What I did with the ricotta (and spaghetti sauce)

If anyone was wondering what I did with the two cups of homemade ricotta, your angst is over. I will relate what I did. Are you ready? Are you sure?

Okay, okay! Enough already.

I made lasagna. I used a jar of spaghetti sauce, fried up a pound of ground beef and onions and then layered that with the no-cook noodles and the ricotta. I topped it with some mozzarella and Parmesan. Except for the ground beef, I pretty much followed the recipe on the Barilla package.

I always add fried ground beef (with a chopped up onion) to my spaghetti sauce and then zap the whole thing for 10 to 20 minutes in the microwave. Okay, if you want to use the fancy French word, then I sautee the onion and the beef. I'm not sure what the difference is between sauteeing and frying, if any. I'll have to ask my husband what the difference is--he speaks French. I have low moisture cookware and usually don't add any fat to the things I'm cooking.

If I'm using frozen meatballs (for spaghetti, not lasagna), I just dump the meatballs and the spaghetti sauce in the casserole and stick it in the microwave.

I don't make my own spaghetti sauce. I don't have access to loads of free or dirt cheap tomatoes. I have to buy them. Buying enough to make it worthwhile to do spaghetti sauce from scratch would be cost prohibitive, here in Southern California. I like chunky spaghetti sauce that has lots of veggies in it, and then I add the beef. If you're out of lettuce or your family won't eat salad, you've got meat, veggies and carbs all in the one dish. If you have picky eaters, you can whirl the sauce in the blender so they won't know the difference. I add seasoning, of course, but I don't measure it.

Back to the lasagna. I think it came out very good. I liked the ricotta with it. When my mom made lasagna, she always used cottage cheese. It's more runny that way and you have to sit the baked lasagna in the refrigerator for a day if you want it to set up and not run all over the pan when you cut it.

I stored the whey in the empty whole milk jug in the fridge. I've been using the whey instead of milk or water when I make bread. There was about a half gallon or so of the whey left after straining.