Lasagna

Lasagna……To make 1 lasagna

Sauce recipe - cooled
1 large package ground meat
1 package (6) sweet sausage
1 bunch of parsley
1 Large Ricotta
1 egg
1 Large Mozzarella grated (at least a pound) or chopped into small cubes
1 Package Lasagna Noodles
Foil pan. I get the next deeper pan than the lasagna pans they sell in the store are. It’s more like a roaster pan I think. Look at how deep it is from the lasagna pans.

Take the ground meat and the sausage meat and do exactly like my meatball recipe (previous post) except brown the mixture in some olive oil instead of making little meatballs. Break the ground meat into small pieces. The chop meat should be as small as you can get it. I put mine through the food processor on pulse to make it smaller. If you don't have one, break it up with the wooden spoon as it cooks. Let this cool by separating ½ of it into a wide bowl and take the pan from the heat and let the rest cool in the pan. Drain any oil away from the chop meat.

While your noodles are boiling mix the ricotta with the egg and a handful of chopped parsley set aside.

Once your noodles are done, make sure they are not mushy so take them out when they are still a little hard. Run them off in cold water to stop the cooking. Leave your pot in the sink with the noodles and just drain off enough water to reach the noodles. Start lifting noodles out of the pot and laying them over the edge of the pot to dry off.
If you go to start layering and they are too wet just blot with paper towel.
You will now layer following in this order

Sauce
Noodles
Ricotta – plop like 3 or 4 heaping tablespoons over the whole pan of noodles…
Put a tablespoon of sauce on each pile of ricotta and spread around the noodles in the pan to cover. Adjust the ricotta as needed to cover everything.
Sprinkle the ground meat over that layer of ricotta
Sprinkle the mozzarella over the meat and then drizzle sauce over that--Like one drizzle over a row of noodles.
Repeat until your almost to the top. The last layer of noodles just gets sauce spread evenly over the noodles and then a lot of mozzarella. Bake at 350 until bubbling. If it’s getting too brown you can tent it with foil and continue to bake. If you put it in the oven right after making it should take about ½ hr 45 min. If you are going warm it up after being cooked and in the fridge you should take it out of the fridge for at least 2 or 3 hours and then bake it with foil on the top for about ½ hour or more. Use the butter knife in the middle test to see if it’s hot.

If you are making 2 at the same time I would actually buy 2 large ricotta and 1 med size and 3 large mozzarella.

Any left over noodles you can make lasagna roll ups with it. In a flat plate take a lasagna noodle, spread a thin layer of sauce, then ricotta then chop meat then mozzarella. Roll up and place in a baking dish that has sauce on the bottom. Spread sauce on top and top with mozzarella. Bake at 350 for ½ hour or until hot.
Or you can boil some pasta like ziti or rigatoni until aldente drain and place in a baking pan, spread sauce and remaining ricotta and meat mix well and top with mozzarella and bake at 350 until bubbling .

Also, if you just have the meat left over you can put that in a zip lock bag and freeze it. The next time you make a quick sauce you can throw the meat in and make a meat sauce…..It’s quick that way.