I have developed a love to be in the kitchen, I used to love to eat the food just fine but now I love to cook food and I love feeding people even more than that guess you could say food is my love language! Would you say I am a healthy cook well it depends on what you consider healthy, I come from a long line of good country cooks and I think that is my style with a modern flair 🙂
So In keeping with my giving theme I created a recipe that is perfect for your meal plan or to give away to neighbors, friends, family, church members, people at work well the list could go on and on so I will stop and move on.
Personal lasagnas mmmmm I think I could be Italian but then again…
This recipe was created by all by me from start to finish, I did not gather information or combine other recipes I wrote this recipe!
I was reading an article the other day about how we are cooking lasagna all wrong… It intrigued me so because it is one of my favorite dishes my mom makes so yes lets read this and see… because let me just tell you my mom does not do lasagna wrong… if so then I don’t want to be right!
The article asked if you put ricotta… parm… and egg mixture into the middle of the lasagna? Well yes absolutely… then we are doing it wrong…(wrong must be so good then)
Instead you should make a béchamel sauce… this got me thinking and so I developed the recipe
Ingredients
- 18 lasagna noodles cut in half(either break in half prior to cooking or wait until after cooked and cut)
- 1 large can of tomato puree
- 1 small can of tomato sauce 8 oz
- 1 lb of Italian sausage
- 1/2 medium onion(yellow)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 cup of ricotta cheese
- 1 cup of parmesan
- 1 cup of mozzarella shredded
- fresh mozzarella sliced into 12 slices
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 can evaporated milk
Directions
- In a large saucepan bring 4 qts water to boil(salt the water) add lasagna noodles
- cook noodles until al dente
- In a skillet sauté onion, garlic, salt and pepper, Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper
- Cook on medium heat until clear and tender
- remove from skillet
- Add Italian sausage and cook, crumble as you cook when cooked (no pink left) add the onion and garlic mixture
- Add tomato sauce, and puree and simmer for 5 minutes set aside
- In a nonstick pan melt 2 tablespoons of butter on medium heat
- Add salt pepper Italian seasoning and cornstarch stir constantly until becomes thickened about 1 minute
- Add the can of evaporated milk and stir
- Turn heat down you don’t want this to boil
- Add 1 cup of ricotta
- Add 1 cup mozzarella
- Add 1 cup parmesan
- Stir and cook for 1 minute on simmer(low heat) until melted
- Spray mini loaf pan
- Add a bit of tomato/sausage sauce in the bottom
- Add 1 half of lasagna noodle
- Add 1 spoonful of tomato sausage sauce
- Add 1 spoonful of béchamel sauce (this is going to be cheesy and stringy — try to spread it out to cover the tomato sauce mixture
- Sprinkle mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese
- Repeat layer until you fill up the mini loaf pan
- Your last layer should be the tomato/sausage sauce
- Put 2 slices of fresh mozzarella cheese on top
- Bake in a pre-heated oven 350 degree 30 minutes (or until the cheese is melted and bubbly, and heated through)
- enjoy straight from pan or take out and serve on plate
- makes great gifts or you can also freeze for a later meal
Enjoy
If you are trying this recipe let us know below I would love to hear what you thought of the recipe!
More of these to come soon!