November 15, 2007 Meaty Lasagna

Easy Tastebud Delights

11.15 Edition (November 15, 2007)

Easy Recipes

45 minutes+

Hi Everyone! I hope your Thursday is going well. While searching through my recipes yesterday I realized I hadn't sent out my Signature Dish: Meaty Lasagna, so here is the recipe with a story about last night's lasagna episode!

This recipe does take a fair amount of time to put together but I like to have the meat already browned in advance then just add the sauce and seasonings. I use my food processor for the chopping, mincing and grating and put the water on to boil for the noodles right away. I've tried the Oven Ready Noodles and don't really like them. With that said, here's the episode...

Good news, nobody got physically hurt...Bad news, the lasagna and pan are now in the garbage...

I accidently left the back burner on medium after cooking the noodles and when I took the (glass) pan out of the oven and it was sitting to "cool", (touching that burner for awhile), I noticed the lasagna was kicking off way too much steam on one side so moved it to the middle of the stove to finish cooling. As soon as I took my hands off the pan after making the move, the whole pan EXPLODED making glass fly everywhere! Luckily, I still had extra noodles, cheese layer, grated mozza and meat sauce left over so made individual plates for us all...the boys were instructed to stay in the livingroom to eat and I was nearly in tears! Anyways after supper I cleaned up the mess and still have a lasagna craving. As soon as I can get to Walmart to get a new DEEP DISH pan and some more ingredients I'll be making a new attempt on the project.

Don't let this story intimidate you from making this recipe. I've been making it for nearly 10 years now and NOTHING like this has EVER happened before. Enjoy!

Meaty Lasagna

Meat Sauce:
1 lb. ground beef
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 tsp. minced garlic
1 diced onion
fresh herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme)
worchestershire sauce
tabasco sauce
salsa (optional)

Cheese Layer:
2 cups cottage cheese
2 cups ricotta cheese
1 frozen pkg. spinach
1/2 cup mozzarella
1/2 cup fresh parmesan
1/2 diced onion
fresh herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme)
1/2 cup chopped celery (optional)

12 dry lasagna noodles
extra mozzarella for sprinkling between layers

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bring to room temperature the cottage cheese, cream cheese and spinach. Brown ground beef with onions, garlic, worchestershire sauce and tabasco. Drain and return to pan. Add tomato sauce and bring to a slow boil. Turn element down to minimum.

Mix cottage cheese and cream cheese. Add spinach, onions, herbs and cheese. Mix well. I use my food processor.

In sprayed 9x12 pan pour enough tomato sauce to cover the bottom. Layer lasagna noodles. If using salsa, spread on top of or in place of sauce. Layer meat and cheese then noodles until reaching 3/4 of the way to the top of the pan. Finish layering with noodles, meat mixture, the rest of the tomato juice and end with grated mozzarella.

This recipe freezes well. I often intentionally make a double batch so that we have a future meal.

Tips to Ponder
To save time, cook a bulk package of ground beef and make meat sauce. With half the sauce make a lasagna and freeze the other half for future use in plastic zip bags.

If you want to make a complete lasagna and freeze, follow instructions but omit cooking time. Cover with plastic wrap and then aluminum foil. When you want to cook the lasagna, remove from freezer a day or so in advance and place in refrigerator until 1/2 hour before cooking time, remove plastic wrap and foil, place on the countertop to reach room temperature. Cover with tinfoil and cook as usual.
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