Traditional Italian Sausage Lasagna

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While I'm on the Italian Sausage bandwagon...

This blog's tagline is The Kitchen Confessional of Megan McLeod...well, here's one for you.  All of the mozzarella cheese that went into this lasagna fell off the counter and onto the floor before I assembled the lasagna.  All of this precariously placed cheese, onto the non-swept floor...

Five second rule!

...and then into a lasagna.  Don't tell The Hubby!!

Second kitchen confessional is that I wear these onion goggles every single time that I cut onions.  They totally prevent my eyes from stinging and crying.  Plus they are obviously super stylish!

Hi 

So, our garage was broken into a couple of weeks ago.

About $1,000 worth of stuff was stolen, and the window of our vehicle was smashed in.  It's been a couple of weeks and I am still seething about it.  It's made me realize a few frustrating things about being robbed:

1) 'Finders Keepers' is a real thing.  Nothing really belongs to any of us.  The Hubby and I can work really hard to be able to afford to buy things, but those things could all be taken away from us by some crackhead / homeless person / punk teen / hardened criminal / crafty neighbour / Hamburgler whenever they decide to do so.  Not everyone follows basic human manners such as, 'you shouldn't take what doesn't belong to you.'  The Hubby and I are 'Losers Weepers.'

2) I now have vigilante tendencies and am determined to solve this crime by myself.  I want my stuff back, and the police don't seem to share the same concerns as me.  Everyone listing stuff on Craig's List and Kijiji that could have been ours is a potential villain, and probably stole our stuff, and I am suspicious of all of them.

3) My fear of robbers was totally justified this whole time.  They now exist in my life, for real.  To know that my house is not safe has made my fear greater, which I didn't even know was possible.  Robbers are now in a three-way tie with earthquakes and spiders for the worst things that I could imagine.

4) I am offended that they didn't take our bikes when they took the rest of the stuff from our garage.  They were right there beside the rest of the stuff, like leaning right on it.  They probably had to kick up the kickstand and move the bikes a few feet to be able to move the rest of the stuff out of there.  Is it because they cost $150 each from Costco?  Why didn't they take the bikes?  Did they ride bikes to our house to steal our stuff already, so felt they were covered?

The one positive that came out of this is that the task of cleaning our garage that we had been putting off for years was all of a sudden a much easier job.

Anyway, enough complaining about scary robbers from me.  This rant was actually somewhat helpful to me in getting everything off of my chest, so thanks for listening.  Now onto something completely unrelated to everything except this very food blog...

Here is a recipe for a traditional Italian Sausage Lasagna.  It is easily modified by adding vegetables like spinach or roasted peppers, or changing to ground beef instead of Italian sausage.  It's super cheesy and very, very flavorful.  This is a go-to recipe whenever we are craving lasagna.

If you love Italian Sausage in your lasagna, it's a must must must that you try out this Butternut Squash and Italian Sausage Lasagna with Sage too.  I'm not kidding.

For a printer-friendly version of any recipe, simply click 'Print' below the title of any blog post. Voila - a clean recipe without my ramblings or any pictures!

Traditional Italian Sausage Lasagna

 

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground Italian sausage (I used Johnsonville hot Italian sausage to make it spicy)
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 14 ounce can stewed tomatoes
• 14 ounce can tomato sauce
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 8 lasagna noodles (I used brown rice lasagna noodles to keep it gluten free)
• 2 cups cottage cheese or ricotta cheese
• 1 - 1.5 pounds mozzarella, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Directions
In a large saute pan, brown the Italian sausage, onions and garlic together.  Drain off all fat.  Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, wine, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, Italian seasoning, dried basil, and pepper.  Cover and simmer for 60 minutes.



Cook the lasagna noodles according to package directions, then drain water.

Preheat oven to 350 F.  In a 9 x 13 inch baking dish, layer 1/2 the meat sauce, 1/2 the noodles, 1/2 of the cottage (or ricotta) cheese, 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese, and 1/2 of the parmesan cheese.  Repeat all layers again.



Place into your oven, and bake for 40 minutes or until the cheese is bubbling and starting to brown.  Remove from oven, and let stand for 10 minutes before serving, to help solidify everything.  Serve with a green salad.

Enjoy!

Recipe Inspired By:  The Best of Bridge Traditional Lasagna

 

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