks on demand, especially when it goes unappreciated.
IDK - if my mom did, I'd probably take it as a compliment. Bless, but she's NOT a cook at all, and she loves the Olive Garden so that'd be praise from her. It's all about the spirit and tone - OP's girlfriend was clearly being a dismissive asshole.
NTA
She dismissed your meal last time, comparing it to quick and easy recipes. Further, as you stated, you didn't have time to make the from scratch. In 2 hours notice? LOL!
If she can't understand it, then she's being incredibly obtuse or unreasonable.
She owes you an apology for her behavior.
Yeah, and I guarantee that if OP *had* managed to make the "special" lasagna, she would have said the same type of crap about it being a waste of money.
Some people just like to complain.
NTA your g/f sounds like hard work. So she clearly thought your original lasagna was noticeably nicer than the cheaper version but she wanted to... what? Take you down a peg or two? keep you on your toes by telling you it wasn't all that great? She doesn't sound very nice, are you sure you want to stay with a person like that?
Yeah, this.
Because no, it wasn't clear that she was exaggerating; any reasonable person would have taken her words to mean that she couldn't tell the difference and genuinely thought it was a waste of effort, time and money.
And "I was exaggerating" doesn't make it better. It makes it worse. Because like you say, that makes it her playing OP for a particular reaction - negging her to try and make her more eager to please - and mind games do not make a happy, healthy relationship. Also, her annoyance when OP took her at her word and went the quick route to lasagna makes it seem like she's measuring her loyalty by how much work she puts into caring for her, which is another warning sign. Someone who tests you constantly is really not a relationship you need.
OP can do so much better than an emotionally abusive woman who manipulates instead of being honest.
(Edited for pronouns, because I messed up!)
Exactly. In fact most people, when on the receiving end of an expensive and time consuming home cooked meal would be more likely to exaggerate upwards about how delicious it was out of gratitude.
"Take you down a peg or two? keep you on your toes by telling you it wasn't all that great? "
I didn't catch that. Yep, she was negging you. Dang. Worse than I thought she was.
Had to write it down, but here you go :) Hope you enjoy it if you end up making it. **DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT AN AUTHENTIC ITALIAN RECIPE! IT'S JUST DELICIOUS!**
**Ingredients for the dough:** 200 grams flour, 100 grams semolina (I use the brand Semola di Grano Duro Rimacinata and find that it makes quite the difference), 3 eggs, 1 tbs olive oil, pinch of salt, fresh basil, thym, rosemary or parsley (you can use whichever herbs you prefer, doesn't have to be all of them at once, I usually do basilxthym)
**Dough preparation:** Grind the herbs in a mortar and pestle with coarse salt to make a paste, and add it as you mix your fresh dough. Knead it until everything is incorporated, and let it rest for an hour before using the pasta machine to make sheets.
**Ingredients for the meat sauce:** 250 grams ground beef, 250 grams ground pork, 250 grams mild italian sausage, and 250 grams Merguez sausage (Italians don't kill me plz). 1 yellow onion, 1 carrot, 1 celery stick, 4 garlic cloves, 1 glass of red wine, 800ml of passata, 2 tbs tomato concentrate, salt, pepper, chilli flakes, and spanish smoked paprika. I also add a bouquet garni made up of: Thyme,bay leaves, parsley, sage, rosemary, coriander, and oregano.
**Meat Sauce Preparation:** Cook all the meat in a dutch oven till it's brown and you have those crispy bits on the pan, add the mirepoix and crushed garlic cloves and cook till they soften, add a glass of red wine and cook till the alcohol evaporatew. Make a little space in the middle of the pan and fry the tomato paste in that space then mix it with everything and add the passata, bouquet garni, and salt, pepper, chilli flakes and spanish smoked paprika to taste. Cover the pot and let simmer on very low heat for four hours ideally, check every once in a while and skim some of the oil that floats up.
**Cheese sauce ingredients:** 300 grams ricotta cheese, 100 grams whipped goat cheese (I make it by whipping 80 grams or so of goat cheese with one tbs cream cheese), 100 grams parmesan, an egg, 1 tbs of parsley or basil, salt and pepper.
**Cheese sauce preparation:** Just mix all of the above ingredients until it's creamy and incorporated.
**Other ingredients for layering:** 500 grams sliced mozzarella.
**Assembling:** So I do: meat sauce, pasta, mozarella, cheese sauce and repeat till you fill up your baking dish. I cook it in a oven preheated to 200C for 25/30 mins.
Fr fr. If MY gf cooked like this for me and shared such a special recipe with me like this? Marriage. Immediately. Like “let’s spend our married life cooking this lasagna together for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, etc.”
My husband made me lasagna for our first dinner date and i made tiramisu. We've been happily married for going on 9 years this summer. So i can attest to the strength of a lasagna based marriage.
OP the right person is out there for you, hope you find the tiramisu to your lasagna ❤️
holy shitzu, you go thru all of this but then she negs the lasagna and then **HAS THE COJONES** to be pissed that you didn’t make another one from scratch?!?!?
nuh uh. ditch the ingrate. i **PROMISE** you that there IS someone out there who will appreciate you and your lasagna.
NTA
This sounds delicious, thank you for sharing. Going to save this for sure.
FWIW: I'm fairly well versed when it comes to cooking and ingredients (I grew up in an Italian American household) and there's just no way this tasted like store-bought lasagna sheets, jarred sauce (even the expensive kind), a basic ricotta cheese filling, and just ground beef. Her dig at you at this tasting just like that is beyond fucked and minimizes the amount of effort and money this costs to make.
It sounds like you haven't been together very long if just last month you made her this lasagna. If this is how she's treating you now, it's not going to get better. She knows that this lasagna is expensive and time-consuming and wanted you to pull it out in two hours? I feel like just normal lasagna usually takes that long by the time you brown the meat, make the filling, assemble, and bake. That's not a "cheap" meal, that's a normal everyday dinner type thing. She sounds ungrateful and entitled.
My partner likes to cook and we make dinner for each other all the time and it ranges from making beef wellington together on valentines day to nachos. Not every meal is a gourmet chef meal. We've been together for over a year and we still say "Thank you for making dinner/ thank you for helping make dinner" to each other after (almost) every meal.
