Oh, here’s another idea: screw the lasagna, make pasticchio instead. Win awards for originality!
Pasticchio is the Greek version of lasagna: bottom layer of noodles, second layer of a brightly seasoned meat sauce (MOSTLY meat, with a little tomato mixed in, lots of onion and garlic, LOTS of basil and oregano), top layer is a thick cheese sauce.
I brown my ground beef and sausage with the onion and drain well. Besides as for fat the 2 or so lbs of cheese I use kinda makes the meat fat a mute point.
Three words:
Lasagna-Hamburger-Helper
Yum.
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Spanish Onions are yellow onions. They tend to be a little “weaker” and more bitter than white onions (at least the store-bought ones, homegrowns may be different). White and Red Onions have similar flavors (I think they’re the best), red onions are nice when you need the color.
Another suggestion: If you get the ricotta in the tubs, you’ll be fine. If you get fresh ricotta from the deli, it has a much higher water content. Allow fresh ricotta to drain through a cheesecloth for a few hours.
I brown half my mushrooms in with the meat and the other half go straight to the sauce.
One thing that adds an extra bit of pizazz to your lasanga is dotting a bit of creme fraiche on the top. I don’t know how much, maybe 2-3 tablespoons. It adds a creamy richness that can’t be beat.
German lasanga seems to be a mixture of the American and Greek version. The meat sauce is very thick and instead of ricotta cheese, they use bechamel sauce. I’ve never made it but I’d imagine you could just make an extra thick meat sauce and any good cookbook will have a recipe for bechamel (basically cheesy white sauce). And definately use the creme fraiche.
Man, I’m hungry. How long does it take Hubby to get Chinese food?
Maybe not quite in the same league as all of these gourmet Italian grandmother-type recipes, but I’ve got a recipe lying around somewhere for a delicious microwaved lasagna, very easy. Including cooling time, it’s about an hour and a half prep, but most of that is just cooking time. I’ll see if I can dig it up and post it.
If you wanted me to congratulate you on 200 posts, you’d better have saved me some lasagna.
Tater, what’s “lasanga”??
::fleeing::
Eek!! How did I spell it wrong every single friggen time? Of course, one could argue that my way makes more sense and the whole rest of the world has it wrong. 
And DRY, that’s it, no lasagna for you, Shrimp Boy! (I got your e-mail, btw).
Audrey, sorry for hijacking your thread, it’s DRY’s fault, as usual. 
Please, let us know how that lasagna turned out.
Watch it, totertate.
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And you haven’t responded yet?
**
Oh, yeah she has a leg to stand on–you should see the poor soul who she follows around, flirting with him, in thread after thread. What was his name again?
On the other hand, at least her lasanga doesn’t have special green cheese on it.
:fleeing again::
Everyone, thanks for your contributions!
OK, first of all, the lasagna went great… or it WILL go great… Papa came home, saw me slaving away in the kitchen, and suggested it might be a good idea if I prepared the lasagna for baking tonight, so I can bake it and we can eat it tomorrow night. I was too hot and tired to whine or object. So we had chow mein tonight.
BUT I did prepare and assemble it, and it was fun! I grated about six tons of cheese, made sauce from scratch (yay!), and made quite a mess of the kitchen, but it was worth it. My masterpiece is in the fridge. I can’t wait.
horowitz, I tried to go with your sauce recipe as much as possible, except I had to use pork instead of sausage. I hope the deviation doesn’t affect it much. As it is, it tastes wonderful and the kitchen smelled great all afternoon. Thanks again for passing it my way.
KimKatt, I’m definitely going to use mushrooms next time around. Thanks for the tip.
Ukulele Ike, tried to get veal, but alas… I did get pork and beef, though. And the pasticchio sounds good! Thanks for passing it on.
Jack Batty, we had Lasagne Hamburger Helper in the cabinet. Ordinarily I like the stuff very much, but since I was trying to make the stuff from scratch, I felt obligated to ignore the thing.
JoeyHemlock, the only yellow onions we have here are Maui yellow onions. I used a small one. Again, I hope the substitution works.
The ricotta I got was in a tub, and it was mixed with herbs and stuff. It smelled pretty good. I used it between the bottom layer of noodles.
lee, tater, thanks for keeping the tips coming.
