Dad's Lasagna

We have a guest chef for this post! My dad, who was one of my main teachers in good homemade food. The deliciousness today? Lasagna.

I would like to preface the ensuing ramble with the following disclaimer: I have nothing against white-sauce lasagna and in fact think it tastes pretty good. I like that it tends to have extra veggies, too, to somewhat offset the delicious, fatty cheesiness that is characteristic of lasagna.

However.

I don't know why everyone (Read: The frozen section of supermarkets, and some restaurants.) is so obsessed with offering white-sauce lasagna as the only choice for vegetarians, as if because we don't like meat in our lasagna we also don't like traditional red sauce in our lasagna.

Lies! Filthy lies!

Perhaps I am extra biased because, although I grew up in a meat-filled household, my family always made their red-sauce lasagna sans meat years before any vegetarians lived under our roof. Just because they liked it that way.

So today, we're sharing that family recipe that made up so many dinners growing up, and was in fact served as the main entree at my wedding! If I entrusted my wedding dinner to this recipe, you know it's gotta be good.

I normally put kitchen credits at the bottom of my posts, but since it's already in the title and the intro I'll just say right now that I can take zero credit for this recipe or even this batch. This one is totally the brainchild of experimentation throughout the years by my dad. Kudos, Padre.

Okay, enough talk. On with the lasagna!

P.S., this is the last recipe (hopefully!) with the old camera, now that Hubby found my original one. So, pardon these photos.

Okay, for real this time. Let's get down to it!

Prep Time/Cook Time: ~90 minutes

Serves: 12+

Ingredients:

9 lasagna noodles

2 lb part skim mozzarella cheese

Approx ¼ cup parmesan cheese

Sprinkling of baking soda

Sauce:

1-2 Tbsp olive oil

Approx. 1 tsp minced garlic

one 28oz can Tomato Puree

one 6oz can Tomato Paste

1-2 tsp pesto (depending on strength)

2 tsp basil

1 Tbsp parsley

1 tsp sea salt

Cottage Cheese mixture
24oz container low-fat (2%) cottage cheese
¾ cup Egg Beaters
1 tsp Black pepper
1 ½ Tbsp parsley
½ cup parmesan cheese
1-2 tsp pesto (depending on strength)

1. Marvel at all of the things you need. (and this photo is even missing a couple)

This is giving me flashbacks to making chili...which is also Dad's recipe. He likes a lot of ingredients, methinks!

2. Dad noted this in his recipe: Sauté minced garlic in olive oil for a few min on medium heat in a large saucepan. Add puree, paste, pesto, basil, parsley, and salt and simmer 25-30 min.

But this time around, it went more like this:

Start with olive oil in a large skillet over low heat.

Add in tomato puree and stir.

Next, tomato paste.

More stirring.

Garlic and pesto, next.

And onto the spices, which Padre put in a little bowl together for me so I could take nicer photos.

Parsley...

Basil...

Salt...

And, although my camera washed this out, (*Shakes fist at*) this was actually Himalayan pink salt.

And the parsley and basil photos may or may not be mixed up.

But I digress.

Throw those into your sauce.

Mix it all up.

And the ingredient that Padre adds to a lot of his tomato-based foods, baking soda.

This lowers the acidity.

Padre is a biochemist. He thinks about these things.

Stir that in, too. Cover and simmer while we move on to the next mixture.

3. Start with your base of cottage cheese.

Pour in your egg beaters. (Normal eggs work, too!)

Then the parsley. (Okay, now I know I mixed up the photos of the basil and parsley. Shh.)

Pepper...

And more pesto.

Mix it all up...

...then add some parmesan.

Padre almost forgot it and we all lamented at the idea of not having enough parmesan in this lasagna. It's serious business to forget any cheese.

(If you think I'm joking, you clearly have not met me or my family.)

Ahem.

Stir that, too.

Check you sauce and make sure to stir throughout.

"Do you want to get a picture of the swirl?" Padre asked. I did. Pretty steam, too!

He had to ask this because I was too busy taking pictures of one of my family's two cats.

Egypt, meet the internet. Internet, meet Egypt. We just call her Kid. She normally has prettier eyes, when photos are not taken with bad-flash cameras.

I was also too busy taking pictures of Stella, who has been on this blog before.

But here she is again. (You're welcome.)

Look at the widdle faaace! Who's cute? Yes, you are! Oh, you're so cute.

...Sorry, forgot you were there.

This is why Padre had to remind me to take photos.

Cook your lasagna noodles while all this animal photo-taking is going on.

Padre reminded me to get a picture of this swirl, too, although the steam refused to part for a good photo.

Once the noodles have cooked per the instructions on the box, pour them out.

Again I am tempted to make someone else cook all recipes for this blog, because I can get so many more photos with two hands and distance! And you had to see all three steps of pouring, or else you wouldn't know how to do it. This is why I'm here for you.

Rinse them with cold water to make them more easy to handle.

Padre sets them out to dry on the pan that they were boiling in. I can't argue with that method, it's pretty efficient.

Once they're cool, cut a couple down the middle for those weird-shaped sections of lasagna layering.

Lasagna layering being setting four of the noodles onto the bottom of the three-quart pan you're using, which you already sprayed with cooking spray.

Next, add half of the cottage cheese mixture and spread out flat.

I am so happy Hubby found my camera charger. I could kiss him all over again looking at these pictures and wondering how different they would have turned out had I used my original camera. Maybe next time!

Then...Cheeeeeese.

Which means adding 1/3 of the mozzarella.

Plop on half of the sauce.

Spread it evenly.

End layer one!

Begin layer two.

Add the remaining lasagna noodles.

See the half-noodle at work here, too? And that sauce at the end was covered by another half-noodle.

Where is the ninth lasagna noodle? I have no idea. I don't recall it being left over.

Padre is a cook, as well as a magician.

More cottage cheese mixture.

More mozzarella.

Last of the sauce...

And then, this time, parmesan!

And, oh yes, more cheese.

Mmm.

Slap that in the oven.

Bake at 400 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

I took pictures of random things on my parents' table in the meantime, like their Bible verse calendar.

And this adorable frog planter I got from an arts festival for my mom a couple summers ago. Hubby and I love festivals.

I feel like that's the contemplating-the-meaning-of-life look.

Oh, right. And now the lasagna's done.

*Angels singing*

I need to add here that a couple days before this, I was looking through one of my brand-new cookbooks that I got for Christmas. I came across a recipe for lasagna, started to read the ingredients, and promptly craved my dad's instead. I texted asking if he would make it and let me take pictures, too. He was a good sport and said yes. I love my padre.

In the world of lasagna, there can be only one. At least for me. And our wedding guests from this summer.

The first piece is always messy.

But they're all pretty gooey and cheesy.

That is the best kind, after all.

I would like to point out here that this recipe is pretty enormous, and you can easily halve it or quarter it if you don't like leftovers. I, on the other hand, like to stock my freezer half-full enough for the apocalypse. If you are like me and like leftovers, try freezing slices of this separately for easy single-serve meals--they make great lunches!

Enjoy!

Kitchen hacks to save time/money:

-Leave out the pesto, since it can be pricey. I think it adds a lot of subtle flavor, but I ate this for years without pesto before my dad decided to add it in, and it still tasted great.