HTDE: How To Make Lasagna Without An Oven, with Peter Sagal

0:00This message comes from 3 Questions with Andy Richter. Hey guys, it's Peter. And once again, you are finding in your Weight Weight feed, a new episode of our sister podcast, How to Do Everything. Now you might be saying, I don't want this. I want Peter. I've got such good news for you because in today's episode, I am in it being humiliated as of old by being asked to eat something, let's just say questionable. So enjoy this week's How to Do Everything and make sure if you like it, go on over to their own feed and subscribe.

0:48Hey, can I ask, is there somebody there who can help me with a cooking question about lasagna? I can help you. Okay, we're making lasagna, and we want to get all the ingredients right. Here's the trick. We're making it in the dishwasher. What? So, Louise, may I help you? Hi, I have a question. It's a food cooking question. Is there somebody who could help me with lasagna, with a lasagna recipe question? Well, we don't do lasagna. But, oh, okay. We have pasta, like mostacholi, reggaeton, spaghetti. We're going to make this lasagna in the dishwasher? No. Do you have any advice? No, no. I don't know nothing about no dishwasher or nothing, no.

1:44Grand Appliance and TV in Chicago, Illinois. Please listen carefully. Grand Appliance, this is Colby. How can I help you? Hey, we're trying to, we're looking for a dishwasher. We want to see which is the best dishwasher that we can use to cook a lasagna. The best dishwasher to cook a lasagna? Yeah. Have you ever heard of this?

2:11You cover it and put it in the dishwasher and hit go? Exactly right. You take the noodles, you put all the things down, and you wrap it in three pieces of foil. And then you put it in the dishwasher. You want to put it flat. And apparently, you have to run it for a full cycle. At the end of that, you have edible lasagna. I believe it. Anything that hits sanitary level of, like, I think 162 degrees or something. Mm-hmm. So use the sanitize, hit the sanitize if it has that. Because that's a specific degree to be recognized as sanitization or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I ask you another question?

2:49One recipe I read said you have to put detergent in it so that it will run for the full cycle. Is that true? No, no. You definitely don't do that if you're going to eat it. That's what I thought. Would you eat lasagna out of a dishwasher? sure um i'm from southern illinois so i'd probably i've eaten much worse yeah i'd do it um i also heard you ever use cottage cheese in your lasagna no check that out it's really all right next level okay but yeah would it void the warranty of the dishwasher do you think to make lasagna in it no i mean i don't see how it would i just wouldn't tell anybody yeah all right

3:35this is how to do everything i'm ian and i'm mike coming up how to burp but first dishwasher lasagna on our other show the other show we work on wait wait don't tell me we recently did a story about how some people say the best way the best place to cook a steak is in your dishwasher so this got us curious, what else can you cook in your dishwasher? We looked around and we found a recipe for lasagna. We're going to make some and then we're going to feed it to our official taste tester, Peter Sagal. You'll know we're in the office kitchen when we start speaking in hush tones.

4:19So the recipe says we need three sheets of foil. Okay, so that's three sheets. We're going And then put the lasagna. I guess we want three sheets to protect it from the dishwasher-ness of all of this. So, yeah, we want to avoid contact with any of that stuff that I just assume swirls around in the dishwasher once you run it. I usually wash my dishes in the sink, so I would be cooking the lasagna in the sink, just running hot water over it. For three and a half hours, two and a half hours. Whatever it takes. That was really good sound. Thanks. I always feel like audio is the best medium for cooking demonstrations.

4:58Sound-based. Was it you who said sound is the most visual medium? What I said was, as Mike said, sound is the most visual medium. And I was quoting you. I think go all the way to the edge, right? I'm just going to spread this out over the noodles. It's interesting, right? Because usually you try to get the food off your plates before it goes in the dishwasher. But now we want as much food as possible in the dishwasher so that the most food comes out. Yeah, instead of scraping our food into the garbage before we put it in the dishwasher, we're scraping our food on. We're using the food to create garbage, which we're going to feed to Peter.