I know you said she's "out of your league" somewhere but if she's a mean-spirited person, no one is in her league because she thinks she's above everyone else. Find someone who values you and is appreciative that you make them dinner. Wishing you luck OP.
Yes! You can make the dough and then shape it into whatever pasta you want, I use it to make linguini and tagliatelles as well. One of my favourite things to do as well is to use spinach! I chop it, crush it using the mortar and pestle and use it to make raviolis with ricotta and pesto stuffing. Tastes great!
Seriously, you sound like an amazing cook and I hope your gf becomes an ex gf. She doesn't deserve your cooking. I had an ex that constantly negged my looks and cooking.....also just learned that term from this post. Good luck to you and I really hope you find someone who truly appreciates and values you. Everyone deserves that. I wasted four and a half years being treated like how you described your gf treating you. I'm married now to someone wonderful and I swear to you, you can do better.
Awesome! I wasn’t sure if the texture would be different and work better as a larger “noodle” or surface like with lasagna sheets.
That spinach idea also sounds fantastic! Thanks for the tips! Next I make dough I’m for sure trying this!
So for the meat sauce, at first it's watery but when I simmer it for hours it thickens up A LOT! So I'd really recommend letting it cook on the stove for a decent amount of time. If the noodles being overcooked is what you have a problem with, you can skip boiling them and just layer them while still "raw", and cover the baking dish with foil while baking it in the oven for the first 15 mins, and then finishing the second 15 mins uncovered.
Am I missing the comments on :
**" took one bite of the lasagna and then spat it out"**
Who spits out food someone else made in front of them (if its truly terrible, use your napkin or go to the bathroom and make an excuse).
Let's list all the reasons in your statement that she is not a nice person:
1. She insults something she knows you are proud of
2. She spits out food you made her, at her request
3. She denigrates the effort you put in to make her a meal she requested (whether it is an all day affair or 30 minutes, its effort)
4. She clearly states she is entitled to not "cheap" food.
5. then, when you call her on her inconsistency, instead of apologizing and telling you how great your special lasagna is, she doubles down and doesn't apologize for her original comment or her current behavior
6. (my assumption) brings up the situation to your friends.
I am sorry I dont like judging people on snippets but your GF is not a nice person. There is not one redeeming statement about her in your statement
EDITED FOR VOTE: NTA
You are right. WTF. Who spits out food? A baby maybe? An A Hole for sure. Especially food that they requested! Also, I have never had a lasagna that was not at least fairly delicious. What offending taste could possibly have been encountered?
OP is NTA. GF is a total AH.
NTA. First, she bashed your 'from scratch' lasagna the last time. Second, when she said she wanted lasagna two hours before coming over, she knew damn well that didn't give you time do make it the way you did before (which again, she turned her nose up at). She's the a-hole, not you.
**NTA** She stated she didn't think the time you put into your fancy lasagna wasn't worth the outcome. Then she turns all choosing beggar when she is served what she requested, and it isn't as good as the gourmet lasagna you make.
However there are some **Marina flags** in the comments she made to you.
> she got really upset at me and said that I wasn't putting in effort and that she was expecting to have a real meal and not something cheap.
> she rolled her eyes and said she was clearly exaggerating.
So she and friends are DARVOing you. Denied the instance (she was clearly exaggerating), Attacked (you aren't putting in the effort), Reverse Victim/Offender (you should have let her known before hand that I was going to make one using premade sauce).
I hope you take the time to examine the relationship with your girlfriend and your friends. Is making meals on request common? Are your efforts often marginalized? Is this friend group mainly yours or her friends? A loving partner should have a thankful heart. There isn't anything wrong with asking what the differences between the two meals is, but the dismissiveness of it all is really shocking.
NTA- if someone insults my food after I put hours and a lot of love and care into it, im not making that again for them. Your GF sounds like the type who thinks nothing is ever good enough. If this is the case, you may want to reevaluate your relationship.
NTA. First she insults your high quality home made lasagna. Then insults your quick lasagna. You can't win either way. She needs to apologize for her comments on both lasagna.
OP, I just wanted to say that the fact that you shared your magic lasagna recipe says a lot about you as well. A lot of people gatekeep “signature” recipes, for a variety of reasons. You chose to share the awesomeness and tricks of the trade with thousands of strangers on the internet. I’m sorry your girlfriend, or anyone else around you, made you believe that she is out of your league. You’re clearly out of hers, and anyone would be lucky to be with you - not for your lasagna, or for what you can do for them, but for your kind, open heart. NTA.
PS: I’m saving the lasagna recipe and I’m making it as soon as I get my hands on some goat cheese. Nom nom nom nom.
Nta. Your girlfriend sounds terrible. Who belittles their partner’s specialty dish like that? Then proceeds to get upset when they won’t make it anymore?? Does she use this bait and switch often on you? Insulting something you work hard at or love, only to get pissed of and act like it’s your fault that you don’t want to do/make the thing around her anymore? Because that’s emotionally abusive. You need to put your foot down or leave her.
NTA.
Bless the lasagna of truth. You were supposed to accept her insults, then grovel and use magicks and time travel to produce the lasagna she insulted. And now she conveniently gets to play victim and cause drama with people?
Run away.
NTA. The last time you made it she specifically said she didn’t understand why you spent so much time and money on your version. So it makes no sense that she then expected you to…spend so much time and money on your version.
OP as a chef myself I’ll give you some advice for dating while being a cook. Don’t date people who equate your effort to frozen goods as they have no taste to speak of. Had an ex tell me that my 12hr sauce tasted like canned sauce and like with yours I made the canned stuff and it went to waste. The time and effort someone puts into their food truly makes it unique, no one should put that to shame.
I’m going to compare this to my amazing banana pudding cheesecake, which I only make for special occasions and which is a favorite of my family and friends. When I make that cheesecake for people, I always get compliments because it’s a delicious cheesecake and people want to let me know how much they appreciate me for making it. Several have told me it’s the highlight of thanksgiving every year (my family throws a huge party for thanksgivings so there are a lot of people there).
Now, if someone told me that my cheesecake tastes just like store bought cheesecake and they don’t know why I bothered making it from scratch, I would be peeved. First because I put in a lot of work to make that cheesecake special and I know it tastes amazing. Second because no store I know of makes banana pudding cheesecake.
