My Standard Lasagna

HeatherFeather's Note:

This is my basic easy lasagna. I either use homemade sauce or a really good quality store bought brand. There are four types of cheese in this recipe. If you like things spicy, by all means add a bit of crushed red pepper to the sauce or use spicy sausage. If I am adding sausage, I prefer to use mild turkey sausage in this, but it tastes really good with just ground beef too.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 45 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 12

• 1 ½ lbs lean ground beef (or mix ground beef with Italian sausage meat)
• garlic powder , to taste
• 3 cups spaghetti sauce (a meat flavored version, homemade is best, but bottled is ok too)
• 1 (15 ounce) container light ricotta cheese (or small curd cottage cheese, drained well)
• 1 ½-2 cups part-skim mozzarella cheese , shredded
• 6 slices provolone cheese
• ½ cup parmesan cheese , grated
• 1 -2 large egg
• parsley , to taste
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• 0.5 (16 ounce) package lasagna noodles , cooked until just soft, approximately

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly grease a deep 9x13" casserole, spread just a couple of spoonfuls of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of the pan and set aside.
2. Brown meat in a skillet until fully cooked; drain fat.
3. Combine the cooked meat with the rest of the spaghetti sauce and a few shakes of garlic powder, heat until warmed through, about 5-10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, half of the shredded mozzarella cheese, the Parmesan cheese, the eggs, a few liberal shakes of garlic powder, parsley, salt and pepper, mixing well.
5. Place a layer of lasagna noodles in the bottom of the prepared baking dish, then pour some of the meat sauce, spreading to cover evenly.
6. Spread some of the cheese mixture on top of that, then top with another layer of noodles.
7. Repeat layers until you have used up all of your filling.
8. Sprinkle remaining mozzarella over the top, then place the slices of provolone cheese on top, leaving some gaps.
9. Cover tightly with foil and bake 45 minutes.
10. Remove from oven, leaving covered, set on top of the stove and let rest 20-30 minutes.
11. While the lasagna is resting, you can pop in a loaf of garlic bread wrapped partially in foil.