5:33So I brought these herbs. I'm just going to put some on here. Sure. Why not? I think anything to mask the centuries of Tide Pods that have gone through the dishwasher. I think we want a lot of garlic. Okay, I'm going to sprinkle on. This is just some dried basil. You can do whatever kind of Italian spices you want. I like these three. So this is flavor blasted lasagna. So right now we're folding it all up around the lasagna to make sure we get a good seal. Oh, are you going to kind of roll it up? You want to get all the outside. Yeah. All right, so then I'm going to roll this. This feels good to me.

6:15This feels like we've accounted for any potential water access points. We may not be right. We may discover that there was some that we forgot. It's like it's a little bit cooking. It's a little bit dishwashing. It's a little bit origami. Yeah, that's right. It's a little bit ending a friendship. Closing it up. I'm going to leave the detergent capsule empty. No detergent. Okay, so we're going to put it on sanitized. That gets us our highest heat. Okay, there's a button that says extra shine. Do we want? Yeah, why not? Okay. Wait, there is a button here that says al dente. Okay, we're going to fast forward here.

6:58Yeah, we're not going to sit here for two and a half hours while the lasagna washes. Yeah, but if you want to get a feel for what we're doing, just go ahead and stare at your dishwasher for the next two and a half hours. If you don't have a dishwasher, you can also stare at your refrigerator. Any appliance, just make sure not to break eye contact with the appliance for two and a half hours. The full cycle.

7:25All right, here we go. We're going to open the dishwasher. The door is still hot. Oh, boy. The aluminum foil has changed color. It really has, right? Dulled. It got stiff. Did it get heavier? I think it got heavier. Okay, we put the lasagna on a plate. We are running it into the studio where Peter Sagal is waiting, and he has no idea what we're about to feed him. It looks like a normal, not very good lasagna. All right, Peter, you're here. Yes, I am. So what do you see before you, Peter? I see before me what I would have to say looks like maybe a one or two layer lasagna. That is what I would describe it as.

8:14Yeah. That's what it is. Yeah. It's lasagna. I'm rotating it slowly. Yes, I'm seeing now as we rotate, I see the lasagna noodle. I see the... Does anything seem unusual about it? Well, all right. I'm going to give you an honest answer. I'm rotating it in the manner of like a diamond in like a commercial. It's like slowly spinning. Nothing per se. Okay, go ahead and cut into it. Right. Cut yourself a piece. Before I do this, and I'm going to do it no matter how you answer this, but I just want to be prepared. Will anything scream? In the lasagna? In the lasagna. Not you? Yes. So I'm just like, there's no living creature in here.

8:51Everything should be okay. Everything should be okay. Okay. I just want to say that when Ian asked me to come in today and do this, he said, come hungry. All right.

9:06Oh, God. All right. I am chewing it, as the audience may hear. And it doesn't taste good, but kind of a humid feel to it. It's a little soggy, maybe. Is it? Kind of a little locker roomy. A humid lasagna. Locker roomy? That makes sense. Do you think so? I mean, let me put it this way. If I were to serve this, perhaps, in a restaurant, I might push it slowly away and then do the thing where you cut it so it looks like you've eaten it so I don't want to offend the server. You wouldn't send it back. That entirely depends on what you tell me, isn't it? Nothing. There is... I mean, there could be, depending on what you say, there could be, I could send back, I could stomp out, I could sue them, depending on what...

9:49Well, it won't take effect for another five minutes. God. All right, well, Peter, let me tell you, we made it not in an oven, but in the dishwasher. Ah. Ah. Let me ask you, was it just sitting there? So that's why it feels wet? It was wrapped in multiple layers of aluminum foil. And then folded over and sealed. I want to have a bite. Do you want to have a bite? I will have a bite. Yeah. Let me just bring up Google Translate. Because I think it's worth knowing what this dish would be called in Italian. La lasagna di something. What's the dishwasher? Oh, it actually, see, the Italian name. Lasagna della lavastoviglia.

10:48You'd eat that. You'd say, if somebody came out and said, with that accent. If that guy said, on our special today. Lasagna della lavastoviglia. You'd be like, aren't we lucky, honey, that we have come in when the special today is the press of the cat. Lasagna della lavastoviglia. Yeah. So now what part of the cow is the lavastoviglia? Peter, five-star rating. What do you give this? With all apologies to both you, the dishwasher, and the Google Translate AI voice, it's not good. Yeah. You know, it's not inedible. If I was very, very hungry and I didn't want to offend the person who gave it to me.

