Lasagna is easy to make – did you know that?
It is! You can even mess up like I did (in this post) and it still looks, smells, tastes mahvelous!
Fry up some onions (about one medium to large, although I used frozen pre-chopped here).
Then stir fry some ground beef, about a half pound.
Add a teaspoon of salt to the beef
and then remove the excess oil (grease).
Don’t be lazy like I was and try to balance a heavy skillet with one hand and catch the ground beef from falling into the sink with a slotted spoon in the other hand. (See all that meat and grease that fell on the counter there)?
There is a Mexican proverb, “The lazy man ALWAYS works double.”
I don’t know why, but that saying just speaks to me.
Spoon in the tomato sauce.
Ahem. It just so happens that I made this tomato sauce all by my very self from the tomatoes in our garden, seasoned with garlic, onion, olive oil and basil. And I can’t explain why, but I wanted to cry from happiness while making it.
If I had used canned sauce, I would have used two large jars of tomato-basil spaghetti sauce (if you want to know the amount).
Now, save some plain sauce with no meat for the bottom of the pan.
And make one layer with your lasagna noodles that don’t need to be pre-cooked.
Mine are gluten free, which can be hard to find in France without needing to cook them first. So I’m grateful, but … they are thicker than non gluten-free noodles, and there really isn’t a proper amount in one box for a 9×13 pan of lasagna, which is what I’m making. It simply doesn’t cover the whole pan.
But lasagna is easy! So we’ll roll with it.
Now. Onwards. I needed to remove some of the excess water/juice from my tomato sauce because it was homemade (I’ve never had to do that when using canned sauce).
See – this is what it looks like when drained.
It’s now time to prepare the cheese mixture. Two containers of ricotta cheese
And 1 ½ bricks of mozzarella cheese.
Yes, yes I know this is not real mozzarella because it’s not made with buffalo milk, but we’re on a tight budget here and I just think you people shouldn’t be so snobby about cheese.
(Just kidding). Grate it up and you’ll want to save the other half of the second brick to sprinkle on top.
Add four eggs
Two tablespoons of chives.
And your cheese mix is ready. (Do mix it, of course).
Spread half of it on the noodles.
Then cover that with tomato-meat sauce.
Here is where I should have put a layer of meat sauce before adding another layer of noodles, but I forgot! (Do notice that I put the noodles criss cross – perpendicular from the layer below – it helps it to hold together when you serve it).
So, the noodles directly on the cheese means there won’t be enough for a top layer of noodles. I put the sauce on top of the noodles instead and that messed up my order.
But you know what? Lasagna is easy. No one is ever going to know.
Basically, another layer of cheese, another layer of meat sauce and another layer of noodles is how the story goes.
Top that last layer of noodles with more meat sauce and cover that with the other half-brick of grated mozzarella.
Or something like that. I’m getting confused with all these layers!!
But you get the point right?
Into the oven you go. 350°F for about 45 minutes to an hour, but keep checking on it that it’s not getting too brown.
And this is it. Can you smell it from there?
I promise you, people will ooh and aah and think you’re a master chef, but deep in your heart you’ll know …
that lasagna is easy.
How do you make your lasagna?