Cheesy and Meaty Lasagna

My first lasagna EVER! Congratulations to me yay!

I was afraid and intimidated to make this pasta dish, until I decided to give it a try and if it will be a success, this will be my son's birthday handa. And if i fail, i will go back to my usual pinoy style spaghetti. E buti na lang successful! hahah! So it's final...this will be Joey's birthday pasta.

But I will never ever use the San Remo no cook lasagna noodles! The 45minutes cooking time was not enough to make the noodles soft. It felt like chewing uncooked rice...yuck! I strictly followed the cooking suggestion in the box..."to make sure that every pasta will be covered by the sauce to absorb the moisture". But no!!! I returned the lasagna in the oven and baked it for another 25 minutes, and left it inside the oven for another 10 minutes so the heat can still penetrate to those uncooked portion. Waste of power (lagot ang electric bill) and energy!

The sauce was great...cheesy and meaty! ♫♫That's the way a-huh a-huh I like it a-huh a-huh ♫♫! hahah!

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:
2 boxes of 250g oven ready lasagna noodles. I used san remo...haay..
For the Meat Sauce
1/2 kilo ground beef
5 cloves garlic
2 small onions
3-4 tbsp olive oil
1 can of button mushroom, sliced
1 cup tomato sauce
1 cup (approx) tomato paste
1 1/2 cups broth, I used chicken broth
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste
a teaspoon of sugar, to neutralize the acidity of the sauce (optional)

For the White Sauce
1/2 cup of butter
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 cup milk
1 cup cream of mushroom
2 cups of water
salt to taste
1/2 cup of hot water

Grated quickmelt cheese
grated parmesan cheese(optional). I just happened to have a near expiry parmesan, so I used it na lang.

Procedure:

Meat Sauce
1. Saute garlic and onion in olive oil, until onion turned transluscent.
2. Add the ground beef, break them into pieces. Let the meat "sweat" and turn into light brown.
3. When all the juices evaporated, add the basil and oregano and chopped mushrooms. Saute for another 2 minutes.
3. Stir in the tomato sauce, tomato paste and broth. If the sauce is too thick for you, add water.
4. Season with salt and pepper. Taste. Add sugar if you want to lessen the acidity, which I did.
5. Simmer for 5 minutes or less. Set aside.

White Sauce
1. In a pan, over low heat, melt butter. Add the flour. Make sure to constantly stir the mixture with a wire whisk to avoid lumps.
2. Once the mixture is paste-like, add 2 cups of water little by little while continuously whisking the mixture.
3. Stir in the milk and cream of mushroom.
4. Season with salt.
5. Simmer until slightly thick.
6. While it is cooling, it might become thicker. You can add hot water to thin the sauce a bit.

Assembly
**note: I used a 12x8x2 inches baking pan.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Pour enough white sauce to cover the bottom of the pan.
2. Lay about 3-4 noodles in the pan. They must be slightly overlapping.
3. Spread the meat sauce, making sure that the noodles will be well covered.
4. After the meat sauce, Spread a thin layer of the white sauce.
5. Sprinkle the grated cheese.
6. Repeat the procedure until all the noodles have been used up. The layering must end with the white sauce. Then sprinkle generously with grated quickmelt cheese and parmesan cheese.
7. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 45minutes-1 hour.
8. Remove from oven and cool a bit for 15 minutes before serving, so the pasta will stay firm and nice looking heheheh!

Enjoy!!!