Recipe Edition: Grandma's Classic Lasagna

Hey guys! I'm baaack!

It's Sunday and today is the perfect day for some fresh lasagna! 
Story time: today is my dog's (Lester) birthday!!  He's 3ish, and I say ish because I rescued him so I don't know his reeeal birthday. Technically today is the day his last owners surrendered him, awww :'( So my mom and I made sure he had the best day ever! We added tasty wet dog food to his everyday food to make it a little more special, got him a new toy, and I even made him a birthday cookie in the shape of a bone! He was so excited he couldn't wait for us to put it on the ground that he jumped and the food flew everywhere! He ate everything off the floor of course LOL 

He was trying so hard to wait...

Food everywhere!

His funny smile when I gave him more food!

ANYWAYS back to food! On todays recipe edition blog post, I'm going to walk you through what you need and how to do every little step.

I made this recently for my boyfriend's birthday because it's his favorite! I originally got this recipe from my mom who got it from my grandma when my mom claimed (and proved!) that she makes the BEST lasagna from scratch! I had been bugging her for it because the only lasagna I've ever had was the microwave Stoffers and Buca de Beppo's (which is pretty good, actually). I've always wondered how everyones mom and grandma got these amazing unique recipes that they pass down generations. So I asked my grandma how did she come up with this lasagna recipe. Her answer? "Oh I got from this Italian lady at church." ... LOL I guess recipes are just something that get passed around among everyone where they can eventually become delicacy dishes at put into the family vault. 

Well today I will open that vault to share with you! WARNING: This will be the best lasagna you've ever tasted and you'll get requests to make it again, so BE PREPARED. Let's get started!

First, you probably need to go to the grocery store and look for these items if you don't already have them:

Ingredients:

• 1 box of lasagna noodles - about 16 noodles in a box
• 1 lb of Italian sausage - I pick the mild spicy, but choose to your liking
• 1/2 tsp garlic
• 1 tbsp basil
• 1- 12 oz can of tomato paste
• 1- 12 oz can of tomato pureé
• 1- 28 oz can of stewed tomatoes - you'll later need to pureé them
• salt
• pepper
• 24 oz ricotta cheese
• 1 cup fresh parmesan cheese, shredded
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp parsley
• 1/3 cup spinach, finely chopped - I use a machine chopper
• 32 oz mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced

Cooking Tools and Supplies you may want to use:

• 9x12 inch pan
• foil - to line pan if you don't like doing the dishes (like me)
• Immersion blender
• tongs - to pick up noodles
• other basic cooking utensils 

Okay, now that you have all these items let's start putting things together! We're going to make this in different parts. But first, I suggest putting a pot of water on back burner of your stovetop for the noodles while you prepare everything else. Don't cook them completely, leaving them al dente, since they'll have time to cook some more in the oven. Oh yeah, and don't forget to preheat the oven at 375!

Part One: The Meat Sauce

1. In a frying pan over medium heat, squeeze the meat out of the sausage lining into the pan. I know it's kinda icky, but trust me, it'll be worth it. 
2. With a wooden spoon, or a fancy meat separator, break up the meat as much as you can. Add in the garlic and basil. Continuously move the meat around until all is cooked, then turn off the heat.
3. In a medium sized bowl, combine the stewed tomatoes, tomato paste, and tomato pureé. Take a little taste and decide if you need some salt and pepper. It's your dish after all! Also fill up the tomato paste can ( so 12oz), and add that in too to make it a little more saucy. Using a hand blender, or immersion blender, pulse throughout the combination to breakup the big tomatoes. Then mix to combine everything evenly. 
4. Lastly for part one, add the cooked meat into the sauce and mix. Sauce - DONE!

Part Two: Ricotta Cheese Layer

1. In a new medium sized bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, eggs, spinach, parsley, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. 
2. This step is pretty simple, just mix everything together! Ricotta - DONE!

Hopefully by this time, your noodle have been cooked. Gently and carefully, take then out of the hot water and lay them somewhere where they could be mostly flat. I usually use a very wide bowl. Noodles - DONE!

Now prepare your pan. You can either line it with foil to make cleaning easier, or coat with olive oil. I always use foil because who wants to scrub a pan later? Not me!

With all your parts around you, sauce, ricotta, mozzarella, and noodles, now we can build up the layers!

Start with a layer of the sauce on the bottom so the noodle doesn't burn and stick. Also, try to avoid including any meat chunks in this layer. Now lay a layer of noodles overlapping about half an inch. This is the first real layer. 

Next layer sauce, then layer ricotta, then layer mozzarella. I was able to do one more noodle, sauce, ricotta, and mozzarella. For the last top part, add a layer of noodles, the rest of the sauce, and the top layer of mozzarella cheese. Lastly, sprinkle some grated cheese on top. 

Bake, foil covered, for 40 minutes, then another 15 minutes uncovered. 

VOILA! You've got yourself a homemade lasagna! Yummaaay! Enjoy!

--Victoria