Cook It From Scratch: Lazy (Kind of) Lasagna

Sometimes you decide you want lasagna. And sometimes you forget to buy the cheater "no cook" noodles. Then sometimes you don't feel like putting all the ingredients in perfect layers because your cooked noodles are sticking together. So sometimes you make lazy lasagna instead.

Here's what you need:

Pasta

2 eggs

1.5 cups flour

3 tablespoons water

dash of salt

teaspoon of olive oil

Sauce

1 large can of plum tomatoes

1 large can of tomato paste

6 large basil leaves

1/4 cup red wine

3 garlic cloves minced (chopped super tiny)

1/4 cup chopped onion

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Mix

1 zucchini chopped

1 red pepper chopped

1 small container of ricotta cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

First make your pasta. Ok, if you're really lazy you can use some egg noodles, the wider the better. But I didn't buy those and this blog is "Cook It From Scratch" so we are making our noodles.

Mix the eggs, flour, water, salt and olive oil until it forms a ball of dough. Too powdery? Add more water. Too sticky? Add more flour.

While it's mixing, take a big pot and cook the onion and olive oil on medium-low heat until the onion starts to soften. Then turn the heat down just a little and add your minced garlic.

Now add both cans of tomatoes. Use a potato masher to squish the plum tomatoes.

Then add the basil, red wine (only cook with something you'd drink and then you can have a glass while you cook!) Mix it together, taste it, add some salt and pepper to taste. Start slow, you can always add more salt but you can't take it away...unless you add more of all of the other ingredients and just make a lot of sauce.

Mix it all together and turn the heat to the lowest setting. Cover.

Now knead your dough on a floured surface. It's like performing CPR and is very hard to take a picture of. Use both hands (ignore the fact that I'm only using one so I can take this picture) press down, fold the dough in half, and turn 90 degrees. Repeat this CPR step for a couple minutes.

Then let the dough sit for a few minutes. Check on your sauce. Taste it.

I have an amazing stand mixer with a pasta attachment. If you don't have one. Use a rolling pin. Roll it out as thin as you'd like. Then use a pizza cutter to cut the dough.

This is the cool pasta attachment. I rolled it through settings 1, 3, then 5.

Here's what it looked like after cutting it.

Let the dough sit and chop your red pepper and zucchini.

Check on your sauce again.

You can buy shredded cheese, but look at the ingredients-it's not just cheese. I use my food processor to grate a block of parmesan, much easier than by hand and it's real cheese.

Preheat your over to 350.
Mix egg, parmesan, and ricotta together. This is your "mix."

Squishy.

Here's what the pasta looks like uncooked and supervised by my sous chef.

Cook your pasta. You don't want to cook it for too long because it will get too squishy. Once it's cooked, put all of your ingredients together in a pan and mix it together. This is why it's called lazy, you don't stack all the ingredients, you just dump them in. In actual lasagna, you put a layer of sauce then noodles then mix then veggies and repeat and repeat and repeat. That takes a lot more time and sometimes the cooked noodles stick together and don't want to work with you.