Lasagna 2013

It's always this time of year, when my husband likes to make enough lasagna to fill our freezer for a few months.  On a previous post a blog reader, Leona, asked for the quantity of sauce, noodles and cheese he used to make all of this.  My husband doesn't really use a recipe to create his delicious lasagna, but I asked him to channel his inner Pioneer Woman to document his technique.

First, he browns two pounds of spicy sausage, two pounds of ground beef, one pound of Italian sausage in a large stock pot.

 Here's the meat after it's been browned and drained of fat.  (We're making a healthy lasagna!)

My husband adds one jar of his favorite pasta sauce for every pound of meat.

 Then you get a meaty red sauce. Salt and Pepper to taste.  We like our pepper!

Next, make your Ricotta Cheese mixture.  Five 15 ounce ricotta cheese containers, three free range/cage free eggs, and fresh chopped flat leaf parsley is what you need to make the mixture. 

Now, it's time to build your masterpiece...
Uncooked noodles go on first; this makes a less-liquid dish.  However, my husband's mother always says: for a faster cook time, boil your noodles first.

Add a little water to the pasta sauce jars, shake, and dump. (Waste not/Want not)

Add meat sauce.

Add ricotta mixture. (The flat leaf parsley adds so much flavor! I love it!)

Add Mozzarella cheese.

And then repeat (noodle, meat, ricotta, mozzarella) layers until you run out of room in your pan; the top layer should end with mozzarella without a ricotta layer underneath the mozzarella.  Every recipe has a trick, right?  My husband's trick is to add one sun dried tomato pesto layer on top of one meat layer.  Preferably in the middle meat sauce layer.

And since more cheese is always better, remember this is a healthy lasagna, on the final mozzarella layer...

...my husband likes to add an Italian blend of four cheeses.

Bake at 350 covered (with foil that's been hosed down with Pam) for 1.5 to 2 hours, until the cheese is melted...we usually heat up more red sauce to pour on top of each plated serving.

This recipe also makes enough for seven more loaf pans.  Make these and freeze them for a fast meal during the work week or give them away to friends. You can cook this lasagna frozen at a lower temperature for a longer amount of time.  Think 250 for 2 to 2.5 hours if they are frozen.  However, we usually move a loaf pan from the freezer to the fridge the night before, which will allow this to cook at a normal time and temp (350 for 1.5 to 2).

Enjoy.