Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Lasagna



We tried our hand at lasagna. We've never made it before, so of course we decided not to use a recipe. Turns out, if you can make a good red sauce, you can make a good lasagna. We don't have measurements per se for the sauce. You really have to taste and alter the seasoning as you go.


Here's what you need: 
1 lb spicy Italian sausage
1 giant can whole peeled tomatoes
1 small red onion
3 large cloves garlic
1/4ish cup red wine
1/2 Tbsp-ish dried oregano
1/2 Tbsp-ish dried basil
1 tsp-ish crushed red pepper
2 bay leaves
Kosher salt
Pepper
15 lasagna noodles (for 3 layers of pasta)
2 1/2-3 cups shredded mozzarella
1 tub ricotta (you can substitute cottage cheese if you don't like ricotta)
Parmesan cheese


Here's what you do:
Start making your sauce early. You want it to reduce and thicken quite a bit.


Chop your garlic and onion.




Add to a high-walled skillet. Zack likes making his sauce in a stainless steel pan.



Add in your spices.




And let cook until opaque.




Once the onions are cooked, add in the wine and let that reduce down a bit.




Perfect. 



Add the tomatoes.




And mash them up.




Throw in your bay leaf. Let that bubble away for at least an hour.





When you're sauce is close to ready, go ahead cook your noodles and brown your sausage. (we forgot a noodle cooking picture, sorry).






Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.


Set up your lasagna making station on your countertop and prepare to make a mess.




Put a little bit of sauce down first to prevent the noodles from sticking to the pan.


Add a layer of noodles, overlapping a bit.




And top with some more sauce.



Add sausage.




Mozzarella and Parmesan.



Repeat that process to build the next layer.


Top with a layer of noodles, sauce and extra mozzarella cheese.




Bake that for 25-35 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and melty and just a little crispy.




Enjoy!

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