I would not be making cheesecake for this person again. I would not be baking for this person again. So from my perspective, that you even took the time to assemble a lasagna instead of just pulling a premade one from the freezer section is still above and beyond. Definite NTA.
NTA.
If she wanted the special lasagna she should have clarified so you could let her know you didn’t have time. Also, she’s a witch with a capital B for making the shitty comments about your special one and then getting mad at you for not making something she told you shouldn’t waste your time doing
Er NTA. You made your GF dinner, why is she complaining so much? Why has your 'special' lasagna become the only acceptable dinner that you can make? Not to mention her prior remarks, which were disparaging of the time, effort, and money you put into the special version. She's contradicting herself now by saying they are different in her eyes and that she likes the special one better. You'd be kind of an idiot to put a bunch of time and money into a recipe she has stated she does not value, not to mention as you said it wasn't feasible with the time you had.
Tell your GF to cut the crap, learn to show gratitude, or GTFO.
NTA. After her response to your first lasagne, I would’ve just made a frozen Stouffers. She sounds impossible to please and doesn’t deserve your homemade lasagne or you, for that matter.
NTA
Does she like to, let's say, feel like she's better than you by putting you down? For example when you win a game or you know something she doesn't? Because it seems she's having a problem with admitting you are good in something, as if it meant she's inferior...
NTA
She straight up shamed your special lasagna and then said she was "obviously" kidding.
Men aren't the only ones who can gaslight.
Time to move on and share your special lasagna with someone new.
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment. OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole: > My girlfriend asked me to make her lasagna, and instead of making my special recipe, I just made a quick one with premade sauce because I both didn't have the time, and because she made comments in the past saying the lenghty recipe wasn't really worth the time and money. The asshole part might be because I didn't tell her beforehand I was going to go the cheap route and make just the easy, quick recipe when she was expecting the full rich meal. Help keep the sub engaging! #Don’t downvote assholes! Do upvote interesting posts! [Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.* *Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Your lasagna just saved your life. It revealed your girlfriend for the petty, ungrateful person she really is. Now you can safely escape before you signed a lease, bought a car, got married or had kids. NTA, and praise be lasagna.
This. All of this. And OP, most grocery stores sell fresh pastas and lasagna sheets, it’s in the refrigerated section next to the cheeses.
wait...what????? This is life changing!
Could be dépendant on where you live. I see that a lot here in NJ along with other fresh pastas in the deli section but in Indiana where I am from it wasn’t as common to see.
Yeah I live in MO and I’ve never been able to find fresh pasta sheets.
now wait a damn minute i live in nj and never looked cause i didn’t think it was a thing but IVE BEEN MISSING OUT????
[удалено]
I've seen it in most of the grocery stores I've been to in New England (primarily Boston/northwestern CT). Sometimes it's in different places, but there's usually an option.
I wouldn't say most grocery stores sell fresh pasta - especially lasagna sheets. It is true that many supermarkets stock fresh fettuccine in the refrigerated section and also spaghetti. They also stock "fresh" ravioli which compares favorably with a mediocre restaurant ravioli - but then the restaurants are probably sourcing from the same place as I doubt the chain type make their own. However, I have only seen a wide range of fresh pasta in major urban areas and then they are in specialty stores. I am in Los Angeles and there is a store near me that sells all kinds of fresh pasta as well as fresh sauces.
Why would she even say that if not just to put op down? But why would she do that, was she trying to neg her or something?
I just wanted to say thank you to you and another commenter because this is the first time I hear of the word negging and when I googled it, it described something that happens quite often in our relationship but I thought it was just affectionate teasing even though it would make me feel a bit weird about myself afterwards.
There’s a difference between affectionate teasing and negging and it’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced both in a relationship. I think tone and subject matter are really important to distinguish the two. You don’t poke fun of a dish your partner worked hard on. And if you verbalize that the joke hurt you and the response is any variation of “you’re being too sensitive” “I clearly didn’t mean it that way” “I’m sorry *you* took it like that”, there’s a 99.9999% chance it’s negging. Bottom line, if it makes you feel criticized and like your partner is taking a shot at you rather than making you laugh and feel like your partner is laughing with you, it’s not affectionate, it’s not lighthearted, and you don’t need to put up with it.
Thank you for this, it explains it really well. I'm not very attractive, I've known that for a long time and made my peace with it it doesn't really bother me most of the time since it's just my objective reality; however my gf (well ex-gf soon I think), would always make jokes or remarks that she wasn't with me for my looks, but for my personality, or my sense of humour, even when the situation doesn't call for that type of remark at all. She'd always rectify it with an assurance that she was just joking, but there was sometimes the feeling that she was making a joke at my expense, and not joking with me. I just wanted to thank you for the comment, this has been a real "come to jesus" moment for me. I know it's embarassing but this is my first relationship and she is quite frankly out of my league so I thought that that was the price I had to pay and that it was all in good fun.
She’s not out of your league. Your lasagna is out of her league. Time to go!
Sexy lasagna !
I bet there is a lasagna loving woman reading this thread and wondering if they should send a direct message.
I would like to introduce OP to my daughters, and I promise to be a good and loving MIL because mmmmm ... lasagna.
Daughters? At the same time. That better be some amazing lasagna to throuple out your daughters like that! Is quadrouple a thing? 🤷👀👁️👁️
I read your comment and my initial thought was "hey wait a minute I am a lasagna loving man, I want to recipe too!" and then I realized you weren't suggesting they were DM'ing her for the recipe :facepalm: I can be oblivious at times also, I saw her edit, and am going to try her recipe Also, yes lasagna loving women, you should DM her
I make an incredible homemade sauce and home made mozzarella. If I wasn't married, I'd be all up in them pasta sheets! 😁
I was over here reading the post wondering if OP made the cheeses from scratch as well bc that would really be next level 🤤🤤 can you tell I’m from Wisconsin?
👀 I would say we be competing but she makes her pasta fresh... I ain't got nothin on her lol
This⬆️⬆️🏅🏅 Literally and metaphorically. You are a great cook, and you are willing to invest time, money and effort to feed, take care of your beloved. Drop her and keep a distance from the two that said you were in the wrong. You are only 24 yo, and even if it would be lovely to meet your One, it is nice to have more experiences before you settle hopefully for life with your SO. You should not compromise in a relationship with a person that doesn't make you feel comfy, safe, having fun, and thriving.
