Lasagna

Here is the recipe I made for our Christmas Eve dinner.

2 pounds Lasagna noodles (You will only need about a box and a half)

41/2 cups tomato sauce (I used a sauce that I got from a friend, it contains: diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, chopped onions, garlic, basil, parsley, extra virgin olive oil, salt, red wine and black pepper)

1 pound ricotta cheese

16 ounces fresh mozzarella (you can either slice or shred)

1 pound ground Italian sausage

1 pound ground beef

1 can of black olives, chopped

3/4 cup grated Parmesan

Cook the sausage and beef together.  Drain off fat.  Boil 6 quarts of water, add pinch of salt, and cook pasta to almost done. Remove from water and shock in ice bath.  In a 10-by-14-by-3-inch baking pan or dish, pour 1 cup of tomato sauce in bottom and around sides. Layer lasagna noodles on the bottom of the pan, overlapping by 1/2-inch. Add 1/3 amount of ricotta, 1/3 amount of mozzarella, 1/3 amount of sausage, then sprinkle generously with the Parmesan, add 1/2 cup tomato sauce.  In the process of layering add a layer of the chopped black olives.  Repeat this 2 more times.   On the very top sheet, top with remaining ricotta, tomato sauce, mozzarella, and dust with Parmesan. Bake in a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven for approximately 45 minutes until cheese is nice and bubbly. Remove from oven; let sit for 15 minutes. Cut and serve immediately.  

Along with this dinner we had a side salad, garlic bread and a 2005 bottle of Castello Di Fonterutoli Chianti Classico.  

Monday Night Scramble

Tonight I actually had a plan to make meatloaf, changed my mind and made something else instead.

Here are the ingredients:
1 pound grassfed ground beef
1 yellow bell pepper (chopped)
1 small onion (chopped)
2 cans diced tomatoes
1/2 can tomato sauce
1 can artichoke hearts, drained
1 can pitted black olives, drained
1/2 box pasta, cooked and drained (I had a partial box of ziti so that is what I used)
Garlic (I used a couple of cloves since they were small)
Oregano
A dried herb mix of sun-dried tomatoes, basil, garlic, oregano, sweet bell pepper, salt
Fresh parsley

Took the onion and pepper and added it to a hot skillet and cooked until tender, added the garlic then the ground beef.  Cooked until the beef was done then added the cans of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, artichoke hearts, a little oregano and dried herb mix.  Mixed that all together and then added the pasta to the skillet and mixed it all together.  Stirred in some olives and parsley.  Topped with some fresh Parmesan cheese.

We also had a loaf of garlic bread.  There are times where we have something to eat that I didn't actually bake or cook from scratch. I have found a frozen garlic bread (baguette) made by Alexia.  It doesn't contain any ingredients that are bad and actually it contains what I would probably use to make garlic bread.