calherewecome

Today is Tuesday and that means family for dinner. I addition to the usual attendees, we will have our number 2 son Neil honoring us with his presence.

So we decided to have lasagna. The benefit of lasagna is that one can make it up ahead of time and then pop it into the oven 45 minutes before dinner.

So here’s what you need:

• 2 24 oz. jars of spaghetti sauce. (I like some of the spicy variants but use what you like.)
• 1 egg
• 2 cups of shredded Mozzarella cheese
• 1 15oz. Container of Ricotta cheese (I usually get the low-fat version)
• 1 onion (chopped)
• 2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
• 1 lb of sausage meat
• 8 oz lasagna noodles (1/2 a package)

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook the lasagna noodles according to the directions on the box. (Usually about 8 minutes).  Remove from heat and drain into a sieve. Allow to cool for a while.
2. Chop the onion and garlic. Saute in large frying pan.
3. When onions are translucent add the sausage meat. Stir and break up the clumps. Cook until the sausage is fully cooked.
4. In a small mixing bowl add the egg and beat. Then add the ricotta. The egg helps make the ricotta easier to spread.
5. In a large mixing bowl combine the sauce. Add about half the sauce to the sausage mixture.
6. Now we put it all together. In a 9″x 13″ baking dish. Spray with non-stick spray. Put a layer of sauce (the sauce without the meat) on the bottom of the dish.
7. Add your first layer of noodles. Then a layer of the 1/2 the meat sauce mixture.
8. Add about half of the ricotta. Spread it around. Then add a little more sauce.
9. Add second layer of noodles. Add the rest of the meat mixture. Add the rest of the ricotta. Cover with sauce.
10. Third layer of noodles. Add half the remaining sauce (the meatless sauce). Cover with Mozarella.
11. Fourth layer of noodles. Rest of sauce and rest of Mozarella.
12. Cover with plastic wrap. Put in refrigerator. Pour yourself a glass of Chianti. You’re done until it’s time to put it in the oven.

Preheat oven to 350. Bake for about 45 minutes. Don’t forget to remove the plastic wrap. Serve with warm garlic bread and a nice Chianti.

This entry was posted on February 2, 2016 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Cooking, Food, Recipes. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Italian, Lasagna