La-la-la-la-la-sagna!

Mmmmm………lasagna. The first of many, MANY treats that have graced my new-to-me deep freeze. My grandparents both died in 2011 and it is one of several wonderful items I inherited from them. I have pictures of me as a little girl and this deep freeze is peeking around the corner or the actual backdrop to the grainy, slightly out of focused, blurry late 1970s photo. Not she sits in my basement stuffed to the gills with lovely food for my family.

Four pans of lasagna is one of the treasures within. I put this together on my own and I am not sure how but it’s a wonderful YUMMY recipe. Simple ingredients just mix together, put the pieces together, wrap and freeze. Thaw that puppy on dinner day, top with some shredded mozzarella cheese and voila. Yumminess with minimal effort. 

The day I marathon cooked I made 4 pans. I cooked whatever noodles I could get my hands on. I even ROBBED a neighbor of his noodles and 2 of his pans to shave some of the time off the marathon day (I made taco meat, sloppy joes, the lasagnas, chili) TONS of stuff and I found myself wanting more pans and counter space. My neighbor was ripped off but he got a lasagna out of it. J

Anyhoo, I double the cheese and meat mixes and used the noodles I cooked. I try to do 2-3 layers of the lasagna noodles but again, I cooked all the noodles so just used my judgment on amounts to make it all work. And here she goes:

Noodles, cooked and rinsed with cool water – set aside.

Mix 1 containers of Ricotta Cheese, 2 eggs, ½ c parmesan cheese , ½ c mozzarella cheese – set aside

Mix 1 lb cooked ground beef, 1 large can of chopped/diced tomatoes, 1 jar of tomato sauce – set aside.

Then arrange in a sprayed pan this way: Sauce, noodles, sauce, cheese, noodles, sauce cheese, noodles sauce cheese.

I lay out the noodles willy-nilly. One thing I did not understand when making lasagna in my earlier years is that it is not meant to be uniform and like the frozen brick you get from the company that starts with S. lay out 2 or 3 noodles with space in between. Fork around some sauce and cheese, then noodles do not have to be covered. Bake covered with foil at 350 for 1 hour or until cheese is the brownness you like. If you want, take foil off last 15 minutes and let the cheese get good and brown. If you bake from frozen you will be baking for about 4 days so make sure that baby is thawed. 

Have a good lasagna recipe to share? Have a good meal to make that goes together with a popular song of the late 80’s or any other decade! J Gotta love Los Lobos! Here are some pictures. Of the lasagna, not Los Lobos. Unless you wanted to see Los Lobos. I could include one. OH or one of Lou Diamond Phillips!! Now I can’t resist…

Karen