The Best Lasagna Ever - Easily

Ugh!  Recipes!  Mine are tattered and torn, falling out of my recipe book.  There are torn out magazine pages stuffed in between pages and several stacks of print outs from my searches of All Recipes trying to find the best version of whatever it was at the moment I had a craving to make.  That doesn't happen often around this house.  I am not crazy about cooking.  There are so many steps.

• Make a menu
• Make a grocery list
• Get to the grocery store - with or without children (which is a HUGE difference)
• Find the grocery list in my purse - hopefully or run back to the car and hopefully find it there or worse come to worse, try to remember all that was written on that list that I left on the table.
• Accumulate all the groceries for said menu (as well as the snacks, milk, OJ, cat food {see previous entry} and toilet paper)
• Unload all that stuff at the register (or go to Ingles where you just wheel up the cart and they take it out.  Why haven't other grocery stores gone this route, pray tell?  It eliminates one step in the long process.)
• Pay the exorbitant amount that the young girl asks for.
• Unload the exorbitantly expensive food into the back of your car without crushing the bananas, eggs or bread.
• Again unload the exorbitantly expensive food from the back of your car into your kitchen.
• Again unload the said groceries from all the individual bags onto the counter.
• Put them all away.
• Get them all out again to cook something for dinner - which takes a whoppin 15 minutes when 5 people miraculously appear, gobble down dinner and then disappear again.  Leaving behind plates, utensils, pots and pans, glasses and crumbs to be cleared, cleaned and put away.

Alas, I am sure most of you can relate, but what I am about to share is quite a treasure.  It was discovered by my family when I was a kid in Alabama:  The Best Lasagna Ever!  It didn't have that name originally, but we knew it was good.  Marsha Odom from our church made it and brought it to every covered dish supper we had (because if she didn't. . . ).  When we moved from Alabama to South Carolina, my mother decided to try to make lasagna.  Unfortunately, we had had the best lasagna ever, and nothing compared.  So that became the goal - to find one as good as Marsha Odom's.  And we started rating the lasagnas, but none were close to "the best ever."  After about a year of trying.  Mom hunted down Marsha's address and requested the recipe that we so coveted. 

It was perfect.  It was and still is the ultimate lasagna.  It won over my husband (made him think I could cook).  To this day, he refuses to order lasagna anywhere because he says, "Nothing compares - not even worth trying it."  I recently ordered a sampler at an Italian restaurant in Greenville, and he shook his head at my silliness.  He was right.  What was I thinking???

So, here is the famous recipe - not my fault if you don't write it down:
The Best Lasagna Ever - Easily

Lasagna - Original recipe from Marsha Odom -
(alterations by Annette Hardy)
1lb ground beef (or a little more)
1 lg onion, chopped (vidalia)
2 cloves garlic, minced (hmm, have forgotten about this ingredient)
1 lrg jar Ragu Spaghetti Sauce - with Mushrooms
(I usually have to use 1/2 a jar more)
salt to taste (nope, leave this out too, figure I add enough to noodles)
(I have added chopped spinach to my sauce too, and that is yummy.)
1/2 cup red wine
(don't usually use this, but thinking it might add a nice zing)
12 Lasagna noodles
(a few more for those that break - just regular ones)
12 oz carton small curd cottage cheese (yes, I have tried all the low fat and no fat and all that, but for the few times a year that I make this, I think I'm stickin to the real thing and I use about 16 oz.)
1 Tbsp parsley (I just dump some in, probably more than 1 Tbsp)
2 eggs beaten
16 oz shredded Mozzarella cheese
(yes, I probably use twice that amount too)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (again I use the whole container - Marsha must have had a smaller 9 X 13 pan than I have.)

