Lasagna

Lasagna intimidates me. But every now and then I work up the courage to make it. About two months ago I joined Pinterest. Since then I have pinned about a million things. Pinned them and then forgot them. But then after a few weeks, I decided I should actually TRY some of the things I was pinning. Oh My Goodness, every recipe I've tried so far has been out of this work DELISH.

Last night I decide to try these Lasagna Cups. But when it came time to assemble them, I noticed the recipe called for JUMBO sized muffin tins; all I had were regular sized cupcake pans. I know I could have made them smaller, but I also knew it would be twice as many to make and really, I just wanted to hang on the couch with a good movie. So instead I decided to put it together the traditional lasagna way in a pan. I also changed up the recipe a bit because I was worried my cheese layer would be too small.

I really didn't think I'd like this recipe since it calls for Ricotta cheese (I think that stuff is nasty), but since it was my first time trying the recipe, I decided to try it that way. I was amazed at how much I LOVED this lasagna. It was about as close to perfection as I have ever done with lasagna. This will probably be my go to recipe for lasagna from now on.

LASAGNA
Ingredients:
for the sauce-
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds lean ground beef cooked and drained
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-6 oz. can tomato paste
1-8 oz. can tomato sauce
1-14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes (I buy the kind that has sweet onion mixed in.)
1 tablespoon dried basil
1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon parsley flakes
2 tablespoons diced onions
1 teaspoon sugar (Next time I might skip the sugar, the sauce was almost too sweet.)
salt & pepper to taste

for the cheese filling-
1-10 oz. tub Philadelphia Italian Herb & Cheese Cooking Cream
2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
3 cups mozzarella cheese, grated & divided
1 small container ricotta cheese
2 eggs

1 box Lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
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Directions:


For the sauce- heat olive oil over medium heat and pepper and garlic until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in cooked ground beef and tomato paste until well incorporated. Stir in remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and cook 30 minutes or so. {The longer it cooks, the better it will taste!} This will be very thick.

For the cheese filling- stir all ingredients together using 1-1/2 cups of the Parmesan cheese and 2 cups of the mozzarella cheese.

Cover the base of your cooking dish with about 1 cup of the meat sauce. Layer with noodles then a third of the meat sauce and half of the cheese mixture. Top with some of the extra mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers. Top with remaining meat sauce and cheeses.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes covered in tinfoil. Remove tinfoil and bake 10-15 minutes longer, until bubbly.