Quick and Easy Lasagna

Hey Peeps!

"___________ is for supper!" The mention of some foods just brings a smile to your face and a tug at your tummy. Around here, Tall Guy's eyes light up when he hears that Lasagna is on the the menu. Unfortunately for him, that word has not been uttered for a while, so when I was telling him about a recipe I found for it over at  South Your Mouth, well,  I knew right away I was making it.

I was so excited to find Mandy's recipe!  Thanks to Stacey Little at Southern Bite for sharing her recipe on Facebook.  I recently spent a couple of days with Stacey and Brandie Skibinski at The Country Cook at an blog retreat, and let me tell you dear readers that I have never met nicer people, and these two CAN cook!

A big thanks to my good friend Cris at Recipes that Crock for bring us all together for that wonderful retreat. (She is at the bottom the staircase in the picture below.) We all learned so much from each other!  All these bloggers have wonderful blogs and Pinterest boards for you to pour over ONCE you finish reading my post of course! (wink wink)

Boy, this been a crazy weather week for us here in northwest Indiana.  We saw windchill numbers registering about -15 to -20 below last Saturday night, and this Saturday I believe the high was in the upper 60's!  Only in Indiana, my out-of-state friends.....  Our motto is: "If you don't like the weather, just hang in there; it will change in a couple hours!"  It was a first on the Wallpe Farm....We washed our 4-H calves in February.....in our shirt sleeves!!  Our girls and their cousins had fun, but I'm not too sure the calves can say the same.  It's been a long time between baths for them!  Just in, I 'm seeing preliminary predictions of 4-6 inches of snow by Thursday!  See what I mean?  Lordy!

Meanwhile, back at the kitchen......Earlier last week, while our teeth were still chattering, I made this yummy lasagna based off of Mandy's recipe.  I tweaked it here and there to make it satisfy our tastes and what I had in the house.  It was delicious!  It was also super easy and took very little time to make.  I'm not sure why I always think it takes forever to make lasagna.  From start to finish, I was pretty much ready to serve this meal in about an hour and a half!  I even cooked the noodles!

The two major substitutions I made in this recipe is ground sausage for the ground beef, and ricotta cheese for the cottage cheese.  I also left out the onion to please one sensitive tummy.  I always us the "good" cheeses made with whole milk, not skim.  I figure if you are going to make lasagna, you have to make it full on lasagna.

Printable Recipe

Quick and Easy Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1-1.5 pounds ground sausage, plain or spicy
• 24. oz. jar spaghetti sauce
• 2 Cups ricotta or cottage cheese
• 3/4 Cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 9-12 cooked lasagna noodles
• 16 ounces mozzarella cheese
• 2 T. olive oil

Cooking Directions

1. While noodles are boiling, brown the sausage on the stove, drain fat, add sauce, and let simmer for 20-30 minutes.
2. Drain noodles, and combine the ricotta/cottage cheese, 1/2 C. of the Parmesan cheese, egg, and garlic.
3. In a 9 x 13 pan drizzle the olive oil on the bottom.  Layer ingredients in thirds: noodles, cheese mix, sauce, 4. oz. mozzarella cheese
4. Top with last of mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese.
5. Cover dish with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.
6. Uncover and continue to bake for 15-20 minutes until top is golden brown.
7. Let sit for 15-20 minutes before serving.