Jennifer C's Easy Peasy Crocked Lasagna

I admit, I was a creep. I was one of those nosy, creepy people. I "met" Jennifer C on a Campbell's Soup Facebook posting. She had mentioned to the masses that she had a very easy lasagna recipe and I, of course, am all for making any of my dinners in a lazier (EASIER. Whatever.) fashion so I, along with several other people, requested her to shareth with uth.

Jennifer, being the gracious facebooker she is, DID email me the recipe!  It differs from the other Lasagna recipe on my blog in the sauce and type of noodles so I decided to go ahead and give you this option as well!



 Get you some:

     1-2 pkg Burger, browned. I used 1pkg deer burger and 1pkg elk sausage
     1 lg jar or can Spaghetti Sauce
     1 1/2 cups Mozzrella Cheese, shredded as small as possible
     1 15 or 16oz container Ricotta
     1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese, shredded as small as possible
     3/4 of a 16oz container of cottage cheese     1pkg No-Boil or Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles, uncooked
     Italian Seasoning
             or
     Parsley & Garlic


Make sure to drain your burger very well after you brown it. I ended up using about 3/4 of the 2 packages. The other 1/4 I gave to my poor old puppy who was very studiously NOT looking at the food. I feel that using both packages would have resulted in a higher meat-to-sauce ratio than I would have liked. That's a technical term, btw. Used in highly refined french restaurants.

"Louis, I find zees meat-to-sauce ratio is highly unpalatable. You disgust me, you vile pigsnot! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
*smacks Louis in the face with white glove*

It could happen.


I digress, as always.


I had made chili the day before and had an extra cup or two of crushed tomatoes (I love crushed tomatoes. They go in EVERYTHING.) so I added that to my favorite Francesco Rindaldi pasta sauce. What can I say? I'm a sauce girl.

I'm not sassy, I'm SAUCY!

Add the burger to the sauce and LIGHTLY sprinkle Italian Seasoning over it (you can hardly see the Italian Seasoning in this photo because I'm me and I buried it with garlic salt). Set aside.

You'll want to mix together the 3/4 container of cottage cheese (and if you're like me, pause to eat the rest) with the ricotta cheese and sprinkle a LIGHT dusting of your Italian Seasoning or Parsley over it (and then if you're still me, sprinkle California Blend Garlic Salt over that).

Now you'll want to grate your mozzarella over the cheese mixture. Mix in the parmesan cheese. Use the finest grade of grater (the greatest) because the smaller the shred the easier it will be to mix and spread. Set aside.

I cut off about 1/3 of a brick of mozzarella, shredding 2/3 of THAT and then reserving the last 1/3 for shredding over the final layer of lasagna.

Now we can get to building!!

Can we build it?!  YES WE CAN!

I used my 7qt crock for this and it ended up filling it halfway or just over halfway.

I'm assuming you've protected your crock by greasing it. No one wants to eat from an unprotected crock. You might get burnt. Pieces, that is.

I had never heard of "No Boil" or "Oven Ready" noodles but I really wanted to try it exactly as Jennifer suggested so I found these and decided to give them a go

*NOTE You can crock a lasagna with the regular lasagna noodles, uncooked. Crocking has no loss of liquid so they are cooked just fine with the amount of liquid in the recipe.


Spoon a light layer of meatsauce onto the bottom and cover it with a layer of noodles.  As you see, you can break them to fit. Try not to touch the sides with the noodles if you can. They will burn. Some layers I did a double layer of noodles. I bought 2 packages (just in case) and ended up using 1 1/2 pkgs. The recipe suggests 1 package and that would have been just fine.

Now you'll want to carefully spread your cheese mixture over the noodles. I noticed that with a finer shred of cheese, it didn't conglomo to the layer of noodles after cooking as badly as the larger shred did.

Now you'll continue with repeating sauce then noodle then cheese, (I had about 3 layers total) ending with sauce and then shred the last 1/3 of the mozzarella over the top to make it purty-like.

Cook on LOW for 3 to 4 hours or HIGH for 1 to 2



I put mine together the night before I wanted to serve it and loved how easy it was to do.  I loved the taste! I really think adding the spices to the cheese was a great move. The ONLY thing that I didn't groove on was that the noodles weren't cooked all the way. I had mine on LOW for 3 1/2 hours and turned it to warm for a half hour because the edges of the noodles were starting to burn.

