Thyme Out

Coming in from the slopes rosy-cheeked and hungry,  wouldn’t it be nice if you thought ahead and had this hearty dinner ready for warm-up in the oven?  Fennel seed adds a bright sassy note to this age-old favorite.

Ingredients

For Sauce:

• 1 lb hot Italian sausage (about 5 links)
  ½ lb – ¾ lb ground beef
  ½ cup finely chopped onion
  4 large cloves garlic, minced
  2 tbsp sugar
  1 tbsp fine sea salt
  2 tsp dried organic basil
  ½ tsp organic fennel seed
  ½ tsp organic ground black pepper
  ½ tsp organic red pepper flakes
  ¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
  4 cups canned tomatoes, undrained (2 lb, 3 oz)
  2 cans (6 oz) tomato paste

For Noodles:

• 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
• 12 curly lasagna noodles

For Cheese Sauce:

• 1 container (15 oz) cottage cheese
  1 egg
  ½ tsp fine sea salt
  1 lb thinly sliced mozzarella cheese
  1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Remove sausage meat from casings; chop.
2. In 5-quart Dutch oven, over medium heat, sauté sausage, beef (break up beef with a wooden spoon), onion, and garlic, stirring frequently until well browned (about 20 minutes).
3. Add sugar, 1 tbsp salt, basil, fennel, pepper and half of the parsley. Mix well.
4. Add tomatoes, tomato paste. Mash tomatoes with wooden spoon.
5. Bring to boiling; reduce heat and simmer covered, stirring occasionally until thick – about 1-1/2 hours.
6. In 8-quart pot, bring 3 quarts water and 1 tbsp salt to boiling.
7. Add lasagna noodles 2 or 3 at a time. Return to boiling. Boil uncovered, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes or until tender.
8. Drain in colander; rinse under cold water. Dry lasagna on paper towels.
9. Preheat oven to 375°F.
10. In medium bowl, combine cottage cheese, egg, remaining parsley and salt. Mix well.
11. In bottom of 9” x 13” glass baking dish, spoon 1-1/2 cups of red sauce. Layer with 4 lasagna, lengthwise, overlapping, to cover.
12. Spread with 1/2 of the cottage cheese mixture; top with 1/3 of the mozzarella; spoon
    1-1/2 cups of red sauce over cheese. Repeat layering of noodles, cottage cheese, mozzarella. Top with final layer of noodles, remaining red sauce and mozzarella. Sprinkle ½ cup Parmesan cheese.
13. Cover with foil, tucking around edges.
14. Bake 25 minutes covered. Remove foil and bake additional 25 minutes longer (or until bubbly).
15. Cool 15 minutes before serving.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Beef, Dinner, Pasta, Pork. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.