Ramblings of a Bald Man

With the Olympics over and done with, there’s not much to watch on TV anymore, with the exception of the election brouhaha.  Tonight I decided I was going to make a lasagna.  A good lasagna.

I’ve tried this in the past and it’s never been anything I’d really want to share with anybody.  One daring thing I decided to do was use pepperoni for the meat.  One reason being I had no sausage or hamburger and chicken seemed just a bit too daring.  Here’s my ingredients.

• 2 jars of Newman’s vodka spaghetti sauce
• 1 pepperoni stick (it was over a foot long)
• 2 tubs of ricotta (16 oz each I believe)
• 1 lb shredded mozzarella (man-up and shred your own)
• mushrooms (don’t know how many/much I had)
• 1 box of lasagna noodles

So the first thing you need to do with store-bought sauce is beef it up.  I’m not talking about tossing some meat in there, I’m talking about adding some herbs and spices.  I always add some garlic, oregano, and basil.  Sometimes I toss other things in there.  Prepared sauces are always too bland for me.  You should also do this in a pot on simmer.  I think the heat helps loosen everything up.

While my water was starting to boil I shredded my cheese, sliced my pepperoni as thin as possible, and then washed and cut my mushrooms.  If you have one of those egg slicer things, they work great for this.  You’ll get nice, uniformly cut mushrooms.

After the noodles were done I drained them and let em cool for a couple minutes.  Then I started putting everything together.  Some people will tell you a lasagna needs six layers, or seven layers.  I never really care how many there are.  I just try to use up all my noodles if possible.  I did noodles, sauce, mushrooms, pepperoni, ricotta, mozzarella, and then started over.  I kept doing that until I filled up my baking dish.  You should also put a hefty layer of cheese on top.

I then cooked it at 350 degrees for about an hour.  I also made some garlic cheese bread with a fresh Italian loaf, some butter, garlic, and freshly grated Romano.  That went into the oven for the last 10 minutes.

I thought it turned out pretty well and Liz was also a big fan.  Didn’t take any pictures, but we had a copious amount of leftovers, so maybe I’ll snap a picture later on.