Labor Lasagna

When you need a reward for a job well done.

I’ll be the first to admit it—it’s a strange time to be having a baby. As my mother reminds me when talking about her own youth, nuclear destruction on the horizon, tension in the air, this has always been the case. But there’s something about Trump 2 that feels especially bleak. It’s hard to carve out a sliver of personal joy in a time that seems so chaotic and uncontrolled, and yet, nevertheless, she persisted, and I am due to bring a sweet baby girl into the world at practically any moment.

Our home is covered in toddler toys. The dresser where we’ve put her newborn clothes desperately needs replacing. Our lives are as chaotic as the world outside, although thankfully in a much more joyful and abundant way. There are a million things on everyone’s to-do list, but as the day draws closer and I felt her moving lower and lower, there was only one item that truly felt essential. I needed to make my labor lasagna.

The Best Laid Plans

When my first baby was born, I did an exemplary job stocking my freezer. I’ve always prided myself on cooking for other people going through life changes, and it felt important to do the same thing for myself, a little self care on the cusp of motherhood.

In graduate school, I baked a huge batch of lactation cookies for a classmate’s partner, newly postpartum and struggling with breastfeeding. When my husband’s friend had a baby, I brought his wife, who I had never met before and have seen only once since, individually wrapped breakfast sandwiches on homemade english muffins, a batch of chicken noodle soup, and, yep, more lactation cookies. It was so easy to do for other people, surely I could do it for myself too.

So I prepped. I made and froze dumplings, pupusas, empanadas, any kind of food I could imagine eating with one hand while holding a baby with the other. I filled any empty pockets of space with frozen chicken and beef bone broth, bolognese sauce, tomato sauce. Shelves and shelves of sustenance.

But most of that went unconsumed for months. What I really needed, as it turns out, was what I had given to other people in years past: community support in the form of food, love, and everything else my sweet friends could provide.

Where Self Care Meets Community

In the hazy early days after I had the baby, I was amazed and touched by how many people in my life were ready to take care of me. From the start, my community came together in offering incredible gestures of thoughtfulness and care.

My friend Bianca Doordashed me sushi, a late-night meal my exhausted husband and I consumed in bed with our sweet sleeping baby between us. Amanda stopped by with a huge bag of Trader Joe’s frozen goodies and pantry snacks, intending to leave them on our doorstep and run (we saw her, and brought both her and the snacks inside to meet the baby).

Countless friends came over with delicious meals they and their families had cooked for us. Melody and Gabriella came with their laptops and joined a little coworking club so I could make progress on my novel while my baby slept on my chest. Rachel let the baby sleep on her so I could take a shower, blissfully alone. I felt totally held and cared for in that vulnerable time of transition.

As the first one of my friends to have a child, I was afraid that stepping into this new stage would mean leaving those old connections behind. I feared my friends would be alienated by my bedhead and constant breastfeeding, the presence of this small and squalling creature fresh from another world. Instead, they embraced me, unconditionally and lovingly. It was way better than any batch of freezer-burned pupusas could ever be.

Hey, What About that Lasagna?

There was, however, one thing I made for myself that really came in handy: a post-labor lasagna.

I was famished right after the baby arrived, lying feeling boneless and sweaty in bed, my mother, a midwife who had delivered the baby, and her birth team bustling around us. They say birth is a marathon, and I needed to carb load.

Enter the lasagna, an afterthought, prepped last minute from leftover odds and ends in the fridge and stocked in the freezer with the rest of my stash. My friend Kristina, who had assisted at the birth, put it in the oven, and we all ate it together sitting on the big white bed while I breastfed for the first time, a reward for a job well done. This time around, it’s the only thing I’m making.

Labor (or any kind of self care) Lasagna

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

5 cloves of smashed garlic

1 28 oz can whole or crushed tomatoes, San Marzano if you can find them

3-4 links Italian sausage, optional, or feel free to sub your favorite veggie sausage of choice

15 oz ricotta

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

8 oz mozzarella cheese, grated

1 box no-boil lasagna noodles

Method:

1. Make your sauce! Frizzle up your smashed garlic in a little olive oil until your kitchen smells deliciously aromatic and the cloves have turned a slightly darker shade of gold.

2. Add your sausage, removing casings if necessary, and stir until well browned.

3. Pour in a full can of tomatoes plus a little splash of water if necessary (mine weren’t too saucy). If using whole tomatoes, smash them up with the back of a wooden spoon.

4. Taste-test time! You might need to add a little salt, or the sausages might have taken care of it. Once the sauce is seasoned, cover and turn heat to very low to simmer while you mix your cheeses, letting cook for at least half an hour.

5. Make your cheese mix by pouring the ricotta into a large bowl and stirring in about ⅔ of each of the mozzarella and parmesan, leaving some aside for your lasagna top.

6. Turn off the heat and let your sauce cool slightly, then prep your pan. Cover the bottom of a 9x13 with a little drizzle of olive oil, rubbing it up the sides to prevent sticking. Then put down a base level of lasagna noodles, topping with sauce, your ricotta mixture, and more noodles, repeating until you run out.

7. Finish off with your reserved grated mozzarella and parmesan and pop in the freezer if not using right away.

8. When the big moment comes, cover the lasagna in foil and pop right in the oven. Turn it to 350 fahrenheit and let cook covered for about an hour, then uncover and cook for an additional 15-20 minutes to brown the cheese on top. Ideally, let cool slightly before eating to keep it neater, but realistically devour immediately with joy in your heart.

9. Emily Beyda’s writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Built, Refinery29, Smartmouth, Fodors, the Thrillist, the Austin Chronicle, and more. Her novel, “The Body Double,” was published in 2021.

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