Lasagna Night

It’s been a while, so we decided to make a nice Lasagna for dinner. My Lasagna is nothing special… just your typical run of the mill meaty lasagna. For that reason, the “recipe” will be kept brief.

Preheat the oven to 350. While that’s getting ready, brown 1lb of ground beef.

Add your favorite seasonings to the meat as you brown it, then drain it well so you don’t have too much greasy juices in your lasagna.

The filling… we make a traditional Ricotta filling with 15oz of Ricotta, a few eggs, some parsley, parmesan, and mozzarella.

The key is really to mix it by hand. Something about the heat from your skin mixing everything together just seems to distribute the flavors evenly across the mixture.

After everything is mixed up, grab an appropriately sized pan and lay down a layer of sauce. After the base layer of sauce is down, mix the meat into the rest of the sauce. On top of the sauce goes a layer of UNCOOKED lasagna noodles, then the cheese mixture, then the meaty saucy goodness, then noodles, then cheese, then meat sauce, then noodles, then cheese, then meat sauce, then noodles, then WAIT it changes…for the top layer, you just do noodles and sauce.

So… you have it basically made, cover it in foil and put it in the oven that’s good and pre-heated for about an hour. After an hour, pull it out and grab some mozzarella… ditch the foil and liberally apply some shredded mozzarella. Put it back in the oven until everything is nice and melty. I like to leave it until the cheese is just starting to turn a little brown.

This is the final result. A nice, thick, solid lasagna. The cheese mixture should not be runny. When you cut a slice, it shouldn’t slide and separate. It should be able to stand on the plate without the layers sliding apart. If you keep all of the noodles covered in sauce during cooking, or cheese or whatever, they won’t get crispy and hard and nasty.

• You can use a 50/50 mix of sausage and beef for a more flavorful mix.
• You can replace the meat with spinach (or even broccoli) if you’re one of those weirdos who doesn’t eat meat… but you have to be sure to remove as much liquid as possible from whatever you’re adding.
• If your end product is runny, you either need to cook longer, remove liquids, or add more cheese / eggs.
• Here’s what you need:

• 16 ounces Lasagna
• 1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups (1 pound) shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 (28 ounce) jars pasta sauce, any flavor
• 1 pound beef, cooked, drained