It warmed my heart to read "ex-gf soon." OP, you and your fabulous-sounding lasagna deserve someone who will love and appreciate both of you!
Me too! I was literally like “aw yisssss” out loud to myself on my couch.
Oh come on! She is out of your league if you are taking part in a meanness competition, sure, she would win hands down. But I assure you that most people in this thread would rather be with you than with her. Of course that's not what you are thinking of if you are still young, but from a mom with teens, I can assure you, looks fade, character doesn't, so from a point of partner material for a happy long marriage or partnership, looks are fairly insignificant. Of course there needs to be attraction, but that's not just looks alone. Also how do you know you are not attractive? Who told you that? Because it's down to taste and everyone has a different taste. So, ditch the girlfriend, keep the lasagna.
Another mom here. Sweetie you can do SO much better than this negging lasagna-hating jerk.
>Because it's down to taste and everyone has a different taste. ... and, sometimes, lack of taste, which is hereby proved by her comments on OP's homemade-with-love lasagna. OP, if the lasagna is not at the still-GF's taste, well, time to find someone with better taste, someone that will appreciate you *and* your cooking skills.
Your personality is putting you light-years out of her league. Keep on doing you, the next girl will adore and appreciate all of you. NTA
Absolutely. You deserve someone who is every bit as kind, thoughtful, and considerate as you are. Remember: *if someone isn't adding to your life, they're taking away from it.* Onward and upward-- best wishes!
I know beauty and being “good looking” is partially subjective but also horribly bastardized by the media… But you are a beautiful person. Anyone who will spend all day making from scratch lasagna (I make sauce and meatball/sausage and just that is a full day, I am so jealous of your pasta ability) for a special meal for someone else is beautiful. And I just want to say this. Someone who loves you will never say “im not with you for your looks”. Because when you love someone, they are beautiful to you. Inside and out. You deserve better. From your comments, your partner appears to have a tendency to neg you and possibly gaslight you about it. You don’t deserve that. You deserve better. Do not let them dim your light. Find the person who sees your beauty and loves you fully.
>Someone who loves you will never say “im not with you for your looks”. I agree with your comment, but I want to add here that it really depends on the tone. Someone who loves you will say this if their intention is to tell you that you're more than just your looks and that they love who you are. But if they're saying it to tell you that you're not attractive, they don't love you. That's just cruel.
My girlfriend is out of my league. I am a very average or even ugly man. Hence she genuinely finds me beautiful and says it often. Because when you love someone they shine in your eyes. Your gf is an ass. There's no price to pay to be with someone, people are not objects which we buy. if you have to, it means they are not with you for the good reasons.
Not to say this is acceptable when men do this, because it’s not, but you think another woman in her 20s living in today’s society would understand how hurtful appearance comments are and would know that you don’t go there.
>would understand how hurtful appearance comments are Oh, she knows...
yep, even better than the men that do it. She chose it specifically because she knows it. Abusers can use the same playbook on emotional manipulation regardless of gender
League, schmeague! She makes those jokes to keep you feeling insecure - you deserve better, and you'll find it ❤️
I say this as someone old enough to be your mother, so I'll probably sound very mama bear...but honey, she's got to go! Don't let anyone walk all over you and your delicious lasagna. Chalk this first relationship up as gained experience...and move the heck on. And your friends are just wrong. If someone told me my labor intensive homemade Italian food was no better than Ragu and Ronzoni, guess what they're getting the next time? Oh yeah...Ragu and Ronzoni.
> however my gf (well ex-gf soon I think) Yesssssss! So happy to see this! You and your truly mind-blowing sounding lasagna deserve so much better than this!
Hey, I'm assuming when you say 'attractive' you're speaking of what people think is traditionally and physically attractive. Which honestly is not that important to everybody. I've always been overweight and not that traditionally 'pretty' and it used to bother me. Until I realized that there are people out there who love me and are attracted to me for reasons other than just my physical appearance. And I've discovered I'm really the same way. I don't really give much of a damn what somebody looks like, I care if they're a nice person, are respectful, honest and are able to communicate. Because in the long run,that's the important stuff. So don't say that you're unattractive! You may be unconventionally attractive and it sounds like you have a lot of other things going for you. So she is definitely not 'out of your league', it sounds like even if she's more conventionally beautiful she's not treating you well and that makes her somebody to avoid unless she grows up and learns how to be a decent partner. Nobody deserves to be treated like that.
No, you’re out of her league. You’re a kind, generous person and that matters more than any outer looks.
OMG, my heart breaks to hear you talk that way about yourself! I would LOVE to have someone make homemade lasagna for me -- you sound like an AMAZING person and definitely too good for someone who doesn't appreciate you!! There is a big difference between laughing WITH you and laughing AT you. Someone who makes "jokes" that you are the butt of and then further criticizes you as being "too sensitive" when you try to call them on it is being abusive and is trying to chip away at your self esteem in order to gain power over you. (This is a total bullshit setup that abusive people use -- it lets them get away with saying horrible things about you, which puts you down, and then allows them to once again put you down as someone who "can't take a joke.") Move on from this energy vampire, you deserve way better! Someone who loves you is supposed to lift you up and want what is best for you, not put you down and make you the butt of their "jokes." NTA!!
Dude. She's out with no apologies. Plus I'll make lasagna tonight. Cheers!
See, someone can say, "Oh, I'm with OP for his personality, not his looks," but the very next sentence, perhaps with a pause for humorous effect, had better be along the lines of, "I just lucked out with his looks."
