When my son Wylie was younger he had a bit of an obsession with Garfield, the lazy, fat cat with a lasagna habit, which in turn led Wylie to develop his own lasagna habit. A few years ago, while working on my book, A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together , I needed an Italian pasta recipe for the chapter on St. Joseph, so I turned to Wylie for inspiration. Together he and Sweet Man (my husband Nathan,) developed the following recipe which calls for three cheeses, three meats, and three sauces – a triple threat of deliciousness that will please a crowd!
- 1 pound bacon cut into bite size pieces cooked crisp and drained
- 1 pound ground beef chuck browned and drained
- 1 pound ground pork browned and drained
- 1 cup grated Parmesan
- 3 cup shredded Mozzarella
- 1 15oz tub Ricotta cheese
- 1 24-ounce jar of your favorite prepared marinara sauce
- 1 15- ounce jar of your favorite prepared Alfredo sauce
- 1 6-7 oz jar of prepared pesto sauce
- One egg
- Prepared Italian or Panko bread crumbs
- 2 boxes lasagna noodles (We prefer the smaller square pasta sheets that have no ruffles. You probably will not use all of both boxes, but you will likely need more than one.)
- Preheat your oven to 400
- The best way to build a pan of lasagna is to first create a buffet of the various ingredients.
- Mix the cooked meats together in a large bowl.
- Mix the Parmesan and mozzarella in another large bowl.
- Put the ricotta in a third bowl and mix in the egg.
- Pour the marinara sauce into a fourth bowl (fairly good sized) and then refill your sauce jar with tap water, and mix this into your marinara sauce. (The extra water will be absorbed by the lasagna noodles, which will enter the baking pan uncooked)
- In a large lasagna pan, spread a layer of the thin red sauce, completely covering the bottom of your pan.
- Next place a layer of uncooked pasta on top of the sauce, followed by layers of Alfredo, meat, mozzarella/Parmesan, pesto, and ricotta/egg.
- Continue building layers in this fashion until you reach the top of the pan, always starting with the thin sauce
- The top and final layer should be composted in this way red sauce, pasta, red sauce, mozzarella/ Parmesan.
- Cover dish tightly with foil and place on the center rack of the oven for about 30 minutes, or until it has thoroughly cooked through.
- Remove foil, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and return to oven until cheese and bread crumbs are browned.
- Let stand for 15 minutes before slicing into portions (if you do not let it stand and cool the whole dish will fall apart into a slippery mess when you try to cut it.)
- Enjoy!
Jerusalem Jackson Greer is a writer, speaker, nest-fluffer, recent farm-gal, and author of A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting and Coming Together. She is the Minister to Children, Youth, and Families at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Conway, Arkansas. Jerusalem lives with her husband and two sons on a little farm in Shady Grove, Arkansas. As a family, they are attempting to live a slower version of modern life. She blogs about all of this and more at http://jerusalemgreer.com
Looks yummy and easy!