Kristina’s “Anything Goes” Lasagne

Actually, all my recipes are “anything goes”. My recipes, like my houseplants, need to be flexible or else they don’t survive.

Same goes with my laundry, as aptly explained in this comic:

Here’s my lasagne recipe, complete with all my notes:

All measurements are approximate.

INGREDIENT LIST:

1 lb ground meat or 3-4 cups chopped vegetables*

1 onion, chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

I jar marinara sauce (25 oz, or about 3 cups)

1 tsp fennel (optional)

Plus any additional spices depending on your preference and what’s already in your marinara sauce. Consider oregano, basil, red chili, parsley, etc. 

3 cups ricotta cheese (2 cups or 16 oz is ok too if that’s the size container you have)

1 egg

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried basil

Spinach – 1 lb frozen, thaw and squeeze out excess moisture

1 package lasagna noodles (10-16 noodles, or approximately 1 lb)

4 – 6 oz grated Mozzarella cheese (1 to 1 ½ cups)

⅓ cup grated Parmesan cheese 

INSTRUCTIONS:

Stir fry ground meat or chopped vegetables, then add onion, stir fry until translucent, add garlic, cook briefly.

Then add marinara sauce and spices, remove from heat.

Turn on water for lasagne noodles – use a really large pot, also, optional, I add a tbsp of oil and a dash of salt to water. (Note to self – use largest kettle, not just the larger of the regular pot set.)

In a medium bowl, mix together ricotta cheese, egg, spinach, oregano, basil

Turn oven on to 375

Add lasagne noodles into large pot of boiling water, reduce heat and cook for 8-10 minutes, occasionally moving the noodles around slightly to avoid sticking together. Then drain noodles and cover them with cold water.

Layer into large pan: ½ of the sauce, ½ of the noodles, all of the ricotta cheese mixture, the rest of the noodles, then the rest of the sauce (retain the mozzarella and parmesan until almost done cooking)

Cover the pan with a cookie sheet (the recipes all say cover with foil, but I’ve had experience with tomato sauce dissolving multitudes of tiny pinholes in the foil – which can’t be good!)

Bake for 1 hour at 375

When nearly done, remove cover, add mozzarella and parmesan cheese, return to oven uncovered and bake until cheese is slightly browned, approximately 10 minutes.

*In the marinara sauce you can use ground meat such as Italian sausage or ground beef or ground turkey, or chopped eggplant or zucchini or other vegetable.

By the way, if you hate eggplant, but wish you liked it, here’s a couple of suggestions:

If you hate eggplant because it has a very strong or very bitter taste, you are not alone. A certain percentage of people have taste buds that are very attuned to something in the eggplant that tastes bitter. It’s not your fault – it’s your taste buds! However, it is possible to pull most of the bitter out prior to cooking. Most recipes suggest salting the sliced eggplant, letting it sit for awhile, then rinsing or patting the salt off. That does help, but I find it more effective to soak it in heavily salted water for a couple of hours after you’ve cut the eggplant into slices or cubes or whatever you need for your recipe. By heavily salted, I don’t mean a quick dash of salt. I mean a lot of salt; the water should taste obviously salty. Since eggplant floats, I use a plate or something to weigh it down, to keep it fully submerged in the salt water. Wait a couple of hours, then pour off the salt water and rinse the eggplant in fresh water. The discarded salt water should have a brown tinge to it.

On the other hand, if you hate eggplant because of the texture, or because it squeaks, (yes, I’m not joking, some of us hate the squeak) then yep, totally, I know where you’re coming from. If that’s the case, after you’ve cubed, soaked, rinsed, and stir fried your eggplant, remove it from the pan, cool it slightly, and run it through a food processor or a blender until it’s completely smooth. Then return it to the pan with your marinara sauce.

In addition to eggplant being good for you, it will add thickness and richness to your sauce, and help cover the noodles so they don’t dry out during baking.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com