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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Lasagna

I will never forget the first time I made this lasagna. I was a newly wed and definitely new to the whole cooking idea. I just pulled it out of the oven when I realized that I didn't cook the noodles and immediately burst into tears! Kevin ran over and said, "Wait! Is that my Mom's recipe? You don't ever cook the noodles!" We've gotten a good laugh out of it and in honor of our 9 year anniversary today, here's my favorite lasagna recipe!
Lasagna
Recipe from Cathy Riggs

1 big can spaghetti sauce (3-4 cups)
1 pound lean ground beef
package of dry lasagna noodles (not oven ready)
1 24 ounce carton cottage cheese (I usually do small curd)
1 Tbsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
8-16 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

Brown the hamburger and drain. Pour about 1/2 cup or so spaghetti sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 pan and spread it on the bottom. Add the remaining spaghetti sauce to the ground beef. Mix the cottage cheese with parsley, basil and parmesan cheese. Add dry lasagna noodles ontop of sauces 9x13 dish. Layer half the meat sauce evenly over dry noodles, sprinkle and spread half the cottage cheese mixture over the meat sauce. (optional you can sprinkle mozzarella between the layers but I never do). Repeat the layers- noodles, sauce, then cottage cheese mix. Top with shredded mozzarella cheese and bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes. If it starts to brown too much you can cover it with tinfoil.

My Sidenotes:

*In college I could usually squeeze 2 8x8 dishes out of this recipe so that I could freeze one for later. If you want it to keep the original amounts of sauce and cottage cheese, etc. it actually will only make 1 1/2 8x8s. Tonight I doubled the recipe and made 3 8x8 dishes...one for tonight, one to freeze for later, and one to bring to a gal who just had twins. Hope that makes sense! If you freeze it just cover in a few layers of tinfoil. You can thaw it overnight, or you can even throw it in the oven frozen, it will just take a lot longer to cook.

*You can use fresh herbs if you'd like to-just know that fresh needs 3 times more than dry, so for 1 tsp dried you would use 1 Tbsp fresh and for the 1 Tbsp dried you would use 3 Tbsp fresh

4 comments:

Diana said...

YUM! I want this right now!!! And happy anniversary, you two!

Crystal said...

I made this tonight and it turned out great! The whole family loved it :) Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Shredded or grated parmesean cheese?

Nicole said...

Either one works...the powdered stuff in the green can is what my mother in law always used, but I like fresh grated myself! You can also buy a plastic container of freshly grated Parmesan in the refrigerated cheese section. Sometimes if I don't have enough grated I will use powdered to make up for the rest. Hope that helps!