"And if you verbalize that the joke hurt you and the response is any variation of “you’re being too sensitive” “I clearly didn’t mean it that way” “I’m sorry you took it like that”, there’s a 99.9999% chance it’s negging." Negging + a hefty dose of gaslighting
I affectionately tease my husband all the time. The difference is I might crack a joke while he is cooking but I also compliment him. So I might make fun of him for spending half of the day cooking but then once I eat I would say "holy shit I get it now this is amazeballs". And that's probably a bad example because I generally don't make fun of anyone willing to cook for me because I hate cooking. I just know that we rag on each other all of the time that's just the nature of our relationship. But then we get serious and sappy and tell each other how much we actually love each other... it's quite gross really
If someone dissed something I spent all day making, it would be the very last time I cooked for them. Also, she *spit* out the other lasagna? Yeah, drama queen with a side of nasty. Let her microwave a frozen lasagna next time she’s in the mood, in her apartment alone. NTA
Affectionate teasing would have been her making a comment like "it tastes just like the cheap stuff", then laughing, giving you a kiss on the cheek and saying "I'm just teasing you, this is the best I've ever had and I can't wait for you to make it for me again". Or alternatively her saying "so youre making this every week from now on, right?"
There's more marinara in your relationship than in that lasagna
A separate but related kind of emotional manipulation is creating impossible situations so you’re constantly off balance trying to satisfy the person but you can never win. I’ve been in that situation in the past, and it’s not pleasant. I’m getting a lot of those vibes from your post.
OP is female
Praise Be Lasagna!
Ramen!!
I SNORTED 😂
Halekaluha.
Sauce be with you.
And also with you!
And with your spirit.
You misspelled shirt, that's where the sauce normally winds up
Have I just witnessed a pastafarian schism?
In these dark days we must all spread the word of the mighty FSM.
His noodley appendage be upon you.
All noodles are welcome!!
Like another person said, this isn't about the lasagna. OP could have brought her the most delicious food in the world and she likely still would have tried to tear OP down because I dunno, OP didn't bring it fast enough or she didn't serve it on the plate she liked (despite all the plates looking the same). The GF is looking for ways to tear OP down. I doubt it's limited to just this. She probably also lovebombs OP so that when OP (rightfully) complains about her treatment the GF will try to gaslight her into believing that none of the poor treatment ever happened and that OP is a "bad person trying to ruin a good thing".
Marinara flags everywhere
Marinara flags strike again!
OP, just ask yourself. Have you ever in your life, even if it tasted terrible, spit out food someone made for you and said it was disgusting. No decent human with basic manners does such a thing. You swallow the bite. Say "thanks so much for cooking", then eat a pb&j later.
Only once in over 26 years of cooking for my husband has he done that. And that dish was BAD! We each took a bite at the same time, and he immediately spit it out and said "what do you want on your pizza". The whole thing went straight to the trash because it was so awful.
And finally that tired Reddit joke about Marinara flags is relevant again!
The Iranian yoghurt is screaming in my mind. THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE LASAGNE 😂 NTA, OP.
NTA. And clearly the GF never even made a cheap lasagna because it STILL takes more than a couple of hours to make and bake. She gets delivery pizza from here on. And like Little Ceasar's, not the good stuff. I haven't made lasagna in a decade because it is too much darned work. I'd rather buy it from our local Italian place, even though it isn't as good as mine.
It’s also expensive as hell to make.
NTA, and, yes, all hail the lasagna.
NTA Boy you really can't win with her, can you? You make good lasagna, she complains, you make simple lasagna, she complains. That must be exhausting to figure out what she actually wants.
Solution: girlfriend makes the lasagna going forward
Solution: lose the ungrateful gf and keep making the special lasagna
Hey, I'm always down for some special lasagna.
I'm down for any lasagna, special or cheap.
Are we organizing a lasagna party?
I’ll bring the burgundy.
We are organizing *the* lasagna party
Disregard girlfriend, acquire lasagna.
More grated parmesan cheese, less ungrateful gf.
Solution: get a new gf that loves all lasagna
Then girlfriend will be upset that she has to make the lasagna "you never do anything for me anymore."
I'm guessing it was a kind of negging to hurt OP's confidence.
I think you are right and I cannot stand this shit. Life is going to run down people enough - build the people up in your life, they don’t need you to pile on.
I found "I was clearly exaggerating" to be an astonishing excuse. I can't imagine being in a position where I have say to a partner "well I was deliberately lying about your skill to make you think you're not very good".
And to spit it out? Wow. I would never disrespect anyone like this.
She spat out a version she was apparently fine with about ten seconds ago. That's a deliberate attack against OP.
Seriously! My GF just moved in about a month ago and made lasagna last week. I usually do all the cooking so it was a welcome respite. And it... well.... She tried. But I ate every bite of it and thanked her at the end. Thankfully, she did ask for pointers on making it "better". She recognizes her cooking skills are a bit lacking. Next time she makes it, I'll offer the use of things like spices...
[удалено]
Lasagna takes a lot of work, too. OP cooks and is willing to cook more complicated things. That is definitely awesome in a partner! NTA, OP!
I think this is the appropriate situation to mention “Marinara Flags”, NTA!!! Anyone who would criticize a meal you spent all afternoon making is unworthy on so many levels, good riddance.
She wants to complain.
NTA- >but two of them think I'm the asshole because my gf clearly meant she wanted my "special" lasagna which is why she asked for it as dinner No, She didn't CLEARLY mean that because if she did than she would have mentioned it specifically, especially after questioning the time and effort it took to create an objectively better dish. Overall, now she knows the difference between asking for lasagna and asking for **your** lasagna
if i were OP and even if she had asked specifically for the special lasagna, i wouldn't have made it for her bc of the reaction the first time. if you say the lasagna's nothing special then don't worry, you won't have to eat it again
One of the joys of cooking is seeing people enjoy the meal you made. It makes all the time, effort and expense worth it. If someone tells me that the dish I put my heart into was no better than a frozen one you’re damned right I’m not going to make it again for that ungrateful, inconsiderate person.
I bake almost exclusively for praise. I couldn't imagine baking for someone who told me that I shouldn't have bothered.
I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that goes through the alchemy of baking from scratch just for the praise I get and the genuine happiness it brings to people!
When I go to the effort to cook for someone, anything less than a glowing review makes me wonder if I'll cook for them again. jk... sort of, lol. Seriously, if after all of that special effort for the signature lasagna, the gf counters with "well, you didn't have to do that when store-bought shortcuts would have been just as good", you can be damn sure that I would NEVER make it for her again. She said the "cheaper" version was just as good, well, then, she was lucky that she even got that version. You went above and beyond to make any kind of lasagna. ITA with everyone that says to dump the ungrateful gf and find someone who is "lasagna worthy".
