Lasagna

I was very skeptical of no-boil lasagna noodles until I tried this recipe. All you have to do is have a recipe that adds extra sauce because the dried, not boiled, noodles slurp up a lot of the liquid/sauce. And this recipe calculates that perfectly. So no worries if you notice that there is a ton of sauce in this recipe. Ingredients: Noodles: 12 dried no-boil dried lasagna noodles from a 9 ounce package For the sauce: 1 pound ground bulk (no links) Italian sausage, beef, chicken or turkey. (may omit) 4-6 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and chopped fine 2 cans of 28 ounces each crushed or pureed tomatoes, no salt added if possible 1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped fine 3-4 stalks celery, chopped 1-2 teaspoons sugar, or to taste ¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste 1 teaspoon dried oregano, or to taste ½ teaspoon dried red pepper flakes, or to taste For the cheese mixture: 2-4 tablespoons fresh basil, packed (may omit at your own risk) 8 ounces whole milk ricotta cheese (must double if omitting the goat cheese) 8 ounces goat cheese, chopped into ½ inch chunks (may omit) 1 large egg, scrambled Salt & pepper to taste For the topping: ½ cup Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese, grated 16 ounces (may decrease to 8 or 12) whole milk mozzarella, grated Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Have a 9x13 baking pan ready. . (You may split this recipe in two and bake an 8x8 pan now and freeze another 8x8 pan for another day. That’s six noodles each, with the same layering.) Brown and break up the meat in a spaghetti sauce sized pot with a little olive oil. No oil needed if you use 80/20 beef. Reserve aside, leaving drippings in the pot. Add a little olive oil if needed and add the garlic and sauté for less than one minute until you get that yummy garlic smell. Add the tomatoes and browned sausage plus onion and celery. Add salt if using. Simmer on medium low heat for at least an hour but maybe 2-4 hours. Place a loose fitting lid on the pot to reduce spattering. While the sauce is simmering, combine all the cheese mixture ingredients in a separate bowl. Season the sauce with sugar, salt (if using) red pepper and oregano to taste, then remove from heat. Here goes the layering: 1 ½ cups of sauce spread on the bottom of the 9x13 pan. This will seem stingy. No worries. 4 of the noodles layered on top of the sauce so that they exactly fit with a little overlap 1 ⅔ cups more sauce Half the ricotta mixture, in blobs. Residual heat from the sauce will soften the cheese so that you can spread it evenly with the back of a spoon. 4 more of the noodles, fit to the pan as before 1 ⅔ cups more sauce Remaining half of the ricotta mixture 4 more noodles – the last ones we need 1 ⅔ cups more sauce - you will have some leftover which works well when added to leftover lasagna which will dry out a bit in the refrigerator. Top with the Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese and at last the grated mozzarella. Spray a sheet of aluminum foil with some non-stick veggie spray and cover it all, spray side down, ready for baking. This may keep in the ‘fridge for a day if needed. I’ve never risked freezing this because I fear the moisture/noodle calculation will fail, but you can try. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes, remove the foil, and bake for another 20-25 minutes until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese topping is melted (but not overly browning.) You can broil it briefly for some color/flavor if you did not use a glass dish. Remove from the oven and let rest on a rack for 15 minutes. This helps prevent lasagna collapse and runny sauce when cutting.