Day 49 -- Lasagna recipe

Prologue:

I'll be writing an entry in a few days about "what's cheaper: cooking at home or eating out?", and this recipe is the perfect example.  Lasagna isn't overly expensive, but it's not cheap either.  If you have none of the ingredients, prepare for a $20-25 meal; if you already have some cheese, bacon, milk, a few cans of chopped tomatoes, and herbs in your kitchen, then you'll just need to spare $7 for a carrot, lasagna noodles, an onion, and ground beef.  And let me say, $7 to feed up to 6 people is well worth it.

This recipe was inspired by What to Cook and How to Cook It, but I made so many changes, it's pretty much my own recipe.

Homemade Lasagna

Prep time: 20 minutes

Stew time: 1 hour

Cook time: 40 minutes

Servings: 4-6

Ingredients:

1 onion

1 large carrot

1-1.5 pounds ground beef

7 slices of bacon

2 cans of chopped tomatoes

1 clove garlic

basil leaves

salt and pepper

2/3 cup Parmesan cheese

1/3 cup Mozzarella cheese

11/2 cups milk

2 tbsp butter

*celery optional 

*can of sliced black olives optional

Directions:

1.) Get a large pot and starting browning the ground beef on medium heat.  In the meantime, start chopping your carrot and onion (and the celery if you like it) into very fine pieces.  If you have a food processor the process will go faster. 

2.) Chop up your slices of bacon into very small pieces and begin to fry in a pan until cooked.  Transfer the bacon to a plate and throw away the bacon grease.  Place the chopped vegetables in the pan and cook until soft. Put the bacon back into the pan with the veggies and stir around for flavor.

3.) By this time your ground beef should be cooked, if not, cook at a little higher heat.  You can drain the water if you want to, I didn't have that much so I left it in. 

4.) Combine the veggies and bacon into the pot of beef, and add the canned tomatoes, garlic, torn up basil leaves, and salt and pepper. Leave on medium or low heat for an hour.

[While things are cooking are my favorite time to prep the next step, the side dishes, and do dishes]

5.) Get out a small pan and combine the milk, butter, and grated Parmesan cheese.  You can add some flour to make it thicker, I personally chose not to.

6.) Turn on the oven to 350 degrees and get out a casserole dish.  Mine is a 3 quart glass one.

7.) Use a slotted spoon (a plastic spoon with holes) to scoop up the meat stew and make a layer inside of the dish. Drizzle a healthy layer of the cheese sauce over this. If you like black olives, sprinkle a few over this layer.  Take out your lasagna sheets and make a layer on top of everything.  Repeat the process with the meat > cheese > black olives > lasagna sheets. Top the whole dish with a thick layer of shredded mozzarella. For looks, sprinkle some basil leaves and black olives. 

8.) Cook for 40 minutes and when a knife can go through without resistance then it's done!

[I served mine with a side salad and garlic bread] 

Review:

I honestly can't remember the last time I ate lasagna.  7th grade, maybe?  I was really impressed with how it turned out and went back for seconds (as did my boyfriend's roommate).  There were two faults like I could find: (1) the top pasta layer was cooked, but crispy instead of soft, and (2) it was a little slippery between the meat and the pasta due to the sauce, but I can't remember if this is normal for lasagna.  Overall though, I very much enjoyed it.  I don't know if I'd make it again anytime soon, but for a winter dish on a movie night I definitely will consider it.