Real-Life Lasagna

Carryout is SO boring!  I finally reached the breaking point a few evenings ago.  Out came the copy of Desperation Dinners that I just got from my friend, Diane.  She's moving and is getting rid of most of her cookbooks.  Ummm, we're moving too and I got rid of about four.  Out of about 1200.  I know, it's a disease.  But, at least I don't have a shoe collection!  The first recipe I made was good.  It was a chicken dish.  The second was killer.  Lasagna.  Yes, you read that right, lasagna.  In about 20 minutes.  Now, we'd been to the store and bought a mongo tray of ground beef.  Some went to burgers, some is going to Picadillo from the same cookbook and some is going to Glop (Connie's favorite.)  And, some went to lasagna.  Lasagna that was served with truffled asparagus bundles.  Be still my heart!  Connie would give that dish a six if we were allowed to give anything more than a five!

LOL, it was amazing.  We had leftovers for lunch and loved it just as much the second time around.  As usual, I made a change to the recipe.  No red wine was called for in the recipe.  We had a bottle of wine that we didn't want to drink.  One of those hostess gift things from a local winery that isn't horrid but isn't worthy of having with dinner.

We cleared off the table on the screened porch and dug in.  YUMMMM!  Then, with some chattering and a whoosh, Woody Woodpecker showed up.  We've seen a pileated woodpecker in the wooded area behind our next door neighbor's house.  But, we've never seen one at our home.  This guy was tearing through the stump.  The splinters of wood were flying.  And, Connie snuck out the door of the screened porch and just kept shooting pics.  One of them was perfect!

In addition to Woody, we have some stunning spring bulbs up:

 

 

 

And, our asparagus patch is producing like crazy.  Here's the asparagus I picked, blanched and froze:

Connie got our slices of happiness made so we've got breakfast during the move.  Annie and Wee Mac LOVE helping clean out the cheese jars!!!

Ok, now, I'm going to go into the recipe.  We'll talk about how the moving is going later.  Suffice to say closing is in two weeks and two days...  Yikes!  Oh, and this is what my living room now looks like:

Real Life Lasagna

Ingredients:

8 oz lasagna noodles (for four cups broken)
1 lb extra lean ground beef
1 T olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 t minced garlic
1/4 c fresh parsley, chopped, optional
2 t dried Italian seasoning
2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes with juice
1 6 oz can tomato paste
1 c dry red wine
1 c cottage cheese
2 c (8oz) already shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Bring a pot of water to a boil.  While that's starting, brown the ground beef and the onion in the olive oil. I used an oven safe pot.  Just as it's getting done, add the garlic.  Stir in the parsley, Italian seasoning, red wine, tomatoes and tomato paste.  Allow that to simmer while you cook the lasagna noodles.  Now, before you toss them in the water, you need to break them into pieces.  I used about three cups of broken and it was more than enough.  Cook the lasagna noodles until they're tender.  It'll take 8-10 minutes.  Once the noodles are done, drain them.  Add the cottage cheese, half of the mozzarella and the noodles to the ground beef mixture.  Stir well.  Top with the rest of the mozzarella cheese and pop it under the broiler until the cheese is melted.  Serve


adapted from Desperation Dinners