3 cups Tomato Sauce
2 cups semolina flour
3 eggs
10 ounces spinach
2 cups cottage cheese or ricotta
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound lean ground beef
1 cup mozzarella, shredded
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mound flour and salt on a large surface and make a well in the center.
3. Crack eggs into the well and gradually incorporate flour into the eggs, adding a little water if necessary to make a firm dough. Knead well for at least 10 minutes.
4. Separate the dough into 2 pieces and roll out on the table. Cut into 13" by 3" rectangles. Repeat with remaining dough.
5. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add the spinach and cook until completely wilted, stirring often.
6. Allow spinach to cool, then mix with cottage cheese or ricotta.
7. In a separate pan, cook ground beef until no longer pink, then combine with tomato sauce.
8. Start by spooning 1/4 cup of the tomato sauce and beef mixture into the bottom of a 13" by 9" casserole dish, then top with alternating layers of the spinach mixture, the prepared noodles and finish with a layer of noodles and remaining meat sauce.
9. Combine mozzarella and parmesan and spread evenly over the top of the lasagna.
10. Bake until cheese is brown and bubbly, about 30-40 minutes.

Makes 8 servings

A friend of mine wanted to learn how to make Carrot Cake, so her and her boyfriend came over and we made cake and homemade Lasagna. Ever step of the lasagna was from scratch, including the noodles. It was my first attempt making homemade pasta from semolina flour and I'm hardly a pasta expert. Us guys went to work on the pasta while the girls made the cake. Our dough was still pretty dry after the egg had been incorporated, so we started adding a little part of water. That wasn't working too well either, so we added another egg to the whole batch and ended up with pretty much perfect pasta dough.

I was under the impression that because the noodles were fresh that they were sort of steam cook in the tomato sauce. After 40 minutes in the oven, once all the cheese had melted and browned up beautifully, they were still kind of chewy. This didn't seem to bother anyone, including me, as the rest of the lasagna was excellent and we were all pretty much starving. It was actually kind of nice to have a bit of texture to the lasagna because it didn't fall apart when it was cut, or the second you took a fork-full of it. Perhaps there's a good reason not to eat undercooked pasta that I should be aware of, so I'll probably avoid it in the future.

There are so many different ways to make lasagna, but I prefer it with at least 1 layer of spinach and ricotta or cottage cheese. A lot of the "authentic Italian recipes" I was looking at included a lot of bacon or cured pork, which is something I've never tried. A lot also involved a carbonara or cream type sauce rather than tomato. Now I'm kind of curious what "real" lasagna is supposed to taste like!