3-Cheese Lasagna

I have wonderful neighbors and friends who have shared with me the bounty of their gardens.  This includes lots of tomatoes.  Usually, we don't eat a lot of tomatoes.  Tonight I wanted to make lasagna and I figured what better way to use all the tomatoes than to make my own sauce.  I've never really made my own sauce before.  I always use canned stuff and once or twice I have made it using tomato paste but never with fresh tomatoes.  I'm always up for trying new things so I found a few recipes, combined them, and made my own sauce.  so here's the recipe for the sauce first.

Homemade tomato sauce

• 10 ripe tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil ( or use dried basil)
• 2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
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  Bring a pot of water to a boil. Have ready a large bowl of iced water. Plunge whole tomatoes in boiling water until skin starts to peel, 1 minute.

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•  Remove with slotted spoon and place in ice bath. Let rest until cool enough to handle, then remove peel and squeeze out seeds. 

Chop 8 tomatoes and puree in blender or food processor. Chop remaining two tomatoes and set aside.

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•   In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, cook onion, bell pepper, and garlic in oil and butter until onion starts to soften, 5 minutes. 

Pour in pureed tomatoes. Stir in chopped tomato, basil, Italian seasoning, salt and sugar. Place bay leaf in pot. Bring to a boil and let boil at a low boil for 30 minutes or until it reaches the desired thickness.

3-Cheese Lasagna

9 lasagna noodles (i usually do a couple extra because mine always fall apart)

1 lb. ground beef

16 oz Ricotta cheese (or you can substitute with 16 oz. cottage cheese mixed with 2 eggs)

1 lb. Mozzarella cheese, shredded

In a large pan, cook lasagna noodles according to the directions on the box.  While that is cooking, brown the ground beef.  Drain the grease.  Add the beef to your sauce.  Once noodles are done, drain and rinse with cold water.  Layer 3 noodles on bottom of pan.  Spread half the meat sauce over the noodles.  

Spread half the ricotta cheese over meat sauce.  Sprinkle with a bit of cheese.  Layer 3 more noodles.  

Spread remaining meat sauce, then layer with remaining ricotta cheese.  Layer the last 3 noodles and sprinkle cheese on top.  

Heat at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until cheese is all melted.

This goes great with Teresa's Breadsticks

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