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1
Saute bacon, onion, and garlic in hot oil for 5 minutes in a large frying pan.
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2
Add ground beef, salami, parsley, and basil and brown well.
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3
If you have enough room in your pan, add mushrooms, tomato paste, tomatoes, and water.
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4
I generally move the whole batch over to a stock pan at this point just because I don't have a frying pan big enough to hold all this.
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5
Simmer uncovered for 1 hour or until very thick.
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6
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
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7
If you're preparing this for an immediate meal, now is a good time to preheat the oven to 375F Otherwise, it is very easy to make this in advance and refrigerate it until 30 minutes before you're ready to eat it.
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8
Butter/grease a 12x9 inch lasagna or casserole dish.
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9
Combine cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, and egg in separate bowl and mix well.
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10
You're now ready to layer it all in there.
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11
It's going to go as shown below:.
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12
On the bottom, put a good layer of the tomato/meat sauce - not too thin, but not more than a third of the total amount of the sauce you have.
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13
I generally do a little less than a third of the total sauce.
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14
Put on a layer of pasta - generally, I get 12 inch long lasagna noodles that are 3 inches wide, so 3 of the noodles placed side by side is a perfect layer.
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15
Add a layer of the cottage cheese mixture - there are only going to be two layers of this stuff total, so put half of what you have in this layer.
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16
Put 1/4 pound of mozzarella cheese evenly over the previous layer.
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17
You should have 1 lb of shredded mozzarella cheese to start with, so you can just eyeball this layer as a quarter of the total amount of cheese you have.
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18
Add another pasta layer.
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19
Add another tomato/meat layer - there will one more layer of this mixture after this, so put half of what you have left in this layer.
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20
Put another layer of pasta down.
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21
Put remaining cottage cheese mixture down evenly - this will be the final layer of this stuff, so use it up.
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22
Add another 1/4 pound of the mozzarella cheese.
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23
Put down yet another layer of pasta.
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24
Layer on the remaining tomato/meat sauce - this will be the last layer of this stuff, so use it up.
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25
Finally, cover the previous layer with an even blanket of all of the 1/2 pound of mozzarella cheese you have left.
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26
(In a nutshell, the layers go like this - bottom to top: 1/3 of your tomato sauce (or a little less), pasta, 1/2 of your cheese sauce, 1/4 of your mozz.
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27
cheese, pasta, 1/2 of remaining tomato sauce, pasta, remainder of cheese sauce, another 1/4 of your original amount of mozz.
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28
cheese, pasta, remainder of tomato sauce, remainder of mozz.
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29
cheese.
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30
).
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31
Bake for 30 minutes at 375F.
