Lazy Lasagna

To make the sauce, brown the ground beef with the chopped onion. Salt and pepper generously, breaking up the beef into tiny pieces; drain. Pour in the canned tomato sauce—the amount can vary depending on how “saucy” you like your meat sauce to be. As it simmers, add more sauce if you like. Add whatever spices you like (I used oregano, dill and red pepper flakes). Be free to try different spices to suit your taste. Have fun—experiment!

Let the sauce simmer for at least an hour, more if you have the time. The longer it simmers (a low simmer), the better it tastes.

Cook the penne pasta in salted water well. When al dente, drain and leave in the pan. Add some of the sauce—no meat, just the sauce—enough to coat the pasta. Pull out two 12×9 baking pans.

Start building the lasagna, and please, you don’t have to be neat about it, it’s why I call it LAZY lasagna! Do a layer of the pasta, toss in some blobs of the meat sauce, toss in the different cheeses but save the parmesan for the topping! Put in more pasta, then more meat, then more cheese. You know the routine! When you get to the top, use the last of your cheeses and top with the parmesan.

Cover with foil and bake at 350ºF for about 20-25 minutes or until the pasta is heated through. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes or so until the top cheese is melted to gooey goodness.

I only served garlic bread with this; I was really lazy.

You can use Italian sausage in place of the ground beef. That is actually my favorite way to prepare this recipe. Experiment with the cheeses too. These are my favorites so I tend to stick with them.