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June 30, 2010

Mom's Lasagna

Okay, consider yourself forewarned ... tonight's meal is not quick and easy, nor is it cheap and economical. Now that that's out of the way, here goes. I am making my mom's lasagna recipe tonight. This is my favorite meal in the entire world. I could live off of this lasagna for MONTHS without needing any variety. This recipe is why I refuse to eat restaurant lasagna or store-bought frozen lasagna. They just can't ever measure up. It is the one recipe that my mom made that I am able to truly duplicate and that people actually request when they are coming over for dinner. So, consider yourself honored ... I'm about to share the recipe. :-)


1 1/2-2 lbs hamburger (although, I am using ground turkey tonight)
1 can (28 oz) tomatoes (whole)
1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
2 envelopes dry spaghetti sauce mix
2 cans (12 oz each) cocktail vegetable juice (or roughly 1/2 of one of the big V8 bottles)
1 pkg (16 oz) lasagna noodles
16 oz cottage cheese
8 oz grated mozzarella cheese
1 1/4 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/4 c grated Parmesan cheese


Cook meat. Stir in tomatoes, tomato sauce, dry mix, V-8 juice and mushrooms. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer 10 minutes.


Cover bottom of greased big baking dish (I use a 9x13 pyrex) with meat sauce, then uncooked noodles, cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese. Repeat until all ingredients are used up (3 layers).
Cover tightly with heavy foil and place dish on a baking sheet (catches anything that bubbles over & helps distribute heat evenly to entire dish). Bake for 1 hour at 350. Remove and let stand 15 minutes. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese & serve!


** Note: With this recipe, it is not necessary to cook your lasagna noodles ahead of time. I never even knew people pre-cooked their noodles when they made lasagna until I was well into adulthood. It's less messy, you don't have to dig the noodles out of the bottom of a pot of boiling water & hope they don't break, and it really doesn't take any longer. If you feel you must pre-cook your lasagna noodles, just cut the baking time roughly in half.


There you have it - my world famous lasagna recipe. I would imagine, if I went out and bought all these ingredients fresh, in one shopping trip, it would cost around $15-18. Which comes out to about $1.50 a serving. Still cheaper than eating out. Since I had all of the non-perishable items already on hand, I only had to pick up the meat, mushrooms and cottage cheese today, which took about $7 out of my food budget. Still more than last night's dinner, but it's all worth it for Mom's Lasagna!
Heaven on a plate!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing! Do you make the sauce recipe for your typical meat sauce/marinara sauce, or is it just for this recipe? Never used the V-8 or the spice packets... sure looks good though!

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  2. It started out being just for this recipe, but over the last few years, I've started using it for other recipes as well. It freezes well, so I will occasionally make a full batch of the sauce, separate it into about 3 equal parts & freeze until I need to use it. Comes in really handy to have it prepared ahead of time when you have one of those days where you don't have a lot of time!

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