Lasagna

This is another of my raw baked pasta dishes. It is based on the finding that 1 lb of pasta absorbs 2.5 cups of water. This allows baked pasta dishes to be made in the oven with all raw ingredients. This recipe doesn't even brown the meat. It bakes it into a dleicious almost sausage like layer.

Ingredients

• 1 lb of lasagna noodles uncooked
• 1 Jar of pasta sauce
• 2.5 cups water
• 14 oz of ricotta cheese
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese
• 2 slices of stale bread (I keep mine in the freezer then microwave it)
• 1/2 cup dairy (milk is fine)
• 1 lb raw ground meat (beef, pork, veal, or mix) Vegetarian option below
• 1 T Italian seasoning (or could be a teaspoon each basil, oregano, thyme)
• 1 clove garlic (1 t minced garlic)
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Divide noodles into 4 piles.

3. Mix together pasta sauce and water. Divide into 5 sauce portions.

4. Mix together ricotta and mozzarella. Divide into 3 cheese portions.

5. Mix together bread and dairy.

6. Add the meat, seasoning and garlic. Divide into 3 meat portions

7. Spread 1/5 of the sauce on the bottom of a pan.

8. Spread 1/3 of the meat on 1/4 of the pasta like crackers.

9. Place pasta side down in sauce.

10. Cover with 1/3 of the cheese mixture.

11. Spread 1/5 of the sauce mixture.

12. Repeat 8-11 2 more times.

13. Put the last 1/4 of the pasta on top.

14. Cover with the last 1/5 of the sauce. You could freeze this now and bake it on another day. It will probably take an extra 15 minutes to bake from frozen.

15. Bake covered 1 hour.

16. Finish with Parmesan cheese.

17. Bake uncovered 15 minutes.

Note: If pan size requires you can make this one layer less, just divide everything one less time. and only repeating once in step 12. Conversely you can stack it higher by dividing one more way and repeating 1 more time in step 12.

Vegetarian

This is an easy recipe to make vegetarian. Just substitute the meat with a lb of vegetables, just spinach is a good option. Mixing in sauteed onions and mushrooms if you like them is better still. If you want to stick with the no extra cooking steps, you can just mince the onions and use canned - 1 pkg (12-16 oz) frozen spinach, thawed (I'm sure fresh would be fine too) - 1 medium onion or 1 T onion powder or 3 T dried onion - 1 small can mushrooms, pieces and stems or a couple fresh mushrooms

Milk and cheese is a pretty important part of this recipe. I can't really recommend a vegan alternative.