HOWEVER....

When I ate the lasagna the next day, no noodle issue! They must have soaked up more liquid overnight because it was perfect and the flavor was EVEN BETTER!! In fact, I thought about making this one day and not serving it until the next!

Lazy Baked Spaghetti

Pictured with The Best French Bread

Baking spaghetti just does a little something, adds a certain je ne sais quoi, to the flavor and texture. If you love spaghetti as much as I do, you've GOT to try doing this to yours because it's the easiest most lazy way to kick your dinner up a notch!

 
How lazy is it??
 

My pooch Abby

THIS LAZY!! 

If you have a favorite spaghetti recipe, use it and then go to the "AND NOW" step. 

If not, get together:

     Noodles
   
     Spaghetti Sauce I've tried all kinds and I really like Francesco Rinaldi because it is good 

               on it's own but also very good as a base to build on. I'm still refining a recipe to use from scratch and hope to have a post on that soon. Make sure 

               you have ENOUGH sauce. In baking it, too much is better than not enough.

    
     !!Cheese!! I use about a brick each time. One time I did a half brick of shredded sharp cheddar

              plus a half brick of shredded mozzarella. In the photo I used 2/3 brick of shredded sharp

             cheddar and 5 pieces of packaged pre-sliced Velveeta.

My husband calls this recipe "that stupid crazy cheesy baked spaghetti you make". I've been trying to get him back in the late 80's and early 90's where he belongs but. HE. JUST. WONT. GO.

 because he's

dung dung dung dungalunglung
vanilla ice ice baby

AND NOW, you'll want to cook your noodles the normal length of time you like them cooked. When using a crock, we wouldn't cook them as long as usual but for this recipe you'll just pretty much make spaghetti as you would any other time.

While your noodles are boiling, put your sauce in a pan and warm it up. Add SOME of the cheese to it but leave enough to cover the top of the spaghetti when you put it in a baking dish. I normally add 1/3 of the cheese to my sauce, reserving 2/3 for the top.

Use Crisco to grease your baking dish.

Preheat oven to 350*

Mix sauce and noodles together and pour into the dish. Cover with the remaining 2/3 grated cheese.

Insert toothpicks at regular intervals so that foil will not touch and stick to the cheese.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 25 to 30 minutes depending on how deep your dish is.

The cheese should be nice and melted but not burnt or crisp. If you'd like it crisp, uncover it after 25 minutes, turn the heat up to 400* and bake until it's as crisp as you like.

It will take awhile to cool (at least 20 mins) so while it's cooling, it would be a good time to be baking your loaf of The Best French Bread.

And here's a little prezzie for you, my dearly beloved blog reader!

The Best French Bread

Ah, I see you have arrived via the Garlic Bread And French Bread Dough Recipe.

I'm sorry that I don't have a plethora of visual stimuli to increase your salivatory glands but follow these directions and smell for yourself how amazing this bread is!



You require the following:

     Butter

     Garlic paraphernalia

You've already got your dough (if not, click HERE) and you just punched it down (I am outside watching you) so here's what you want to do next:

Gently roll the dough into a large fuzzy caterpillar.

WHAAAAAAaaaa????

Yes. Just do it. 

Uh-huh. You're seein' it now.

Caterpillar I telled you!

~~~You're still thinking about it, aren't you?~~~

Tuck the ends under, pinch any seams together, and keep all seams under the loaf (touching the pan).

 Cover with the oiled cling wrap and let it rise for about 20 minutes.

Bake at 350* for 25 minutes.

While the bread is baking, make a mixture of butter and your favorite garlic seasonings. I take a stick of unsalted butter, put it into a cup and shake my California Blend Garlic Salt into it, add a bit of minced garlic and microwave it until it's melted. Taste and add garlic as necessary.

Let the loaf cool for 15 minutes.

Cut loaf in half and brush with the garlic butter mixture.

Place both halves back on the cookie sheet (butter up) and broil for a few minutes until it's reached your desired crispiness.

Zis ees zee best French Bread... BON APPETIT!