Friday, August 12, 2011

Better-than-ever cheesy meat lasagna

At least that's what the recipe said. I'm not sure it was the best lasagna I've ever had (mostly because I have forgotten how to think, and I forgot to boil the lasagna noodles, so I had to cook it super long just to make the noodles not so hard), but it was pretty good. Mostly I just figured someone needed to update this poor neglected blog.

3/4 lbs extra lean ground beef
3 gloves garlic, minced (I used the garlic press instead)
1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano leaves
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 large tomato, chopped (I left this out...seeing as how we don't like tomatoes)
1 egg
1 container (16 oz) low fat cottage cheese (I used ricotta cheese, but the recipe said that they were trying to be more healthy...I didn't have any cottage cheese though and I think I like ricotta better)
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
9 lasagna noodles, COOKED AND DRAINED (JUST DON'T FORGET THAT PART)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Heat oven to 375. Brown meat with garlic and oregano in saucepan. Stir in spaghetti sauce, simmer 5 min., stirring occasionally. Remove from heat stir in tomatoes (since I didn't use tomatoes, I added spinach...you know since it's super healthy for you, but you can only eat it mixed in with stuff)
It looks really not appetizing, but don't let it fool you :)
Mix egg, cottage (ricotta) cheese and parmesan. Spread 1/2 cup spaghetti sauce mixture onto bottom of baking dish. Top with layers of 3 noodles, 1 cup cottage cheese mixture, 1/2 cup mozzarella, and 2 cup remaining sauce mixture. Repeat layers. Top with remaining noodles and remaining sauce mixture. Cover with foil.
Bake 30 min. or until heated through. Uncover; top with remaining mozzarella. Bake, uncovered, 5 min. or until cheese is melted. Enjoy!!!
This looks a little weird also, probably cause the noodle edges were so crunchy!
But it really did taste better then it looks :)