Christ the Lord is Risen Today!!!! Homemade Lasagna!



Our Easter was wonderful! We had Easter here this year, and it was an Italian feast! I made a  big pot of sauce, with meatballs, sausage, and braciole, along with Lasagna, and a most delicious salad. 

 I prepared the meal the day before, since I had to be in church by 7:40 am, on Easter Sunday morning.  We didn't get home until 12 noon, and my family all came by 1pm, whew!

It was a busy morning, but so worth it, being organized,  getting all the cooking, cleaning, and even the table set the day before, made life so much easier for me.  Doing all this the day before helped me to enjoy our Easter Sunday morning at church, without the stress of running home to cook.  Our church has a beautiful festive Easter Sunday morning service, with all the Easter hymns, it was truly wonderful!

Here are a few pictures from our Easter Sunday!

My family all dressed for church!

Hubby and Me!

Davey and me, and my Easter table all set!

My new Rooster dinner dishes, I found at a garage sale....so cheap!

My Lasagna......so YUMMO!

My sister-in-law Beth's cake pops!  So YUMMO!

My Mom's pound cake...aka Aunt Betty's Pound cake!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures, it really was a most wonderful Easter celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord, and spending time with my family! 

Here's a recipe for my Lasagna, I encourage you to make your own sauce, if your going to take the time to make Lasagna, take the extra time to make homemade sauce too, here's my recipe. Just put a pot on in the morning, by the afternoon it will be ready for you to make the Lasagna.

Lasagna

1 box Lasagna noodles
1 32 oz container of Ricotta Cheese with 1 TBS parsley mixed in
1 cup Parm cheese
1 lb Mozzarella cheese shredded or more and reserve about 1 cup for topping after baking
About 5 cups of homemade sauce or jar sauce, whatever is easier for you!

HINT:  I don't boil my noodles.  I use very hot tap water instead.  Follow these simple directions: In your very clean kitchen sink, put the noodles in a 9x13 casserole dish, and run very hot tap water to fill the dish.  Let the noodles sit for 10 minutes.  After 10 mins, drain the water, the noodles will still be hard, it's ok, because the sauce, and cooking in the oven will soften the noodles.

After your noodles are soaked, drain, and spray a 9x13 dish with veggie spray, spread about 1 cup of sauce on the bottom of the dish, add 4 or 3 noodles going across the dish, and one noodle going down to fill in the gap.

All depends on how wide and long your dish is, but this is how I do it.

Spread about 1 cup of ricotta cheese, and then about 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese a sprinkling of parm cheese, and top it off with about 1/2 cup of sauce. Do about 3 more layers, until all the noodles are used up, ending with noodles, and then sauce for the topping.

If you're going to eat this right away for dinner, then cook in a preheated 350 covered oven for 1 hour. After the hour, sprinkle about 1 more cup of shredded mozzarella cheese, and put back in the oven to melt the cheese, I like to put it on boil for 2 minutes to get the cheese all melted, but you'll have to watch it, and don't let it burn! Take out of the oven, and let sit for 40 minutes, you want it to firm up!

If you're going to eat it the next day when your company comes, right after putting the lasagna together put it in a preheated 350 oven covered for 20 minutes, then take out and let cool.  Put it in the fridge.  The next day, cook it for 45 mins to 1 hour. Top it with the shredded mozzarella cheese, and put back in the oven to melt the cheese.  Take out of the oven  and let sit for 40 minutes again.  Lasagna has to sit to firm up, if you eat it right out of the oven you will have a big soupy mess!!!!  Enjoy!