11:27Okay, prove it.

11:31Neither of those conditions apply.

11:40We want to remind you, if you have a question or something you need help with, send it to us. Send us your questions at howto at npr.org. You can also, if you have an idea for something, we can feed to Peter unwittingly. You can also send that to howto at npr.org. Don't send the food itself as an attachment, but maybe just suggest the food in words, and we will make it in a dishwasher. Whatever it is, send it to us at howto at npr.org.

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13:19them. And we've actually been getting some of these out of office emails. One of them came from Amanda. The subject of the email was request for final case counts from August 29th, 2025. So let's do it. Let's call her up and see if we can help her out. I don't think we're going to be able to. I don't even. Yeah, we don't. We will not have those case counts. the bottle meister this is amanda hey amanda it's mike and ian calling we got your email um from an out of office forward you were looking for the final case counts from august 29th does that ring a bell um where are you calling from i'm afraid i have no idea i can i can read you the email if you want if that helps yes i guess it would help you thank Okay.

14:12So what you wrote was, hello, I'm currently working on the invoice for bottling that was done on 8-29-2025. It looks like we still do not have your case counts. Please send me your final case counts so I may adjust your invoice correctly. Thank you, Amanda, the bottle meister. Oh, I think it was from... Is that a good... Do you work with them a lot? We do. And then I did contact someone else and they gave me the correct email. Okay. Okay. Yeah, because we... Hopefully it said in the out-of-office message that Mike and I don't actually know anything. We just were offering to help. Yes, I remember now.

14:51Yes, and so when I spoke with her, she gave me a different one. Oh, gosh. Interesting. Okay, so they got back in the office then, and then they relieved us of our duties. Yes, from my understanding. You guys are off the hook. Okay. Can I ask, what kind of business do you do? What are you bottling? It's wine. Oh, so they made wine and then you put it in bottles for them? We sure do. What kind of wine was it? Was it any good? That I do not know.

15:22Well, thanks, Amanda. Thank you. And I appreciate the follow through. So it's working. We're not we are not working, but the system is working. Yep. We also got one from Amanda McLaughlin. So she's responding to an out of office for Lauren. How do I shop for a used car in 2025? That's a good question. I will say my car that I currently have is at this moment at the mechanic. And they discovered that rodents had been eating the engine. Are you serious? So Amanda, I'd be happy to sell you my used car. Just send us your best offer for a 2021 Subaru Crosstrek with an engine compartment filled with rats.

16:09And just send your best offer to howto at npr.org. And again, everybody out there, put us as your out-of-office email contact, and we will do our best to help. We'll do our best.

16:26Hey, JP, what can we help you with? So my question centers around the fact that I, oddly enough, can't burp. So I've wondered for years now if it's how to burp, like if it's something that could be taught or if it's just something for me that I'm not able to do or what's going on there. Have you ever burped? So what happens when I have post food or a soda or something like that, I might have what I describe as gurgling noises that I feel like fill in the gap for what would be a burp. Yeah, I think I've heard that before. Could we ask you to demonstrate the gurgling noises best you can? I wish I could.

17:15It's not a sound I can really recreate because it comes from my chest. So it sounds maybe like this is, it's not that you never learned how to burp. It's just that you physically can't do it. Yeah, exactly. And is it emotional? Do you feel left out of the burping world? Oh, yeah, for sure. Because I feel like I get indigestion. I have the feeling of what I would think would be like the necessity to burp, but it just doesn't. I just want to say that about 20 seconds ago I just burped I really did and I wonder if it was like a sympathetic burp like a yawn have you burped at all I think it would be rude personally I think it would be rude to do it at all in this professional setting but also in front of JP who is longing to be able to do what you just did willy nilly as if it were nothing.

18:15And then I just want to apologize to both of you for doing something that is rude, but then specifically to JP for kind of showing off. I appreciate the empathy. So we're going to do our best to get to the bottom of this, hopefully solve this problem for you. Can I ask you a favor? Sure. Next time you feel this sound, this froggy sound coming on, Could you call our Do we have a voicemail Hina? Yeah we have a voicemail And just do the sound into the phone Totally Okay well we're gonna see what we can do here JP and we're Our goal is to get you burping as quickly as possible I appreciate that Okay so JP did send us a voice memo Let's listen to it I don't there's no journalistic reason to do this, but I would like to listen to that again.

