Lasagna: Cheap, easy, and healthy?

Jess, this one is for you. Protein, iron, and vitamin C. Plus, ground beef isn't as bad to handle (gross-factor) as chicken or a hunk of meat. You just put it in a pan and poke at it until its little gray crumbles.

I'm not at all an experienced lasagna-maker. I've only ever made two in my life. The first was before we went to Italy, because I had ricotta and mozzarella in my refrigerator that had to get used up. Then I had extra lasagna noodles, so I just made another one. Unfortunately, I hadn't used up all the ricotta last time and had been planning on using that, stupidly, because its pink and smelly and probably would make my stomach a little unhappy... if I even ate it in the first place. So, this lasagna didn't have enough cheese in it. Live and learn... buy fresh ricotta each time you want to make a lasagna.

I could also have made this easier by purchasing a pre-made sauce. Or just using canned tomato sauce thats unseasoned. But nooo, I have to do it the hard way. In the end, the sauce tastes better, I think, so I guess I'd recommend the 1.5 hr prep time. If you're less scatter-brained, it might go faster, or if you're more experienced in lasagna-making, but otherwise, don't do this on a weeknight. The good news is that the pieces freeze really well, and to me they tasted about the same fresh out of the oven and microwaved for lunch after being frozen for a few weeks.

The concept at least is easy. Layer sauce, noodles, and cheese until your lasagna fills the pan. Then bake for 35-40 minutes at 350F until its bubbly. I bought ready-bake noodles, since I couldn't find any other ones--you don't boil them first, you just put them in the pan. Its like magic. Or ramen. Maybe ramen is magic. We'll never know. Supposedly this cuts the preparation time in half, if you believe the box, but I don't believe that. I also put eggplant into my lasagna, because I like eggplant, and Ed didn't mind it too much. He actually didn't notice it, but I told him, and then he sort of shrugged, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, and then decided that he couldn't taste the eggplant so it was ok for it to be in there. The sauce has peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini, although really you can add whatever you want. If I'd had spinach or kale I would have tried to put that in there. So here goes...

Sauce:
1 can tomato sauce, the generic store-brand kind, not the classico or other expensive stuff.
1 can tomato chunks
1 zucchini
1 box pre-sliced mushrooms (they're cheaper than the un-sliced ones. Baby bellas)
1/2 green pepper
1 onion
3-4 cloves garlic
1 tsp rosemary, or other herbs you like to put in sauces. I recommend basil, sage, marjoram, or oregano.
salt and pepper to taste
1 pound ground beef
1/4C white wine (optional)
2 pinches white sugar

Other stuff:
1 egg
1C ricotta cheese (skim is fine)
2-3C grated cheddar (One of the small blocks, rather than the gargantuan block)
6 slices mozzarella cheese
lasagna noodles
olive oil

Start by dealing with the eggplant. Slice it into 1/4 inch (or so) slices, sprinkle both sides with salt, and let it sit for 20-30 minutes. It will ooze out most of its water and get nice and firm, and then you can rinse off the salt and squeeze out the rest of the water. That way it won't get too mushy. Preheat your oven to 350F.

To make the sauce, start by sweating the onion in some olive oil, then add the garlic. A wok is good, since you'll end up with a LOT of sauce. Once the garlic is golden-ish, add the mushrooms and peppers. Cook them for a little bit, then add the beef. Depending on how long its been living in your freezer or how little you trust the source, cook the bejesus out of it or if you trust it, cook it until its medium rare. Drain off some of the juice, and add the tomatoes, after draining their juice. Otherwise its too watery. Add the can of sauce. Add the white wine (if you're using it - makes sauces taste better, but if you don't have a bottle just sitting around waiting to be used on risotto or tomato sauce don't bother) and sugar (cuts the acidity of the tomatoes). Cook this down for a bit as you grate the zucchini on a cheese grated. If you leave the little knobby part on, its like you have a handle. Add the zucchini, and take the sauce off the heat. Its a chunky sauce. If you don't like chunky sauce... go buy a premade one. (that was much nicer than the other thing I was going to say). You'll end up using half of the sauce. Its good on pasta, too, but if you don't eat pasta as often as I do, go ahead and freeze it, it'll keep.

Meanwhile, rinse your eggplant, and put about a tablespoon of olive oil on a baking sheet. Use a slice of eggplant to smear around the oil. Get both sides of the eggplant oily, and bake the slices for approximately 10 minutes, until they're softened. As that does its thing, beat the egg and add the ricotta. If you have any fresh herbs on hand, those would be a nice addition. I didn't have any. Grate the cheddar cheese.

Time to layer the beast. Never having made a lasagna before, I wasn't sure what order I should do things in. I eventually decided to put the eggplant on the bottom (ideally, you'll take off the skins first, but I was too lazy). Then sauce, to fill in the cracks. Then mozzarella cheese, to seal it in. Then noodles. Then ricotta/egg. Rinse and repeat, and top with a thick layer of cheddar. Bake for 35-40 minutes. The cheese should be browning on top when you take it out, if not, turn on the broiler and broil it until its brown. Then comes the hard part - let it cool before you cut it. At this point you're starving, I know, but still. Let it cool.

OK, so lets get to the point here. Is lasagna cheap, healthy, and easy? I nixed the easy part, since the prep work was an hour and a half, although the concept is pretty easy. Takes too long. Although taking it out of the freezer makes it easy, so thats like the cheating way to make it easy. So how about cheap? Looking at the ingredients, we have:
Tomato sauce: $0.75
Tomato chunks: $1.00
Zucchini: $0.34
Eggplant: $1.15
Mushrooms: $2.49 (but you only use half, so its actually $1.25)
Green pepper: $1.12 (again, only using half: $0.56)
Onion: $0.89
Garlic: $0.50 for a head, you use a quarter of that, so $0.13
Noodles: $1.00
Ground beef: $5.00 (This was some of the grass-fed-Vermont-highland-cow beef, a little more expensive than you average slaughterhouse stuff...)
Ricotta: $2.89
Mozzarella, 1/4lb at the deli: $3.00
Cheddar, generic block: $3.99
Egg: $1.99/12 eggs, so $0.08

The sauce ingredients cost $11.07. Since you only use half of it, thats $5.54. So our total cost of the thing was $17.50. In an 8x8" pan, you can cut 16 slices. A normal person or a not-too-hungry-Alex will eat two slices, so a meal of lasagna would cost $2.18 (for two slices). Eh, not too bad, but not great. I wouldn't call that cheap, but I wouldn't call it expensive the way a rack of lamb is expensive. I suppose you could use less cheese. But then, what would be the point?

As for healthy, I guess this depends how lean your beef was and how much cheese you use. If you only use half the block of cheddar, I'd call it pretty healthy. I mean, there are a ton of vegetables, which is a good thing. So, it gets one checkmark! Wooo!

Oh, and I almost forgot. Tasty? DAMN STRAIGHT.