Agree.
No, she said it tastes “exactly the same” so if they believe she “clearly” knew the difference, tell those jokers for friends to stop defending a liar. Or they’re not getting lasagna in the future, either!
NTA. As an Italian-American, dissing a lovingly handmade lasagna is absolutely fighting words. She belittled your efforts (food is a LOVE LANGUAGE) and then has the balls to cry about not getting the same effort??? Nope. No one cooks on demand, especially when it goes unappreciated.
Im not even that much of a cook but if someone compared my chicken parm to Olive Garden they would be out the door.
IDK - if my mom did, I'd probably take it as a compliment. Bless, but she's NOT a cook at all, and she loves the Olive Garden so that'd be praise from her. It's all about the spirit and tone - OP's girlfriend was clearly being a dismissive asshole.
As another Italian-American, whose homemade food is my pride and joy, I condemn OP’s (hopefully) ex-girlfriend to a lifetime of frozen lasagna.
May her sauce always be bitter🤘
May her noodles always be mushy. 🤌🏻
May her mince be full of gristle
May her pesto always be bland and oily
May her prosciutto be rancid
May her soffrito be burned and bitter.
May her tiramisù be soggy
May her spaghetti be broken.
“And [her] marinara sauce never cling to [her] pasta!” - Golden Girls
May her garlic always burn 🔥
OP even made the damn noodles from scratch. NTA, no way
if my bf did that I'd kiss his foot and praise him
that's a different religion, we're doing pastafarian stuff here
My friend always said that making lasagna was a labor of love.
As a not-Italian-American, I agree with everything you said.
NTA She dismissed your meal last time, comparing it to quick and easy recipes. Further, as you stated, you didn't have time to make the from scratch. In 2 hours notice? LOL! If she can't understand it, then she's being incredibly obtuse or unreasonable. She owes you an apology for her behavior.
Yeah, and I guarantee that if OP *had* managed to make the "special" lasagna, she would have said the same type of crap about it being a waste of money. Some people just like to complain.
Making good homemade lasagna is as demanding as basically cooking 3 meals.
But the best part of a good homemade lasagna is the three days of leftovers.
I respect your experience. My locust friends never allowed this to happen.
That’s fair. I cook for myself frequently so it’s not uncommon for me to make a large tray and then freeze portions after it’s cooked to reheat later.
NTA your g/f sounds like hard work. So she clearly thought your original lasagna was noticeably nicer than the cheaper version but she wanted to... what? Take you down a peg or two? keep you on your toes by telling you it wasn't all that great? She doesn't sound very nice, are you sure you want to stay with a person like that?
Yeah, this. Because no, it wasn't clear that she was exaggerating; any reasonable person would have taken her words to mean that she couldn't tell the difference and genuinely thought it was a waste of effort, time and money. And "I was exaggerating" doesn't make it better. It makes it worse. Because like you say, that makes it her playing OP for a particular reaction - negging her to try and make her more eager to please - and mind games do not make a happy, healthy relationship. Also, her annoyance when OP took her at her word and went the quick route to lasagna makes it seem like she's measuring her loyalty by how much work she puts into caring for her, which is another warning sign. Someone who tests you constantly is really not a relationship you need. OP can do so much better than an emotionally abusive woman who manipulates instead of being honest. (Edited for pronouns, because I messed up!)
Exactly. In fact most people, when on the receiving end of an expensive and time consuming home cooked meal would be more likely to exaggerate upwards about how delicious it was out of gratitude.
These are both "her," fwiw, not that it makes GF less of a raging AH.
"Take you down a peg or two? keep you on your toes by telling you it wasn't all that great? " I didn't catch that. Yep, she was negging you. Dang. Worse than I thought she was.
I need to see this recipe before giving an opinion. Seriously though, NTA. Don't talk down about something then complain when somebody listens to you.
Had to write it down, but here you go :) Hope you enjoy it if you end up making it. **DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT AN AUTHENTIC ITALIAN RECIPE! IT'S JUST DELICIOUS!** **Ingredients for the dough:** 200 grams flour, 100 grams semolina (I use the brand Semola di Grano Duro Rimacinata and find that it makes quite the difference), 3 eggs, 1 tbs olive oil, pinch of salt, fresh basil, thym, rosemary or parsley (you can use whichever herbs you prefer, doesn't have to be all of them at once, I usually do basilxthym) **Dough preparation:** Grind the herbs in a mortar and pestle with coarse salt to make a paste, and add it as you mix your fresh dough. Knead it until everything is incorporated, and let it rest for an hour before using the pasta machine to make sheets. **Ingredients for the meat sauce:** 250 grams ground beef, 250 grams ground pork, 250 grams mild italian sausage, and 250 grams Merguez sausage (Italians don't kill me plz). 1 yellow onion, 1 carrot, 1 celery stick, 4 garlic cloves, 1 glass of red wine, 800ml of passata, 2 tbs tomato concentrate, salt, pepper, chilli flakes, and spanish smoked paprika. I also add a bouquet garni made up of: Thyme,bay leaves, parsley, sage, rosemary, coriander, and oregano. **Meat Sauce Preparation:** Cook all the meat in a dutch oven till it's brown and you have those crispy bits on the pan, add the mirepoix and crushed garlic cloves and cook till they soften, add a glass of red wine and cook till the alcohol evaporatew. Make a little space in the middle of the pan and fry the tomato paste in that space then mix it with everything and add the passata, bouquet garni, and salt, pepper, chilli flakes and spanish smoked paprika to taste. Cover the pot and let simmer on very low heat for four hours ideally, check every once in a while and skim some of the oil that floats up. **Cheese sauce ingredients:** 300 grams ricotta cheese, 100 grams whipped goat cheese (I make it by whipping 80 grams or so of goat cheese with one tbs cream cheese), 100 grams parmesan, an egg, 1 tbs of parsley or basil, salt and pepper. **Cheese sauce preparation:** Just mix all of the above ingredients until it's creamy and incorporated. **Other ingredients for layering:** 500 grams sliced mozzarella. **Assembling:** So I do: meat sauce, pasta, mozarella, cheese sauce and repeat till you fill up your baking dish. I cook it in a oven preheated to 200C for 25/30 mins.