Chronos, please do pass it on! I sometimes live for weeks by the microwave. Hey, I’ll bring it to your next post party!
sigh And DRY, if you want some, get your butt over here. I invited everyone. As Rich Eisen often says during baseball highlights, “Those who are late do not get fruit cup.”
tater, no apologies needed. I know DRY and his MO. So tell me, what’s with this Shrimp Boy thing? Is it something I can use against him?
Here’s a bit of chefly advice for next time:
If you put vegetables in your lasagna, you will get better results if you cook them before you assemble the dish. Especially if it’s a veggie that throws off a lot of moisture, such as mushrooms, zucchini, or spinach. If you don’t, you run the risk of your lasagna being slithery and unable to hold its shape. (note: using no-boil noodles, which absorb more moisture than ones you boil first, will alleviate this problem somewhat, but it’s still better to cook your veggies first.)
Sauté mushrooms in a little butter or oil over high heat until they release their liquid, then cook dry again. Sauté fresh spinach until it just wilts, then place it in cheesecloth and squeeze out as much moisture as you can.
Other veggies can be cooked until crisp-tender and then drained in a colander, etc. You should also drain the ricotta or cottage cheese.
Good going. I slept through MY 100th party.
Check it out: My friends were good (and bad) to me.
Fanny May is 100 today! (and feels like a nap…zzz)
(Don’t worry about lasagna. It’s one of the most trouble-tolerant dishes. It may taste different if cooked too long or short, or if you forget a seasoning, but it’s still goood.)
Excellent point from Chef Troy (no surprise there!) about the water content of the casserole.
Something I wanted to mention earlier, though…Hope you cooked your sauce down nice and thick. Cutting time in that department’s a mistake, as the sauce tends to separate back into its juice-and-tomato state during the baking, leaving you with a goopy bottom and high-and-dry fruit in the upper storeys.
thanks for the compliment, Uke. I think you’re wonderful too.
I especially love the quaint, pseudo-British way you spell “storey.” Makes me want to set my crumpet down and pinch your cheek… wink
And aren’t you a cheeky monkey for suggesting that Audrey has a goopy bottom? Not the sort of information she would want bandied about on the boards, I’m sure…
ducks and runs
Chef Troy…dashing, intelligent, one helluva good cook.
But nobody loves a copyeditor!
(I typed it first as “stories,” then made an executive decision to change it, driving home the point that I was using a trope, in case folks would read the word in its literal form as a lie or tale. One must be very careful with text; the pen is mightier than the sword, y’know.)
Audrey, I’m sure your bottom is firm enough to bounce nickels off of. Checking back to the OP, it looks like lasagne isn’t a major part of your daily diet.
(Phew! Handled THAT one deftly!)
Last night I tried a new recipe…Awhile back I was looking for something a little different to do with canned salmon, when I came across this one. It kind of kills two birds with one stone because it also uses eggplant which I love but have a tendency to only fix 2 or three ways, just like canned salmon. It turned out pretty good. I added a couple of seasonings it didn’t call for because the recipe called for no herbs at all. I pulled it from some recipe site on the net. It was called Eggplant and Salmon Gratin. It really turned out to be more like a casserole and was a little watery. I can figure out how to fix that next time. But the dish itself was rather tasty. Low in fat too.
Needs2know
Uke:
I’m sorry to have tweaked you. (besides, I said I liked it…) And I know nobody loves a copyeditor…at least until it’s time to find someone to blame because an embarrassing typo has made it into print and there are 100,000 copies of a book whose cover praises G.W. Bush as a “dedicated pubic servant.” We come in handy right about then. grin Anyway, may I reiterate my public admiration of you and your literary strength? (after all, one of these days I’m going to finish this book…) wink
Needs2know: Eggplant is one of those vegetables that will throw off a lot of moisture if you don’t drain it. The best way is to slice the eggplant thickly, rub both sides of each slice generously with salt, line a colander with the slices, top with a bowl that fits in the colander fairly snugly, and weight it down with something heavy like 4 cans of food or a couple of bricks. This will not only remove excess moisture but will also prevent the eggplant from being bitter. (brush off the remaining salt before using.)You can also try using a larger pan and spreading the gratin over a bigger area, which will facilitate loss of moisture.
And remember, there’s nothing that can go wrong in the kitchen that you can’t fix with more butter!