Who doesn't love lasagna? Warm and comforting, it's a meal in itself. My favorite lasagna recipe, of course, is Ina's. It's so easy. You can make it ahead of time and it freezes well.
Ingredients: olive oil, onion, garlic, Italian sausage (the recipe calls for turkey but I can't resist pork sausage), canned crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, fresh parsley and basil, salt, pepper, lasagna noodles, ricotta cheese, goat cheese (or feta if your local grocery store doesn't have it), parmesean, egg and fresh mozzarella.
Chop up the onion.
And the parsley and basil.
Heat the oil in a large skillet and cook the onions for a few minutes until soft. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.
Remove the sausage from its casings and break it up. If you don't have the Mix 'n' Chop from Pampered Chef (pictured above) I highly recommend it. It's my favorite PC gadget. It's awesome!!
Cook until the sausage is browned.
Then add the tomatoes, paste, herbs, salt and pepper. Let the sauce simmer for 20 or 30 minutes.
This is the secret to perfect lasagna (thanks Ina!)...instead of cooking the noodles in boiling water, soak them in hot tap water for about 20 minutes. They will soften and then finish cooking in the oven. While they are baking, they will absorb some of the tomato sauce and keep the lasagna from getting thin and watery. They are also much easier to handle than fully cooked noodles.
Mix the cheeses with some of the fresh parsley and season with salt and pepper.
I like to use loaf pans since I'm only cooking for my husband and I. I will freeze the other half. See my Poppy Seed Chicken Bake for a quick tutorial on how I do it.
Ladle 1/3 of the sauce into the bottom of a baking dish.
Followed by 1/2 of the noodles.
And half of the 1/2 ricotta mixture (forgot to get a picture of this : / ).
Repeat with another 1/3 of the sauce, the rest of the noodles and the rest of the ricotta.
Then top with the final layer of sauce and sprinkle with shredded parmesean cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until the sauce is bubbly and cheese is melted.
You could feed this to anyone, any age and they would enjoy it. I certainly did ;)
Link to the printable recipe:
*Note: I substituted pork sausage for turkey.
Source: Barefoot Contessa
No comments:
Post a Comment