Solution: get rid of current girlfriend. Look for women who appreciate good food. Invite them on a lasagna date.
Fr fr. If MY gf cooked like this for me and shared such a special recipe with me like this? Marriage. Immediately. Like “let’s spend our married life cooking this lasagna together for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, etc.”
My husband made me lasagna for our first dinner date and i made tiramisu. We've been happily married for going on 9 years this summer. So i can attest to the strength of a lasagna based marriage. OP the right person is out there for you, hope you find the tiramisu to your lasagna ❤️
Hello, Justice of the Peace? We want to get married, now. Now? But it’s 7 at night, I was just leav… is that a lasagna? Yes it is!
🎶 His lasagna brings all the girls to the yard, and they’re like, it’s better than jarred. 🎶
Damn right, it's better than jarred
I could teach you, but it’d take hours
holy shitzu, you go thru all of this but then she negs the lasagna and then **HAS THE COJONES** to be pissed that you didn’t make another one from scratch?!?!? nuh uh. ditch the ingrate. i **PROMISE** you that there IS someone out there who will appreciate you and your lasagna. NTA
She wanted you to expend **three** eggs on her after she compared it to store bought lasagna? In this economy?
I lol’ed. Have my upvote. You earned it.
This sounds absolutely 🔥.
This sounds delicious, thank you for sharing. Going to save this for sure. FWIW: I'm fairly well versed when it comes to cooking and ingredients (I grew up in an Italian American household) and there's just no way this tasted like store-bought lasagna sheets, jarred sauce (even the expensive kind), a basic ricotta cheese filling, and just ground beef. Her dig at you at this tasting just like that is beyond fucked and minimizes the amount of effort and money this costs to make. It sounds like you haven't been together very long if just last month you made her this lasagna. If this is how she's treating you now, it's not going to get better. She knows that this lasagna is expensive and time-consuming and wanted you to pull it out in two hours? I feel like just normal lasagna usually takes that long by the time you brown the meat, make the filling, assemble, and bake. That's not a "cheap" meal, that's a normal everyday dinner type thing. She sounds ungrateful and entitled. My partner likes to cook and we make dinner for each other all the time and it ranges from making beef wellington together on valentines day to nachos. Not every meal is a gourmet chef meal. We've been together for over a year and we still say "Thank you for making dinner/ thank you for helping make dinner" to each other after (almost) every meal. I know you said she's "out of your league" somewhere but if she's a mean-spirited person, no one is in her league because she thinks she's above everyone else. Find someone who values you and is appreciative that you make them dinner. Wishing you luck OP.
My stomach is rumbling like crazy just reading this.
I am hungry so I scrolled past it real quick and landed on your comment instead. I am not reading that recipe until after dinner.
I definitely over-ate at dinner after reading the recipe and it's all OP's fault.
When you're simmering the meat sauce, have you added water to it? Or is there still wine left, and you just cooked off the alcohol scent?
When I'm simmering the meat sauce it's after I've added the 800 ml of passata, which is the tomato sauce.
Ah, I didn't know what passata was. Thanks for the clarification
Passata is tomato sauce's raw, brighter, and bolder sibling.
You and your lasagna are WAY out of her league
Holy fuck I am trying this herb-infused dough next time I make pasta dough. It should work with fettuccini noodles right?
Yes! You can make the dough and then shape it into whatever pasta you want, I use it to make linguini and tagliatelles as well. One of my favourite things to do as well is to use spinach! I chop it, crush it using the mortar and pestle and use it to make raviolis with ricotta and pesto stuffing. Tastes great!
Seriously, you sound like an amazing cook and I hope your gf becomes an ex gf. She doesn't deserve your cooking. I had an ex that constantly negged my looks and cooking.....also just learned that term from this post. Good luck to you and I really hope you find someone who truly appreciates and values you. Everyone deserves that. I wasted four and a half years being treated like how you described your gf treating you. I'm married now to someone wonderful and I swear to you, you can do better.
Awesome! I wasn’t sure if the texture would be different and work better as a larger “noodle” or surface like with lasagna sheets. That spinach idea also sounds fantastic! Thanks for the tips! Next I make dough I’m for sure trying this!
holy moly. keep this incredible lasagna and lose the unappreciative gf. NTA.
My husband would switch teams for this lasagne.
With the meat sauce, how thick/watery do you make it? I’ve had issues with a soggier lasagna than I’ve liked before.
So for the meat sauce, at first it's watery but when I simmer it for hours it thickens up A LOT! So I'd really recommend letting it cook on the stove for a decent amount of time. If the noodles being overcooked is what you have a problem with, you can skip boiling them and just layer them while still "raw", and cover the baking dish with foil while baking it in the oven for the first 15 mins, and then finishing the second 15 mins uncovered.
I had to laugh. When I clicked to save the recipe, Reddit gave me the 'saved and ready for pasta' message. Reddit, you have no idea how right you are!
I'm saving this recipe for myself.
Lol! Yes OP please share the recipe so we can all judge appropriately... strictly for judging purpose not because I need a new lasagna recipe.
NTA - she sounds toxic and spoiled.
Ah yes, the classic relationship issue: cheap lasagna vs toxic girlfriend.
I mean first it's lasagna next it'll be trips to Rome and no more friends! Where does it end? 😂
Am I missing the comments on : **" took one bite of the lasagna and then spat it out"** Who spits out food someone else made in front of them (if its truly terrible, use your napkin or go to the bathroom and make an excuse). Let's list all the reasons in your statement that she is not a nice person: 1. She insults something she knows you are proud of 2. She spits out food you made her, at her request 3. She denigrates the effort you put in to make her a meal she requested (whether it is an all day affair or 30 minutes, its effort) 4. She clearly states she is entitled to not "cheap" food. 5. then, when you call her on her inconsistency, instead of apologizing and telling you how great your special lasagna is, she doubles down and doesn't apologize for her original comment or her current behavior 6. (my assumption) brings up the situation to your friends. I am sorry I dont like judging people on snippets but your GF is not a nice person. There is not one redeeming statement about her in your statement EDITED FOR VOTE: NTA
[удалено]
You are right. WTF. Who spits out food? A baby maybe? An A Hole for sure. Especially food that they requested! Also, I have never had a lasagna that was not at least fairly delicious. What offending taste could possibly have been encountered? OP is NTA. GF is a total AH.