1. Saute onions and garlic in small amt of oil.  Add hamburger and scramble until done (or throw it all in together - no oil, drain off extra oil at the end.)
2. Add spaghetti sauce, salt and wine - bring to boil - simmer 1/2 hour (or however long the next steps take you)
3. Cook noodles according to pkg directions, drain and rinse in collander.
4. Combine cottage cheese, eggs and parsley in a separate bowl.
5. Assemble in the following order:
1. Little sauce on the bottom (inside) (yes, this was in my mother's handwriting and she would write that because my brother would be the one to kiddingly put it on the bottom of the pan or worse) of a 9 X 13 pan
2. Place 4 noodles on bottom (of pan) (see?) overlapping
3. Spoon 1/3 meat sauce over noodles
4. Spread 1/2 cottage cheese mixture over sauce.
5. Sprinkle not quite 1/2 mozzarella cheese
6. And 1/3 Parmesan cheese over top of that.
7. Repeat with 4 noodles, 1/3 meat sauce, 1/2 cottage cheese, 1/2 mozzarella and 1/3 Parmesan
8. Last 4 noodles, remaining sauce and parmesan - (then finish with about 1 cup of mozzarella.)
9. (Best if made the morning of or the night before baking.)
10. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes - let stand 15 minutes before cutting.  (Wonderful as leftovers.)

Well, talk about steps - that's a Lot of steps!  I guess this is the one recipe that I truly have memorized.  You'd think that by 41 I'd know others by memory, but alas, my brain fails me, but has been faithful to remember this one - this very important ONE. 

Now I'm hungry, but wasn't planning on making lasagna tonight. 

Murder Mystery in the Hardy Household

We woke this Saturday morning to feathers strewn across the house.  The suspects aren't talking.  They aren't even acting strange, but something is askew.  The body or the bones have yet to be found.  I am not looking forward to that discovery. 

Suspect Number 1:  Number 1 only because he has been here the longest, and he is the biggest.  Rex has been with us for almost 4 years now.  He is our adorable - and sometimes ferocious (when the UPS man comes with a package, or when the doorbell rings) Boykin Spaniel.  Our mailman has the perfect reaction to Rex.  He laughs at his "ferociousness" and walks right past him and tells him he is doing such a good job.  Boykin's are bred to be bird dogs.  That's a big strike against him, but in my observation, the birds have teased him more than he has bothered the birds.

Suspect Number 2:  Suspect Number 2 has been with us almost 2 years now.  Mollie was a teeny tiny feral kitten found near our neighborhood pool.  She was a wild thing - all claws and hisses.  (as opposed too hugs and kisses)  To hold her we had to wrap her carefully in a towel.  Our justification to keeping her was that the previous winter a family of mice that had taken up residence in our cozy garage . . .  Well, at 6 months, puberty hit and our kitten was on her way to being a mama.  Resulting in:

Suspect Number 3:  Ollie was one of three kittens that were born a year ago.  (Yes, I know Mollie and Ollie - very confusing and for me almost embarrassing, but I let the boys each name one kitten and Will named this one saying:  "This way if it is a boy or a girl, it can keep its name.")  Ollie is our most probable suspect.  Last fall she discovered grasshoppers - those big ones.  They fascinated her, so she brought them inside - alive - and played with them for hours until one of us found it (usually me) and I would holler for a boy to come toss the nasty bugger outside.  This spring we have found presents of baby birds, baby bunnies, moles and most famously - a few snakes - yes, she brought them inside to play with again.  Somehow this wasn't what I was thinking of when I thought it would be a good idea to get a cat to take care of the rodent problem.  Mouse traps would have been much easier.

Now for the events of the day before the distressing discovery:

It was Friday.  I knew they were running low on food, but it was late that night that they officially ran out.  It should be noted that Suspect Number 1 has a pesky habit of sneaking the cat food as if it is a treat.  Not wanting to run to the grocery store just for cat food/dog snack at 11:00 at night, I gave them the next best thing - Cheerios!  As I am sure you would have suspected, they turned up their noses.  But Rex didn't - he thought it was a great idea.  Well, they are in no way starving - a little fast wouldn't hurt either of them, so we hoped for the best and went to bed.

I vaguely remember hearing something going on in the living room, but none of it sounded alarming enough to come check it out.  And now that is all I can remember - that maybe something was happening.  Before breakfast I made my way to the store and bought 4 (count them) 4 bags of cat/dog food. 
That was Saturday.  It is now Monday and no more evidence has been found.