Lasagna

• 1 lb. ground round
• 1 lb. Italian sausage

Squeeze sausage out of the casings and brown along with ground beef in skillet. Drain as much of the grease as possible. Add crumbled meat to sauce to make a "meat sauce". Simmer on the stove for a few hours so that the meat has absorbed the flavor of the sauce. (Meatballs and other whole pieces of meat should not be added at this point.) After you have made the lasagna itself, you can add the meatballs, etc. to the sauce. The only reason for doing this is that it makes it easier to "get at" the ground meat in the sauce when you are assembling the lasagna.

Mix the following 3 ingredients together:

• 1 lb. ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
• about 2 Tablespoons parsley

• 1 lb. mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 1 lb. lasagna noodles
• 1/2 cup - 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Cook lasagna noodles as directed on package. Drain, separating noodles. In bottom of 12 x 9 x 2 pan, place several spoonfuls of sauce. Top with first layer of lasgna. Spoon half of the ricotta cheese mixture on top and spread to cover noodles with a layer of the cheese. (If you like a lot of cheese, you can put it on heavier, but you will probably need to use twice as much ricotta, egg and parsley. Using a large slotted spoon, scoop some of the meat out of the sauce (which has been simmering for hours...) and sprinkle it evenly over the ricotta layer, adding only a small amount of sauce with the meat. Sprinkle 1/3 of the shredded mozarella cheese on top. Sprinkle grated cheese over that. Top with a crisscross layer of the lasagna noodles and repeat the process. Top with a third and final crisscrossed layer of noodles. Cover with a final layer of sauce. At this point, you can be more liberal with the sauce. Top with remaining mozarella. Cover with aluminum foil for first 1/2 hour of baking so that it doesn't get overdone on top. Bake at 350 until bubbly (usually about an hour). Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Notes:
You can slice the mozzarella thinly instead of shredding, and place it evenly over each layer of lasagna.
Do not put too much sauce on the lower layers, since the sauce on the top layer will "seep down" and it will become too liquidy.
The same goes for the ricotta cheese. If you do, the lasagna "falls apart" and slides all over the plate when served.