My mom called me the other day to suggest I make my lasagna for my Dads birthday. Of course I couldn't say no. If we were going to celebrate this is the prefect dish to feed A LOT of people! It's also one of those things if you are going to make it you mid as well make it worth your while and make the biggest dish you have avaliable!
I would love to say I follow a recipe for this but that would be a lie. Recipes are overrated in my opinion. People get so wrapped up in precision. Baking is understandable but not with cooking. People don't realize recipes are merely an outline of endless possibilities for the dish. If you aren't going to add your own twist to it, go ahead and just order pizza or something.
Like I said no recipe so I am just oging to throw some numbers out there for you too look at!!
Start with a large enough pot to cook 12 lasagna noodles in. Not every lasagna noodle will make it so always cook extra! Add plenty of water to boil, some olive oil so they wont stick, and salt to season the water. Cook until al dente, then pour out the hot water an cover with cold water to stop the cooking.
I start by adding 1/4 cup olive in a pot. I then add the seasoning I want to flavor my Italian sausage and ground beef with. Rosemary, pressed garlic, onion powder, Italian seasoning mix, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper. I find ground beef sucks tons of flavor out of anything so I try to compensate here for that. I cook that until they start to sizzle then I add my meat. 
I use two packages of the italian sausage and just cut the casing. Throw it in the pot then add about 1 pound of ground beef also. You will want to brown your meat before you start assembling the sauce.
Once the meat is browned dice 6 small portobello mushrooms,
open one baby of baby spinach
and add to the meat. Let it cook down then you can start adding the goods.
3 small cans of fire roasted diced tomatoes, 4 cups of tomato sauce and stir until thick and bubbly. If you have trouble with your thickening once again you can add a slurry of 2 TB corn starch to 4TB of cold water. Pour in a little at a time until desired thickness.
For the ricotta mixture I use the next biggest container to the 16 oz. Honestly not sure if its 1 1/2 lb. or 2 lb.. Then add salt and pepper to taste. Do not go beyond this point until you would want to eat the ricotta right out of the bowl. Believe it or not if you add enough seasoning to it you would really like it! After its seasoned add 1 heaping cup of parmesan and mix in well. At this point you can add 2 eggs that are optional. I find that I like to leave the eggs out.
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| See those bits of parmesan?! YUM! |
So now that you have everything ready and waiting start by adding a couple ladles of sauce the the bottom of the pan. This will prevents the layer of noodles on the bottom from sticking.
Then for my pan width I add 3 noodles laying them side by side, topped with plenty of meat sauce, dollops of ricotta and topped with fresh mozzarella cheese. I repeat this process 3 times. When I get to the final top layer i completely cover the lasagna with mozzarella. I am one of those girls that loves cheesy bubbly lasagna. If I was going light on this what would be the point?!
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| This is not my final picture before baking in the oven. There is a lot more mozzarella on mine before baking! |
Right after the cheese melts completely I turn my broiler on high and let it work it's magic. I watch very closely cause it takes only a second for it to burn all your hard work up and not think twice about it. Once the lasagna starts to bubble, boil an brown I pull it out and let sit for about 15 minutes before serving. This give the sauce a change to tighten and not be soupy on everyones plates.
