Lasagna

Lasagna holds a special place in the heart of my husband's family. His late mother made "the best lasagna ever" and since becoming a Martin in 2010, I've been asked many times by the family to attempt this recipe.

Let me start out by being honest: lasagna is not my favorite dish, to eat or to make. Something about the texture of it just feels weird in my mouth and it takes FOREVER to make. But those drawbacks aside, I attempted to track down the recipe and cook it for the wonderful Martin men. First problem was finding the exact recipe that Carol used. Apparently she was one of those cooks who just knows the recipe and can make it off the top of her head. Luckily her daughter is not like that. Erin was able to take a basic online lasagna recipe and tweak it to what she thinks her mom made.

The first time I made it, it actually turned out really well. Because of the time constraints we face on Monday nights, I hadn't made it again, even though Doug's dad has been asking me to. I finally broke down and pre-made the lasagna on Sunday and then reheated it last night (not an easy feat, I might add). I will include the recipe, as we have it figured out, below and see what you make of it.

• 1 lb sweet Italian sausage
• 3/4 pound ground beef
• 1/2 cup minced onion
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 28 oz crushed tomatoes
• 12 oz tomato paste
• 13 oz canned tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 dried basil leaves
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 4 Tbsp dried parsley
• 12 lasagna noodles
• 16 oz ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
• 3/4 lb mozzarella cheese, sliced
• 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

In a Dutch oven, cook sausage, ground beef, onion and garlic over medium heat until well browned. Drain fat from the beef. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce and water.

Season with basil, Italian seasoning, pepper and 2 Tbsp parsley. Simmer, covered for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Bring large pot of water to a boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8-10 minutes. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water. In mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg and remaining parsley.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups meat sauce on bottom of 9x13 baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with a third of the mozzarella cheese slices. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil. To prevent sticking either spray foil with cooking spray or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

NOTES: As you can tell, this is a recipe that requires advance planning. You can't just come home at 5:30 and go, "oh I think I'll have lasagna tonight" (unless you have a Stouffers hidden in your freezer, cheater!). It took me all afternoon to prepare and bake this dish, granted I was able to do some other stuff while it simmered and such, you are still tied to the kitchen for a significant number of hours.

The recipe also called for quite a bit of salt. Now, I'm not sure if I excluded the salt the first time around and used it this time, but this was really salty. I have excluded salt from the ingredients and instructions because of this. If you think it needs a little something, by all means, add some, but we sadly threw away the leftovers because we were guzzling water like we were in the desert last night.

Also, I was told to use no boil lasagna noodles. Not sure why because you boil them in this recipe. Maybe next time I will try not
boiling them and see what happens. My noodles were quite a bit wider than the average noodle and so I only needed about half of them to do the required layers. Just keep this in mind.

I mentioned above that you can make this ahead of time and reheat it. I think the best way to do this would be to do everything except bake it for 50 minutes ahead of time. I was leery of putting the dish back in the oven for fear that I would burn the top layer again, but my 9x13 dish is too big for my microwave. Doug ended up cutting the lasagna down the middle and plopping it on a plate to reheat it in the microwave. It's so thick though that it really is hard to get an even heat. Best to eat this freshly made or reheat in serving size bits. Good luck!

Serves: 12
Prep Time: 25 min
Total Time: 3 hours

Recipe from Erin Martin Calahan