Crock Pot Lasagna – I made dinner and it didn’t suck.

I am not good at cooking. I blame my short attention span but I also just think I’m lazy. I’d rather stick a prepared meal from a package in the magic cooking box and have it come out done in 3 minutes. Sure, maybe they taste like cardboard, but I don’t have to get my hands dirty or take time away from watching my soaps (ok I don’t watch soaps…mostly HGTV) in order to prepare them.

Last night, the fabulous Christy (The Write Gal) over on Momdot emailed me a recipe for Crock Pot Lasagna and since my husband was coming home from a business event today I didn’t think he’d want to worry about cooking. So I decided to give the recipe a try.

First of all I had to shop.

The ingredients for the recipe are as follows:

• 8 uncooked lasagna noodles
• 1lb ground beef
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 (28 oz.) jar of spaghetti sauce
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 (4oz.) can of mushrooms
• 1 (15 oz.) package of ricotta cheese
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Ok, so first I had to solve my first dilemma – do lasagna noodles come COOKED?  Once I sorted through that and realized it meant that you don’t need to cook them ahead of time, I searched my house for the other ingredients.  I found ground beef in the freezer, which was no surprise.  In our house my husband buys all of our meat at the local butcher shop and I refuse to go in there because of the smell.  So for me finding meat in the freezer is like a vending machine.  The food just magically appears in there, I never have to buy it myself.

Anyhow, I had to go out and buy the rest of the ingredients except for the Italian seasoning.  My husband has a cabinet full of spices, one of which was labeled “Italian seasoning” – imagine that.

Below is a list of the items (and a photo for dramatic purposes) and their prices.  Since I never buy the meat, I can’t tell you how much the ground beef is, but this should give you a rough idea of the cost of the recipe, you just need to add in the beef.  I shopped at our local store which has some prices higher than a big chain store, but I save on gas.  I usually buy generics when I can.

• Box of Lasagna noodles (uncooked, hehe): $1.89
• Jar of spaghetti sauce (26 oz. was the closest I could find): $1.99
• 1/3 cup water: FREE lol…
• No mushrooms….I have a rule against eating fungus so we are leaving those out.
• Container of ricotta cheese (15 oz.): $2.50
• Bag of shredded mozarella (2 cups): $.99 (I bought a whole bunch of these and put them in the freezer – great price)
• I also got a loaf of fresh Italian bread (it was still warm!) for: $1.99

Total spent (including the bread): $9.36 plus whatever ground beef costs.  So without the bread, I bet you could do this meal for $10 which isn’t too bad.  It looks like it will easily feed 4.

While I was setting out my ingredients, my husband came home from his event, which is a good thing for me because I had no idea how to THAW the ground beef.  Sure, I know that the magic cooking box can do it, but I didn’t want to mess it up.  So he explained to me how to do it.  Then I asked him if I needed to brown the ground beef.  He asked me what the recipe said.  I said it wasn’t clear enough.  He looked at the recipe.  Below is what he saw:

Directions from Christy:

1. Break noodles and place half in bottom of a greased slow cooker. (I spray mine with Pam)
2. Brown ground beef in saucepan and drain.
3. Stir in Italian seasoning and spread half over noodles in slow cooker.
4. Layer half of sauce and water, half mushrooms, half ricotta cheese, and then half of mozzarella cheese over beef.
5. Repeat layers.
6. Cover and cook on low 5 hours.

Not clear right?

Yeah, I’m totally incompetent.  And apparently I can’t read either.

So I managed to brown the ground beef and drain it without starting a fire.  I piece did sort of go flying across the room somehow but it was small and no big deal, I just threw it out (you thought I’d say I put it back in the pan didn’t you?)

Then I began to follow the directions and fill the crock pot with the ingredients.

And I do admit I went to look at it like every 10 minutes to see how it was doing.  I was proud I made it that far without ruining it and so I was admiring my work – over and over and over!

Below are a series of shots from the preparation and my finished masterpiece.

I did use Christy’s suggestion to spray the inside of the crock pot with Pam, but I think next time I will use Crisco or something not in a spray. It did stick to the sides a little and burn, but overall it was really good. I also think next time (yes, there will be a next time) I will make sure to get our favorite Spaghetti Sauce, Cipriani’s rather than the generic one I bought. The store I went to didn’t have it so I had to improvise. Cipriani’s is our FAVORITE jarred sauce and I know this recipe would be even better with it.

It fed the four of us with no problems and I think even if we had another adult or two eating, we could have made that work because we did have some left over.

So thanks for the recipe, Christy! I had my doubts (because of my own luck in the kitchen) but it turned out pretty darn tasty.

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