Tartiflette & Giada's Lasagna Rolls

I have been cooking fair amount of Indian and Iranian food thanks to Canada, and now France has opened a door to the Maghreb for me. I have yet to master Tabouli, and I have to challenge Tajine. However, before I take a big dive into the Maghrebian cuisine, I have been doing more conservative cooking. One French dish we did recently is called Tartiflette; very rich but very simple. It calls for boiled potatoes, lardon (similar to bacon), onion, fresh cream, and one entire Reblochon cheese. I only used half of reblochon, but it was still rich and flavourful. As you can see in the photo, two hunks of cheese is put on top which melts all the way down and gives off all the yumminess into the potatoes. I served it with a fillet of sea bream and green beans. Yum.

Nathan's request last week was Lasagna. I decided to make Giada's Lasagna Rolls. What a great idea to roll the cheese fillings in the noodles! Well, my plan got trashed as I could not find the lasagna noodles that were long enough. I have to check other stores, but the ones we got from Carrefour were much shorter and wider. I also could not find mozzarella cheese... I was in the "other than France" cheese section and found Ricotta, which I needed, and bocconcini (fresh mozza), mascarpone, etc, but not a sight of mozza! I used emmental cheese instead, and worked just fine.

The lasagna turned out great, and I will definitely do it again. BUT, it was missing Jason's dad's pepper! The key to my tomato sauce, it was. We miss you Jason, although you would not have liked this lasagna as it had bechamel sauce in it :P.