A really good lasagna

I know a lot of people probably already have a great lasagna recipe.  I know it isn't rocket science, but mine has never been one to write home about.  So, when Philly wanted lasagna for his birthday dinner this year, I decided I'd better find a new recipe.  My "go to" cookbooks are "America's Test Kitchen" and "Cook's Country".   This recipe is found in both of them.  I used that recipe for my base, but modified it a bit.  I'm just going to post my modified version.  One of the things I noticed was that ricotta came in 15 oz package.  Not quite 2 cups.  So, I just added a bit of cottage cheese.

I also want to add that Philly requested a meat sauce that included sausage.  Now I hate sausage and I hate sausage in Italian food.  Well, for his birthday, I made the sacrifice.  I thought I'll just eat a little.  I used a pound of spicy Italian sausage from Cub (found in meat dept., without casings).  I made sure I broke it up into small pieces during the cooking process. I thought I could tolerate it better that way.  Well, I'm telling you, this recipe was delicious.  Now, was the heavy cream in the sauce or was it the 4+ cups of the cheese that mellowed the sausage flavor?  I don't know, but I loved it.  As far as Philly is concerned, the more cheese the better.

This was my first time using the no boil lasagna noodles.  I'm not sure if you can use those and make this recipe the night before????  This time I made my sauce the night before and then just assembled the lasagna the night of.  It would be worth a try to make it all the night before.  The no boil noodles are a little bit more expensive.  I might even try it with regular noodles, but not boil those.  Sounds like we'll be eating a lot of lasagna in our future.

We'll call this one....

Philly's Meat Lasagna

Sauce
1 T olive oil
1 onion minced
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 lb of spicy Italian sausage, without casings
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 c heavy cream
1 (28 oz.) can tomato puree
1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes
some Italian seasoning

Layers
2 c. whole-milk or part-skim milk ricotta cheese
+ a little cottage cheese (a couple of oz)
1 1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
~1/2 T dried basil
1 large egg lightly beaten
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 pkgs no boil lasagna noodles.
4 c shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Adjust oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2.  For the sauce-  Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, but not browned, about 2 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds (careful not to burn).  Add the ground meat, salt and pepper; cook, breaking up the meat into little pieces.  Cook until it loses its raw color but has not browned.  Temper the cream and then add to the meat; bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates and only the fat remains, about 4 minutes.  Add the tomato puree, diced tomatoes and Italian seasoning; bring to a slow simmer and cook until the flavors are blended, about 3 minutes.  Set aside.

3.  Cheese mixture: Mix the ricotta and cottage cheeses, 1 c of the Parmesan, basil, egg, salt and pepper together.  Set aside.

4. Assembly:  Smear the entire bottom of a 13" x 9" baking dish with 1/4+ of the meat sauce (avoiding large chunks of meat).  Arrange a layer of noodles over the sauce.  Break some of them to fill in the ends.  Drop 3 T of the cheese on each full noodle and some more on the broken noodles.  Smear the cheese over the noodle layer.  Sprinkle with 1 c of the mozzarella.  Spoon 1 1/2 c of the meat sauce evenly over the cheese.  Repeat the layering of the noodles, ricotta mixture, mozzarella and sauce twice more.  Top these layers with another layer of noodles.  spread the remaining sauce over these.  Sprinkle with the remaining mozzarella and the the remaining 1/4 c Parmesan.

5.  Lightly spray a large sheet of aluminum foil with vegetable oil spray and cover the lasagna.  Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the foil.  Return the lasagna to the oven and continue to bake until the cheese is spotty brown and the sauce is bubbling, about 25 minutes longer.  Cooking time will be longer if the lasagna has been refrigerated.   Let stand 10 minutes before serving.