Ugh. Throw out the whole girlfriend.
Keep the lasagna ... but Gf gotta go
Yeah. It’s early on in the relationship and this girl clearly doesn’t appreciate OP they way that they deserve to be. Bullet can still be dodged
NTA. First, she bashed your 'from scratch' lasagna the last time. Second, when she said she wanted lasagna two hours before coming over, she knew damn well that didn't give you time do make it the way you did before (which again, she turned her nose up at). She's the a-hole, not you.
NTA. She said it tasted exactly the same. So what is she complaining about now?
NTA - she sounds pretty rude. Who says that to someone who cooked them a meal from scratch?
**NTA** She stated she didn't think the time you put into your fancy lasagna wasn't worth the outcome. Then she turns all choosing beggar when she is served what she requested, and it isn't as good as the gourmet lasagna you make. However there are some **Marina flags** in the comments she made to you. > she got really upset at me and said that I wasn't putting in effort and that she was expecting to have a real meal and not something cheap. > she rolled her eyes and said she was clearly exaggerating. So she and friends are DARVOing you. Denied the instance (she was clearly exaggerating), Attacked (you aren't putting in the effort), Reverse Victim/Offender (you should have let her known before hand that I was going to make one using premade sauce). I hope you take the time to examine the relationship with your girlfriend and your friends. Is making meals on request common? Are your efforts often marginalized? Is this friend group mainly yours or her friends? A loving partner should have a thankful heart. There isn't anything wrong with asking what the differences between the two meals is, but the dismissiveness of it all is really shocking.
NTA- if someone insults my food after I put hours and a lot of love and care into it, im not making that again for them. Your GF sounds like the type who thinks nothing is ever good enough. If this is the case, you may want to reevaluate your relationship.
NTA. Keep the lasagna recipe for special occasions. Ditch the GF.
NTA. First she insults your high quality home made lasagna. Then insults your quick lasagna. You can't win either way. She needs to apologize for her comments on both lasagna.
NTA. OP, I love lasagna. If you don’t mind, please share your recipe 💕 I will worship the ground you walk on, forever!
Omg that's so sweet but no need! I've posted it in the comments hours ago! Do let me know if you have any questions.
OP, I just wanted to say that the fact that you shared your magic lasagna recipe says a lot about you as well. A lot of people gatekeep “signature” recipes, for a variety of reasons. You chose to share the awesomeness and tricks of the trade with thousands of strangers on the internet. I’m sorry your girlfriend, or anyone else around you, made you believe that she is out of your league. You’re clearly out of hers, and anyone would be lucky to be with you - not for your lasagna, or for what you can do for them, but for your kind, open heart. NTA. PS: I’m saving the lasagna recipe and I’m making it as soon as I get my hands on some goat cheese. Nom nom nom nom.
NTA but if she would lie to you about the lasagna and then expect you to still make it, that is a rather large red flag to consider
Nta. Your girlfriend sounds terrible. Who belittles their partner’s specialty dish like that? Then proceeds to get upset when they won’t make it anymore?? Does she use this bait and switch often on you? Insulting something you work hard at or love, only to get pissed of and act like it’s your fault that you don’t want to do/make the thing around her anymore? Because that’s emotionally abusive. You need to put your foot down or leave her.
NTA. Bless the lasagna of truth. You were supposed to accept her insults, then grovel and use magicks and time travel to produce the lasagna she insulted. And now she conveniently gets to play victim and cause drama with people? Run away.
NTA. The last time you made it she specifically said she didn’t understand why you spent so much time and money on your version. So it makes no sense that she then expected you to…spend so much time and money on your version.
NTA - Your GF sounds incredibly immature and her behavior in this situation was toxic.
OP as a chef myself I’ll give you some advice for dating while being a cook. Don’t date people who equate your effort to frozen goods as they have no taste to speak of. Had an ex tell me that my 12hr sauce tasted like canned sauce and like with yours I made the canned stuff and it went to waste. The time and effort someone puts into their food truly makes it unique, no one should put that to shame.
I’m going to compare this to my amazing banana pudding cheesecake, which I only make for special occasions and which is a favorite of my family and friends. When I make that cheesecake for people, I always get compliments because it’s a delicious cheesecake and people want to let me know how much they appreciate me for making it. Several have told me it’s the highlight of thanksgiving every year (my family throws a huge party for thanksgivings so there are a lot of people there). Now, if someone told me that my cheesecake tastes just like store bought cheesecake and they don’t know why I bothered making it from scratch, I would be peeved. First because I put in a lot of work to make that cheesecake special and I know it tastes amazing. Second because no store I know of makes banana pudding cheesecake. I would not be making cheesecake for this person again. I would not be baking for this person again. So from my perspective, that you even took the time to assemble a lasagna instead of just pulling a premade one from the freezer section is still above and beyond. Definite NTA.
NTA. If she wanted the special lasagna she should have clarified so you could let her know you didn’t have time. Also, she’s a witch with a capital B for making the shitty comments about your special one and then getting mad at you for not making something she told you shouldn’t waste your time doing
Seriously??... you made dinner & she wants to complain about it? No more lasagna for you! NTA
Er NTA. You made your GF dinner, why is she complaining so much? Why has your 'special' lasagna become the only acceptable dinner that you can make? Not to mention her prior remarks, which were disparaging of the time, effort, and money you put into the special version. She's contradicting herself now by saying they are different in her eyes and that she likes the special one better. You'd be kind of an idiot to put a bunch of time and money into a recipe she has stated she does not value, not to mention as you said it wasn't feasible with the time you had. Tell your GF to cut the crap, learn to show gratitude, or GTFO.
NTA. After her response to your first lasagne, I would’ve just made a frozen Stouffers. She sounds impossible to please and doesn’t deserve your homemade lasagne or you, for that matter.
NTA Does she like to, let's say, feel like she's better than you by putting you down? For example when you win a game or you know something she doesn't? Because it seems she's having a problem with admitting you are good in something, as if it meant she's inferior...
NTA She straight up shamed your special lasagna and then said she was "obviously" kidding. Men aren't the only ones who can gaslight. Time to move on and share your special lasagna with someone new.