Confession: I’m not much of a cook. Christopher does most of the cooking around here (HOW did I get so lucky?!). But lately I’ve had a hankering to cook up a storm! Within the past week, I’ve made enchiladas, homemade salsa, and lasagna — and they’ve all been delicious, if I do say so myself.

I was especially excited about my lasagna, which turned out to be just scrumdiddlyumptious. I used a McCormick recipe, but made changes to it to accommodate the ingredients I had available. Here’s my recipe:

Lasagna Ingredients:

• 1 15 ounce container ricotta cheese
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 egg beaten
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 13 ounces spaghetti sauce (I used basil tomato)
• 1/4 cup water
• grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the ricotta cheese, a 3/4 cup of the mozzarella cheese, the beaten egg, minced garlic, Italian seasoning, parsley, salt, and pepper in a large mixing bowl.
3. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, pour the spaghetti sauce and the water. Mix well.
4. In an 8×8-inch baking dish*, spread about 1/2 cup of the spaghetti sauce in the bottom. Top with lasagna noodles (because of the size of my dish, I had to break the noodles up to make them fit right). Spread half the cheese mixture on the noodles.
5. Repeat with another 1/2 cup sauce and noodles, and top with the remaining half of the cheese mixture.
6. Add another layer of noodles and spread the remaining sauce on top.
7. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese and sprinkle Parmasan cheese on top.
8. Cover the baking dish with foil.
9. Bake the lasagna for a 1/2 hour. Check it to see if the cheese is melted and the noodles are tender. Keep baking until the noodles are done. Mine ended up baking for around an hour.

*This recipe makes 6 servings. I cut the recipe in half because it’s just Chris and me, but if you need to double it, use a 9×13-inch baking dish.

YUM! Enjoy this delicious lasagna!