Pot of Lasagna

Speaking of cheeses, I've got that fabulous fresh mozzarella cheese

And we're fixing to get started on a pot of lasagna that's going to knock your socks off

Before I left, I asked Michael if he could kind of get me ready because I wanted to quickly run in and be able to get started on this lasagna

And he's done a great job. He's already browned off my ground beef for me, which is such a nice head start

And I like to saute my vegetables in half butter and half olive oil

Now I'm going to dump in onion, bell pepper, and that great fresh garlic that adds so much

flavor to your pot. I'm going to add some canned tomatoes now

If it's tomato season and you have some fresh, by all means use them

And next I'm going to add tomato sauce. Italian seasoning, some fresh parsley, a good seasoning salt, a little pinch of sugar

house seasoning, your mixture of salt, garlic powder, and pepper, and a couple of bay leaves

I'm just going to stir those up together, and then we're going to add some water

I going to transfer the ground beef into the sauce just like this

And this is lean ground beef, so I'm not even going to bother draining it

All right, so I'm going to put that lid back on there and let that simmer

while I step on over here and grate up this mozzarella that I got from the sisters this morning

Mm-hmm. Isn't that pretty, pretty cheese? You know, I don't think that you can get too much

cheese in Italian dishes, can you? And this is so good and soft and fresh, it's just kind of rolling

on the grater, but that's all right, because by the time it's mixed in, what's a little hunk here

and there in the lasagna, it can't hurt it. I know that most of us probably use the box lasagna

noodles. Well, I was able to get my hands on some fresh lasagna noodles that are going to be so good

in this, and we're not going to have to cook them like you would the box. Now, I'm using cottage

cheese today. I didn't have any ricotta on hand, so this will work nicely, and I'm just going to

I'll break a couple of eggs up into it. I have made lasagna and spaghetti a thousand times

and there not one hint of Italian heritage in my blood But we make it so good Everybody just loves it So I going to start assembling the dish that we going to bake our lasagna in I going to start with a very thin layer of sauce

and I'm going to put just enough that that lasagna has something to sit on

So I'm gonna come in here and I'm just gonna break that off to fit the pan

Now we're gonna start with all of our cheeses and one more time, you can do any cheeses

that you like, whatever is your favorite, not mine. I've got cheddar, gruyere, and Swiss

I love Swiss cheese and lasagna and I'm gonna go in there with the mozzarella from the mozzarella

Put a little layer of grated Parmesan. Then I'm gonna add some dollops of the cottage cheese

and egg that's been mixed together. And now cream cheese, and I just tear it off

in little bite-sized pieces and just drop it randomly in there. Now we're gonna ladle on some more sauce

All right. This time I'm gonna put just a little bit more sauce

sauce because that fresh pasta is really going to soak up the liquid. We're going to go back in here now with another layer of pasta

All right now we going to start by doing the same thing all over again So I think this time you know the steps Oh I served this so many times at home

When we were young, married, poor kids, we would make spaghetti sauce because it was a lot cheaper

than lasagna because of the cheeses. It can get a little pricey, but when we had a little extra money to blow

So we changed that spaghetti pot to a lasagna pot, and oh my goodness, we just thought you

couldn't eat any better than this. All right, now this is ready to go into the oven, and I've got one right next door to

it in the oven that's ready to be cheesed. Now you can finish yours off with any cheese that you want to

This is the three cheeses that I'm using. We're going to give that about 15 minutes, and then it's ready to eat

Oh, my gracious, look at that. All right, I'm going to have to just taste this

It's so good