Entree: Adrienne's Lasagna

I started with a lasagna recipe, and over the years have tweaked and tweaked and tweaked it. This is the current rendition of the lasagna I make. It's generally popular. This year, we had this lasagna for Christmas. This week the theme is food from this year's Christmas. I already posted the Preston Rolls for Bread/Breakfast. This time, we made the pasta noodles from scratch, so the recipe to do that is also included.

Ingredients:
12 pieces (about 8 oz) lasagna noodles, uncooked (Or fresh pasta) 
2 lb. Ground beef
6 cups (about 2-26 oz jar) spaghetti sauce
1 cup water
1 – 15 oz container ricotta cheese
1 cup small curd cottage cheese
2 cups (16 oz) shredded mozzarella cheese (or Monterey jack cheese), divided
1⁄2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
1⁄4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1⁄4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1⁄4 cup spinach, chopped


Fresh pasta 2 cups flour (1/3 semolina, 2/3 all-purpose)
herbs: parsley, rosemary, basil, saffron, thyme, etc, whatever strikes your fancy as going well together 
3 eggs
olive oil 

Directions:

Drying Homemade Lasagna Noodles

Fresh Pasta

1. Combine herbs with flour. On a flat surface, make a bowl of flour, crack eggs into center. Mix eggs and flour together with a spoon. Add oil.
2. After dough comes together, knead well. Let rest 30-90 minutes. 
3. Run through pasta press until desired thickness. (Visit the Egg Pasta portion of this recipe for reference.) 
4. Boil 30 seconds, cold shock in a ice bath. 
5. Let dry 1 hour. Use same as no-boil pasta in recipe. These make more sheets, so layer pasta between each addition of meat then egg. 

Lasagna

Meat Sauce

1. Heat oven to 350ºF.
2. Over medium heat, brown meat; drain. Add spaghetti sauce and water, and spinach; simmer about 10 minutes. 
3. Meanwhile, in large bowl, stir together ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, one-half mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, eggs, parsley, salt and pepper.
4. Pour about 1 cup sauce on bottom of 13 x 9 x 2” baking dish.
5. Arrange 3 UNCOOKED pasta pieces lengthwise over sauce. Use an additional piece broken into thirds to get full length coverage of pan. Cover with about 1 cup sauce.
6. Spread one-half cheese filling over sauce. 
7. Repeat layers of lasagne, sauce and cheese filling. 
8. Top with layer of lasagne and remaining sauce; sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese. Cover with foil.



Cheese Filling

9. Bake 45 minutes. Remove foil; bake additional 15 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. 

Other Details:

• There is no difference in the baking whether you use homemade pasta or no cook pasta.
• However, if you use the homemade pasta, you are likely to have a lot more pasta, so instead of layering the meat and cheese layers together, add a layer of noodles between the layers of meat and cheese.
• This can be reheated in the oven 1 hour at 350º or individual slices in the microwave.
• Serves 12 (slices)