Lasagna is a meal that’s comforting and reminds me of family. Even though lasagna wasn’t a meal that we had often at home, there’s still something very family-ish about it.  It’s delicious, warm and you can sort of just place it in the middle of the dinner table and let people serve themselves…family style. Another great thing about lasagna is that it’s so versatile. You can pretty much throw anything that you like in a lasagna and bake it.  That’s why I enjoy it so much.  I’m the girl that loathes ricotta cheese so I’d never put ricotta cheese in my lasagna.  Don’t get me wrong, if ricotta is your thing, please cook with it…I just don’t like the look of it.  Yes, one of my weird food ‘things’.

Anyway, the nice folks at Red Gold Tomatoes sent over some of their canned tomatoes (along with some other goodies) and some of their original recipes for me to try.  I racked my brain on trying one of their recipes or if I should attempt to challenge myself and try to make up my own. I think I did a mixture of both…maybe?  I have no idea.  I’m so tired, I can’t even see straight anymore. At any rate, I took a traditional lasagna (without the ricotta, of course) and sort of tweaked it.

I baked my lasagna as you normally would but added spinach and only using the noodles, cheese and half of some of the tomato sauce.  While that’s baking, I made the meat sauce.  When I opened the can of basil, garlic and oregano diced tomatoes, you could immediately smell the herbs – so good. You don’t always find that in canned vegetables, you know?  This was legit.

I made what I call a “quick bolognese”, which really means…well, nothing really.  I added some heavy cream to the sauce to give a delicious and creamy texture.  When the lasagna was done baking, I spooned the meat sauce over the lasagna and served it that way.

So good!

Red Gold has some other recipes on their website that are definitely worth trying.

Definitely my new-ish way of making lasagna. Just make sure you tell your guests that the meat sauce is to be served on top of the lasagna.  Otherwise, you’ll have a situation like I did with John; he thought the sauce was just extra and failed to put the sauce over the lasagna.  Ha!