19:14Let's play it one more time.

19:19That's pretty good. Let's slow it down also.

19:26Hina, can you put a little beat under that?

19:58All right, we have somebody on the line who hopefully can help JP. Dr. Michael Lerner is an ear, nose, and throat doctor with Yale Medicine. So, Michael, what do you have for us? So I'll start by saying that what I'm about to say is not a substitute for medical advice for JP specifically. Sure. But as far as if someone came to me and said that they can't burp or were unable to ever burp, you're not alone. You know, that kind of description wasn't traditionally considered like a symptom if you go to the doctor and say, I can't burp. You know, in the past, folks would have said, OK, that's not a thing.

20:41But it turns out that it is a thing. And only in 2019, so not too long ago, a condition was described in which people couldn't burp. And does this have a name, this condition? So it's called colloquially or by patients, no burp syndrome. So the name really is easy to understand. The medical terminology obviously can get a little jargony, but it's called retrograde cricopharyngeous dysfunction. The cricopharyngeous muscle is really the valve or the sphincter on top of the esophagus or esophagi. So basically, it's supposed to relax to vent air that's building up in our stomachs or digestive tract.

21:29So when it doesn't do that, that recirculating air can make some unusual, sometimes socially awkward noises as it's trying to get out. And then that trapped air can lead to really uncomfortable bloating, actually, in the end, so the swelling in the belly. Oh, wow. So is there anything you can do about it? Yeah, there is. And it's become a major focus of what I do and something I'm really happy to treat because the treatment described in 2019 was Botox into that muscle. And so apparently in this 2019 study by a Dr. Bastion in the Chicago area, actually, you know, injecting Botox into that muscle, the cricopharyngeus muscle, and 80 to 90 percent of people afterwards could burp.

22:20and 80 to 90 percent of people after the Botox goes away they've actually are they're able to learn or relearn how to burp in the first place and so to get this durable resolution for reasons we don't yet fully understand I'm curious about I mean if you've gone your whole life and you've never experienced a burp doing it for the first time how do people describe that experience and do they have to sort of learn how to do it? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we've had some where Botox's onset of action is three days. And so I've seen some where we timed it, it's like going to be on their birthday. So it'll be like their burp day.

22:57Wow. I have, most patients tend to be, you know, female in their 20s and 30s. And so it's not uncommon. They'll tell me like, I'm burping like a frat guy, like it can be a lot in the beginning, but it all settles out over time as the Botox wears off. Did you just say, though, their burp day? Yeah, that's... The first time they burp. I do these treatments, and a lot of folks ask me, like, should I go back to work right away? Am I going to be burping in front of people involuntarily? And the truth is, you know, for folks who've never burped before and they have the Botox on board, they'll go to yawn.

23:35And guess what? A burp's going to come out. Or, you know, they might, you know, like they didn't know that was going to happen, right? And when we yawn, what's happening is we don't think about it in medical or anatomical terms, but our voice box is going down. It's dropping low. The idea is that we're, you know, unlocking this block with the Botox, but now as the floodgates are open, the other muscles have to kick in and figure out where to put the gas and the brakes on. Have you heard from anybody who's gone through this and has gotten, I mean, not necessarily in trouble, but has found themselves in a situation where they have burped and then it has caused them awkwardness or they regret it?

24:17No, no. But I'll admit that I was reading a column in one of the local papers about work etiquette. And there was mention, someone was writing in about my cubicle mate was burping all day long. And I don't know if I should talk to him about it. And I was thinking, I hope that is my patient. I think that's fantastic.

24:41Well, that does it for this week's show. What'd you learn, Ian? I learned there are any number of foods you can cook in the dishwasher. Yeah. We did lasagna, but we also found a recipe for ribs. Yeah. We were very close to trying the ribs instead of the lasagna. Based on this experience with the lasagna, what would you make? Like, if you were in charge of making dinner for your family, like, tonight, What would you make? I think a soup would be interesting. Put all the ingredients in the top rack. Put a bowl on the bottom rack. Let all the hot water do all the things that boiling water does in soup.