Basic Lasagna

After making last nights Stuffed Cabbage Rolls I found myself with an extra 1/2 pound each of ground pork and beef, plus about a 1/2 cup of the minced carrots and onions. Looking in my pantry and fridge I realized I had the makings of lasagna, so here it is!  It's inexpensive, basic, comfort food and with the cold weather we've been having it will be a welcome meal.

Here's what you need:

1 lb Ground Meat - I'm using a combo, but use whatever you have

 1 jar spaghetti sauce

10 oz shredded mozzarella

1/2-3/4 cup parmesan

1 cup ricotta or pureed cottage cheese

1 package lasagna noodles - I use Barilla No-Boil (So easy!)

Garlic, salt & pepper to taste

The minced onions & carrots aren't necessary, but I love adding veggies in wherever I can.  Get creative!  You can use spinach, mushrooms, peppers, etc. Chopped fine enough and cooked with the meat nobody will even notice and the taste will just be that much better.

Since I already had pans out for the cabbage rolls, I decided to cook the meat ahead of time so that today it would just need assembling. I tossed in the carrots, onions, a little oil, garlic, salt, pepper and the meat and cooked until done. Then I just put it into a container mixed in the jarred sauce and into the fridge it went until today.  At that time I also realized I didn't have any ricotta, but I did have cottage cheese. A few pulses in the food processer and voila'! 

 

 Assembly is easy and didn't take me more than 5 minutes. First spread a bit of the sauce, then cover 2 noodle sheets with your "ricotta", top with a sprinkle of parmesan and a little mozzarella, then repeat. In the 8x8 pan I used I was able to get three layers of noodles and topped it off with the remaining sauce and a little parmesan. 

 

 

 

 If you noticed I resisted putting more mozzarella on after assembling and it's because I usually bake this covered with foil for 1 hour at 375 degrees and in doing that you tend to lose some of the cheese to the foil - that's bad.  Instead I wait until it's done, remove the foil, top with more mozzarella and bake a few more minutes to get much better results.

 

 And here are the results! It was delicious and truthfully it's even better reheated the next day.  

 

A few items worth mentioning:

• A spreader; it makes applying the ricotta to the noodles quick and easy. Either a sandwich or frosting one will work.
• Also a deep baking dish it geat for more layers.  The one I have works, but I'd love this Le Creuset baker.