Date Night

On Friday night my husband and I had a date night. We were excited to watch the Blu Ray release of Beauty and the Beast. Okay, I was excited about watching the movie, he was just excited it was on Blu Ray.

I watched an episode a couple weeks ago of Mad Hungry on the Hallmark Channel featuring a lasagna made with Italian sausage and decided that I had to make it for our next date night dinner. Lucas loves Italian sausage and as of late has been seeking out every chance possible to eat some. I also made homemade sauce which turned out awesome. I like being able to create as many of the ingredients in a recipe as possible. Now if I could just own a cow or a goat, I could make my own cheese too!

In case you can't tell by looking at the picture, I used a LOT of cheese.

If you're already a whiz at making lasagna, you can just make it the way you usually do but use Italian sausage instead of whatever meat you typically use. Lasagna is a really good dish to prepare then freeze for easy cooking on a minute's notice. A lot of cooking shows I've been watching lately talk about having food to throw together easily when those unexpected guests show up. I've yet to experience these unexpected guests showing up on our doorstep. I guess that's what happens when you live out in the sticks.

This recipe was made using a 8x6x2in dish.

Italian Sausage Lasagna

Ingredients:

• 2 Italian Sausages (removed from their casing)
• 1 lb of ricotta cheese
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup pecorino romano cheese (or parmesan)
• 1/2 tablespoon oregano (you really don't need a lot of spices since the sausages are already seasoned)
• 2  1/2 cups tomato sauce
• 1/2 lb fresh mozzarella, sliced
• 6 lasagna noodles
• Extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Break up and brown sausages in pan then transfer to paper towel lined plate to drain
3. If lasagna noodles are not precooked, boil as directed by packaging
4. Mix together ricotta and pecorino cheese with eggs and oregano
5. Lightly cover the bottom of your baking dish with a layer of tomato sauce
6. Lay down two lasagna noodles over the tomato sauce
7. Spread half of the cheese mixture on top of the lasagna noodles
8. Lay down two more lasagna noodles over top of the cheese
9. Spread tomato sauce and cooked Italian sausage over lasagna noodles
10. Spread the remaining cheese mixture over the Italian sausages
11. Lay down the final two lasagna noodles
12. Spread remaining tomato sauce over top of noodles
13. Cover top of dish with slices of mozzarella
14. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes
15. Uncover dish and bake for 10 more minutes, or until slightly golden