Fantastic Lasagna

Growing up, I thought the only way to make the sauce for a lasagna was using the handy jar of spaghetti sauce. Don't get me wrong, it's still tasty, but having eaten lasagna at other people's houses that tasted {and looked} nothing like my mom's, I wondered what they did differently. When Danielle lived with us this summer, she made lasagna for us one evening, and it was positively delicious! The difference was that she makes her own sauce. Tonight, I recreated her lasagna {minus the cottage cheese}, with fabulous results. I've posted the recipe below if any of you are interested in giving it a whirl. Bon appétit!

Lasagna a la Danielle

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Makes a 9x13 in pan --> I cut the recipe in half and made it in a 9x9 pan.

Sauce Ingredients:

2 lbs hamburger

¼ large onion

2-3 cans of mushrooms --> Since I'm not a fan of canned mushrooms, I used fresh, sliced ones

1 large can of tomato sauce --> I used one 15 oz. can + one 8 oz. can in my 9x9 recipe

3+ large cloves of garlic chopped

Sauce Seasonings to taste:

Oregano --> I used the most of this herb

Parsley

Basil

Rosemary

2-3 bay leaves

Lasagna Noodles --> I used 7 in my 9x9 pan, chopping off excess on the edges and reusing them on different layers

Container of cottage cheese (whatever %)

Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Directions:

Brown hamburger and diced onion with a little salt and pepper. Add mushrooms ½ way through so they can cook down a bit

Once browned, add tomato sauce, garlic, and the rest of the seasonings to taste.

SIMMER for 15-20 min or until the sauce is well seasoned/combined...REMOVE BAY LEAVES!!!

While sauce is simmering, boil noodles and drain.

Put a little bit of the sauce in the bottom of the pan so the noodles don’t stick, then put a layer of noodles…

Ladle 1/3 of the sauce over the noodles, then layer cottage cheese, and Mozzarella cheese. Repeat until all noodles are used leaving just a little sauce to cover on top of the noodles so when you top it off with mozzarella cheese, it has some moisture and doesn’t bake onto the noodles completely...

Bake in oven until cheese is just starting to brown. Remove from oven and enjoy!