I'm generally lasagna obsessed, but I think I just made my best ever.

[Fran Kubelik]

For the sauce, I started with a mirepoix (those of you lazy like me will be thrilled with the new Trader Joe's pre-chopped mirepoix in the produce area!). Once the onions, celery and carrots were carmelized (about 25 minutes) in the olive oil, I added heirloom tomatoes from the farmer's market. I cooked until the whole thing was soupy, then added about 2 tbsp of tomato paste. Let it simmer a bit, then added a cup of wine (shiraz is what I had on hand). Addded 6 cloves of minced garlic and about a tsp of salt at this point too.Cooked it down until I figured most of the alcohol had evaporated, then blended it all with my hand blender. Added a pound of browned ground beef and some heavy cream and left it simmering while I tackled the ricotta mixture.

The ricotta mixture was pretty standard, but I used fresh, locally produced, hand-scooped ricotta this time. It even came in a groovy metal container. Two eggs, a cup of parmesan, a bunch of fresh ground pepper and some fresh parsley rounded it out.

This was kind of a "use-up-what-I-have-in-the-kitchen" kind of meal, and since I was low on mozzarella, I replaced the middle layer of mozzarella with about 6 slices of provolone. Speaking of mozzarella - I have turned away from using the fresh stuff as it tends to add to the soupiness of the lasagna. I used the generic organic Trader Joe's shredded kind on top of the lasagna, and added some parmesan on top as well.

That's about it. I used Barilla no-boil lasagna.

That's about it. The sauce was incredibly tasty, the ricotta was smooth and delicious, and for once the lasagna wasn't too soupy. I just ate some of the leftovers for lunch....and couldn't even wait til noon to get to it.

[Redstone]

1. Sounds great in general, especially because I'm a Provolone nut. But doesn't

the Provolone get gummy?

Redstone

[Fran Kubelik]

2. Nope not even a little gummy. It came out really well. Great textures.

[Tab]

3. Sounds good. In this case it doesn't matter, but

if you were cooking another dish that called for a wine or liqueur, if you do the alcohol separately for a little bit, it'll burn off the alcohol but leave the flavor. Too many people often toss in the wine or whatever and let the whole thing cook, but it ends up with that sharp I-can-identify-the wine, which overpowers many of the other flavors. Probably a major mistake when making quick sauces, but easily remedied.

I doubt you suffered from that problem because of how you said you prepared it - there was enough liquid only cooking (except for the mirepoix, and tomatoes, of course) for a long enough time that it wasn't a problem.

I love lasagna. I myself don't care for ricotta cheese though, even though I understand that probably 90+ % of the recipes call for it. But that's just me. It reminds me too much of cottage cheese, I think.

The parmesan was a nice touch, I think. Must have added a nice tang to it.

It'd be interesting, as a future variation, to add some Hungarian Paprika to it, maybe give it a more eastern european taste. Just thinking of it now, but it strikes me as an interesting experiment.

- Tab

[housewolf]

4. Yummm... this sounds teriffic!

I love lasagna, been craving making one for a while now... I'm drooling over yours!

[susanna]

5. IMHO, lasagna is always better the next day.

Your recipe sounds fantastic. I'm really lucky in that at Detroit's Eastern Market there is a local purveyor who sells bagged mirepoix. He's my bestest friend. I'm going to give your recipe a try.

How much ricotta did you use? I usually use one egg to 16 oz., but you have two; if that would work better I'd love to try it. Thanks for sharing your success! :-)