Dan Smith
I suppose almost all of us love lasagna, but few of us have the patience or the time to put it all together. I mean, what’s not to love? Here we have pasta, three cheeses, red sauce (with or without meat), big servings (which can’t be helped), and comfort food—even though it possibly was not created in Italy, as most of us believe it to have been.
Many think lasagna is Greek (hey, pasta is Chinese!), derived from the word “laganon.” Others insist it was born in 14th Century Naples. Traditionally, the Italian version was made with a sauce containing sausage, hard-boiled eggs, various cheeses and even chicken fat.
We don’t do that anymore and what I’ll propose here, has no meat at all (though you can throw it in at your heart’s content, depending on your preference). Making lasagna is not a sprint—which usually defines my cooking—but a slog of slicing, dicing, grating, mixing, boiling, sautéing and baking. It takes a while, though the actual time in the oven is just 25 minutes or so.
And it’s worth every ounce of effort and every minute spent with the dish. If you love somebody, make lasagna for her.
Here’s how I do it:
Ingredients
- 1 package of lasagna noodles (12 of them)
- 8 cups of spinach (one bag)
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 whole clove of elephant garlic (the more the merrier)
- 1 cup of chopped onion
- 16 ounces of Ricotta cheese
- 2 beaten eggs
- ¼ cup of chopped parsley
- ¼ cup fresh basil
- 1 cup grated Mozzarella cheese
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
- 28 ounce can tomato sauce
- 12 ounce can tomato paste
Putting it Together
Get the oven going at 400 degrees and boil the noodles until they aren’t quite done (they’ll get soft in the oven when they’re covered with all the yummies). Toss the cooked noodles with oil to keep them separated.
Combine the three cans of tomato paste, sauce and crushed tomatoes in a pot where you’ve browned half the garlic in olive oil. Add all the basil and simmer for about 10 minutes. That’s the marinara sauce. Salt it if you choose.
In a skillet, sear the onions and garlic on high heat for a couple of minutes, then toss in the spinach and cook it until it’s limp. Mix that with the Ricotta, eggs, basil, parsley and half a cup of the other cheeses.
Cover the bottom of a 9-by-12 baking dish with some of the sauce and lay in the first layer of noodles that have been dipped in the marinara sauce. Cover them with filling and marinara sauce. Repeat this until the sauce, noodles and filling are all gone, about four layers. The top should have a covering of marinara sauce. Spread the Mozzarella and Parmesan liberally on top.
Put it in the oven for 25 minutes (30 if you like it really brown on top) and get ready to stuff yourself. Make room in the ’fridge for leftovers, because this stuff is heavy.
About the Writer:
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).