Satisfying lasagna cravings

For the past month or more, I've been craving lasagna. And not just any lasagna -- my homemade lasagna. The kind that tastes the best when it's still steaming out of the oven...when it's so piping hot that you risk burning your mouth.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I've been a little preoccupied with other things (working 12+ hour days, for one).

Today, I'm proud to say that I did next to nothing.  I didn't even play Smurfs' Village on iPad thankyouverymuch. With so much time on my hands, what better way to spend than to make some homemade lasagna?  (That's a rhetorical question.)  So I made some for our dinner tonight.

My lasagna recipe is super easy, and it tastes great too.  For those interested, here's my recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 box of lasagna noodles

Pasta sauce--

• 1 jar pasta sauce (We prefer Ragu, but this is probably more of a preference issue.)
• 1/2 to 3/4 lb Italian sausage (We use Midamar Italian beef sausage, but again, this is probably more of a preference issue.)
  These next few ingredients are just to give the pasta sauce some flavor, so you can add any that you like.
• Green pepper (as desired)
• Garlic (as desired)
• Onion (as desired)
• 1 can of mushrooms OR fresh mushrooms
• A pinch of cayenne pepper (as desired)

Cheese mixture--

• 16 oz cottage cheese (preferably small curd style)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In bowl, mix together cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, egg, and mozzarella cheese and set aside.
3. Brown Italian sausage in pan.  Add pasta sauce, any vegetables (mushrooms, onion, garlic, and/or green pepper) as desired, and cayenne pepper.  Let pasta sauce simmer at low to medium heat for about 20 minutes and turn it off when done.
4. In a 13x9-inch baking dish, spread a thin layer of the pasta sauce.
5. Add uncooked lasagna noodles on top (enough to cover all of the sauce), and then layer 1/3 of the pasta sauce and 1/3 of the cheese mixture.
6. Add another layer of lasagna noodles, another 1/3 of the pasta sauce, and another 1/3 of the cheese mixture.
7. Add the final layer of lasagna noodles and the remaining pasta sauce and cheese mixture.
8. **Sometimes when the pasta sauce is more "chunky" and less watery, I have issues with the noodles not cooking correctly since they go into the oven uncooked.  To correct for this issue, I typically add some water into each of the four corners of the pan.  This ensures that the lasagna noodles have enough water to get thoroughly cooked.
9. Cover the pan with foil, shiny side down.
10. Bake in the 375 degree oven for about 60 minutes.  (Check on it after 60 minutes, it may need to cook for another 10 minutes, depending upon how it looks.)
11. When finished cooking, remove from the oven and let stand for about 5 minutes.

Here's some pictures of the lasagna that I made.

Partial first layer (uncooked)

Another layer (uncooked)

Cooked lasagna

Our meal