Love Ya Lasagna

I remember years ago that a friend called as I was preparing lasagna for dinner. When I told him what I was making, he was so impressed because he thought it to be an elaborate meal for a weekday. Hmm…lasagna is a casserole. As long as you have all the ingredients, it’s one of those simple meals you can make anytime.

Everyone loved my mother’s lasagna growing up, so I make it basically the same way…with a couple of minor alterations. These days we can buy no boil noodles, which really streamlines the process. Also, cottage cheese seemed to be the thing in the 70’s/80’s…not exactly sure why. I do prefer ricotta and fresh parmesan cheese…not the powdered stuff you shake out of the can.

Ingredients:

• ground beef
• marinara sauce
• ricotta cheese
• mozzarella cheese
• parmesan cheese
• lasagna noodles

I usually start with browning some ground beef and adding it to a quality jarred marinara sauce. But in this case, I didn’t have a ready made marinara. Simple enough to make my own. Put some diced tomatoes into the food processor and simmered in a pot with some sauteed garlic, dried basil, oregano and French thyme.

Mix the three cheeses together in a bowl, reserving some grated mozzarella for the top. I gotta tell ya, this has always been a favorite combination. I could eat a bowl full of ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan for dessert. So I make sure to save myself some! BTW, I was a tad short on the mozzarella, so I mixed in a little cheddar. What??? Yes, you can. No one noticed because I buy white cheddar when possible. Use your intuition and use what you have. Simple meals like this are the best when you start cooking without a recipe.

Cheddar?

A few years ago, visitors from Australia asked me why “our” cheese was orange. “What do you mean?” I tried to understand. They had ordered a cheese burger at a restaurant and were shocked when the cheese served them was orange. “Oh, it’s cheddar,” I replied, as if that explained everything. The Aussie raised his eyebrows and suggested, “American cows make orange milk?” Only then did I realize something so obvious that I would have never considered until a foreigner brought it to my attention. Obviously he was right and when I went home, I researched the subject. Indeed, Americans expect their cheddar to be a darker color because during this country’s infancy, adding color was a way to differentiate cheese made in America from that of the Brits. Our cows don’t produce orange milk obviously. So, I don’t have an issue with the added color per se. But buying a white cheese makes it easier to mix it with something else if needed in a pinch. I’m just saying…Think ahead and keep it simple.

Assembling Lasagna

It’s a pretty straight forward process. Put a little sauce in the bottom of the casserole dish so the noodles don’t stick. Put a layer of lasagna noodles down. Then cover with sauce. Then crumble some cheese on top. Another layer of noodles and repeat. You can make it with as many layers as you like and it’s up to you if you like more cheese or more sauce. Michael’s family are all about the sauce, so in this case I made a thin lasagna because I could see that I needed to put the remainder of sauce on top of the final layer before topping with mozzarella and parmesan. Cooking without a recipe means adjusting according to what you have on hand.

Cover and bake for about half an hour. You want the noodles to steam and everything to be hot and bubbly. Then remove the lid and cook an additional 5-10 minutes. Let it rest 15 minutes once removing from the oven. I know it’s difficult to wait because it smells so good, but there’s nothing worse than ruining an otherwise perfect lasagna by slopping it all over the plate because the cheese didn’t get a chance to set up.

Guess what! In addition to being simple and delicious, it’s even better the next day and it also freezes well like most casseroles. Simple meals like this are a win, win!

Find out why I sometimes used a jarred marinara by reading Cheater Sket.