Lazy Slut Lasagna

Ok, I'm sitting here at laptop heaven, glass of Reisling in hand (it was all that was left from the blueberry wine debauchery of the recent past) and waiting for a very delicious lasagna to bake itself happy in my oven.  True that I never miss a meal, and look same, but I am hungry for this tonight and I thought I'd share this recipe.

I don't particularly care for Racheal Ray of the Food Channel, way too damn perky for me, but she has the right track on food prep for dinner for this working girl.  If one has an adequate amount of adult beverage consumed, she can almost be tolerated.  But I digress.  I'm fixing Lazy Slut Lasagna.

This derives from  Italian origins, the puttenesca sauce.  The Food Network Encyclopedia of Food states:

 "...[a]dish on a menu described as alla puttanesca signals that it's served with this sauce. The name puttanesca is a derivation of puttana, which in Italian means "whore." According to one story, the name purportedly comes from the fact that the intense fragrance of this sauce was like a siren's call to the men who visited such "ladies of pleasure.."

Well, wishing to enhance my already wonderful reputation here, I shall provide you with my version of it. 

Lazy Slut Lasagna

One box of oven ready lasagna noodles         One jar of prepared pasta sauce     One medium sized eggplant      One 8 ounce jar of ricotta cheese         One egg    However much parmesean cheese you deem necessary   Shredded  or Sliced Mozarella  Garlic powder  Basil   Oregano  One rectangular cooking pan.

You can peel that eggplant or not, slice it about 1/4 inch thick, add salt and water to halfway and microwave  those slices for 5 or 6 minutes.  Meanwhile, heat the oven to 400 degrees and put in a cookie tin for a base.  Mix the ricotta, the egg and parmesean cheese in one bowl and the pasta sauce with the spices in another bowl.  At this point you can add any weird stuff to the pasta sauce, tonight I added some steamed onion, celery and andouille sausage (don't ask, it was there). 

Ok, we start layering.  First, pasta sauce, very thin, then enough noodles to almost cover, (that stuff expands!) then a layer of ricotta, topped with eggplant and a sprinkle of freshly grated parm if you have it, otherwise, jarred. Next, noodles, topped with lots of sauce and more eggplant or if you have other fresh vegtables like mushrooms or zucchini, then noodles, ricotta, cheese, and top off with final layer of noodles.  Top off with a dollop of sauce and parm.  Cover tightly with aluminum foil and place on the cookie sheet. Bake for 50-55 minutes, take out and carefully pull off the foil.  Add lots and lots of mozarella and put back in, uncovered for 10-15 minutes.  Let it set cooling for at least 15 minutes. 

I didn't say this was fast, but it's easy and so delicious.  For all the lazy sluts amongst us, (and I appoint myself queen in this castle) this will send out that siren's call!