What's for dinner: Lasagna

A while ago I decided I was going to try to make 2 lasagnas and freeze one to see how it would turn out. Again, with my "large family", it's got to be easy, easy, easy. So I figure if I am going to go through the mess of one, I might as well assemble two. So I doubled this recipe and made two, one for that night and one for 2 weeks later. I put plastic wrap in the baking dish before I assembled it, and froze it long enough to pull out to wrap again. I wrapped it 3 or 4 times with plastic wrap and once with foil. The day before we were going to have it, I pulled it out to defrost and popped it back in the same baking dish I had frozen it in. 24 hours seemed to not be enough time because I had to cook it slightly longer than stated so next time I may try to defrost 36 hours or so. It still turned out really well. It did not have any freezer burn on it because it hadn't been in the freezer that long, and everything firmed up very nicely. I was ECSTATIC with my first attempt at freezing anything but soup! This is a basic recipe with no fancy meat or veggies, but I may try it with ricotta cheese next. Yummy!

Cook's Tip: I buy ground beef(the 90-10 ratio is the absolute LOWEST I will go) in bulk now and cook it up and freeze it in 2 cup portions. So instead of having to brown the beef for this recipe, I just had to defrost 1 cooked portion in the microwave for 2 minutes. Even less work!

LASAGNA

Here's what you need:

9 lasagna noodles
1 lb. ground beef or ground turkey
1 28 oz. jar spaghetti sauce
1 16 oz. container of small curd cottage cheese
1 package shredded mozzarella cheese (8 oz.)
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 medium-sized onion
Brown meat and onion in a skillet and remove grease. Add spaghetti
sauce and simmer 2-3 minutes.
While browning meat, cook noodles for approximately 10 minutes and
drain. Place 3 noodles horizontally in a 9” x 12” pan and begin
layering process with the sauce. Dab on 1/3 of the cottage cheese,
mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese. Repeat the layering process
two more times for a total of 3 layers.
Bake for 35 minutes at 350°. Serve with toasted garlic bread and
a tossed salad.

Here is the frozen finished product before the defrosting. I am still amazed at how well it worked.

And the finished cooked product All brown and bubbly just the way we like it!