Weinstein Wednesday: Lasagna

Well, in honor of the fact that a McCoy has now become a Weinstein and because I like Heather's Favorite Friday alliteration I thought I would make a play on the Ws...thus Weinstein Wednesday.  If I can remember and keep it up I will be posting favorites from the Weinstein kitchen since we have joined a McCoy and a Weinstein.  

Jon has made lasagna for me twice now and I love it.  His mom got the recipe from one of her "Ya-Yas" and was sweet to share it with us.  So here it is.   

Lasagna 

1 lb. sweet Italian sausage

½ lb. ground beef

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons basil leaves, chopped or left whole (chef's choice)

½ teaspoon fennel seed

¼ teaspoon pepper

¼ cup parsley

4 cups canned tomatoes, undrained (or 1 can measuring 2lbs. 3 oz. Italian style tomatoes)

12 ounces tomato paste

1 tablespoon salt

12 curly lasagna noodles

15 ounces ricotta

1 egg

½ teaspoon salt

1 lb. shredded mozzarella

¾ cup parmesan cheese

 

1. Remove sausage from casing. Chop meat. Saute sausage, beef, onion, and garlic. Stir frequently until well browned.

2. To the meat mixture add sugar, 1 Tbsp salt, basil, fennel, pepper, 1/2 the parsley, tomatoes, paste and 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil and simmer covered until thick (about 1.5 hours).

3. While the tomato meat mixture simmers cook noodles.

4. In a separate bowl combine ricotta, egg, salt, and remainder parsley.

5. In bottom of a 13"x9" pan, spoon about 1.5 cups sauce. Layer with 6 noodles. Spoon 1/3 mozzarella mixture and spread. Spoon 1.5 c sauce and spread. Sprinkle with 1/4 c parmesan cheese.

6. Repeat layering.

(So here the directions get a bit mixed up in the passing down but the jest of it is finish it off with sprinkling parmesan on top of the sauce mixture. It all goes to the same place anyway!)

7.  Bake at 375 for a total of 50 minutes - the first 25 minutes covered with foil and the remainder uncovered until bubbly (maybe more or less then 25 depending on oven).

GF/WF option:  This is another recipe that is easy to make GF or WF.  Lasagna noodles are a bit more difficult to find GF/WF though so I would like at a natural specialty store like Whole Foods or something similar.