Don't ever make lasagna with cheddar cheese (D2)

So my husband is a chef. I know, lucky me right? The funny thing is, I love to cook too and I'm damn good at it. But he does most of the cooking, and that shit works for me too.

Last week I get home from work to smell something-a-cookin' as I open the front door. He proceeds to tell me that he's made a lasagna. So I wonder to myself, "Self, do we have mozzarella? Do we have ricotta?" Me thinks not. So I ask him how me made a lasgna when I know we don't have the ingredients?. "Well, I just used the cheese that we had in the fridge". Ooooo this is gonna get interesting.

So we sit down to dinner and this oily, dry noodle thing in a lasagna dish appears before me. I realize he's used cheddar cheese without cutting it with another cheese to change the chemistry of the melting habits and the omission of oil. Go with me on this one. I'm no cheese scientist - but I have seen melted cheddar on its own... lots of oil... and melted cheddar with some other kind of cheese.... delicious goodness. Ok, this story is getting long I'll wrap it up.

Anyhoo --- no ricotta, no mozzarella, hardly any red sauce does not a lasagna make. This basically tasted like a cheeseburger with noodles. Crazy enough? We ate b/c it still tasted good - but don't call this shit lasagna.

I love being right like any other woman and I love winning. So over the weekend I bought the ingredients for a real lasagna and made it on Tuesday. Shit was ridiculous. Even the chef said so. BAM! I win!


Shit you're gonna need:

-9 lasagna noodles. Don't cook the whole fucking box unless you're making 3 lasagnas, k?

-Small thingy of ricotta cheese. If you use cottage cheese I'll come to your house and smack you around. Gross.

-Mozarella cheese slices and a bag of shredded mozzarella. A lot of cheese, I know. it gets better

-Bag of Shredded Parmasean - yes, they sell this not in a shaker container.

- 1 egg

- 1 lb-ish of ground beef or turkey

- jar of spaghetti sauce. - I use the super expensive Raos sauce b/c its fucking awesome and tastes right and requires no effort on my part except coughing up $8.99 for the jar. If you wanna use Ragu or Prego or make your own - get crazy and do it.

- Italian Seasonsing

Shit you're gonna do

Cook up your meat in a plug in skillet or big ass pan in the stove. Sprinkle some salt and the Italian seasoning on that meat and let it cook - I believe they call this "browning". In a mixing bowl, plop out the ricotta from its container, crack an egg in there, pour in 1/2 the bag of Parmesan cheese, and like 1/3 of the shredded mozzarella bag. I don't measure, I eyeball and you should too. Sprinkle some Eye-talian seasoning in there too - why not?

Now stick your lasagna noodles on the stove in a boiling pot of agua and let all that magic happen at once. Oh, and turn your oven on to like 350.

Once you meat is browned, throw in your jar of sauce and let that simmer for a minute. Once your noodles are done, drain them.

Take out your glass lasagna dish and spray with a tiny bit of kitchen KY. Then let's start layering...

Bottom layer: 3 noodles, then your ricotta mixture, then sauce/meat, then mozzarella slices. Then repeat... once you're out of stuff and you're on the last step use the shredded mozzarella as the very last layer and maybe throw the rest of the shredded Parmesan on there too. Get crazy with the cheese whiz, folks.

And Voila! You have yourself a REAL lasagna. Stick that baby in the oven for 30 minutes uncovered. It'll be done with you see it a-bubblin and all melty and shit.

Mangia!