Mini-Lasagna's (pictures to come later)

As promised I made the mini-Lasagna's last night. I was up till 1 a.m. making these because I had to get a late start on them :(

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/mini-lasagna-cups.html

If you click on the link it will take you to Kevin and Amanda's website which lists the original recipe for the mini-Lasagnas. You can use their version or you can use my modified version below. The only thing I would say is to make sure you use the wonton wrappers as actual lasagna noodles will dry out and get hard in the oven baking process. I discovered this when I tried it last night!

1 lb lean ground beef
1 lb sausage
1 cup spaghetti sauce
1 1/2 cups part skim ricotta cheese
24 wonton wrappers
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
2 toes minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp. Italian Seasoning

You'll notice that I took out the pepper and kosher salt in my modified version. My reasoning for this is that canned spaghetti sauce has a LOT of sodium already in it and in place of pepper I used minced garlic and some dried Italian seasoning to kick up the flavor. Cause you know I'm Cajun and we can't leave ANYTHING alone lol. The recipe calls for 1lb of sausage Kevin and Amanda used Jimmy Dean pork sausage..I say no! Schnucks has an excellent selection of ground Italian sausage and pork sausage. Take your pick of these two sausages and you will be much happier with the end result. Just to be fair I did try the meat sauce with Jimmy Dean sausage and it wasn't bad but it was very bland. So if you're afraid of spices or seasonings go ahead and use the Jimmy Dean sausage but don't say I didn't warn you. Feel free to use any kind of shredded cheese you have on hand but I stuck with the traditional Mozzarella cheese.

How to cook this:

First get a big wide skillet for browning the meat. Normally I boil my ground meat in a pot of water to get rid of the grease but in this case we're cooking the sausage and the hamburger together and you want that grease from the sausage to flavor the hamburger. Go ahead and dump the ground meat and the sausage into the skillet together and mash it all up to start browning. While that's heating up and cooking go ahead and mince the two toes of garlic and set aside. Next go ahead and open the can of spaghetti sauce or jar whichever your favorite sauce is. I used Schnucks brand spaghetti sauce the Garlic and Herb one. In case you haven't noticed my family likes garlic. Ok now go check on your meat, if it's close to being done now would be the time that you want to toss in the minced garlic and the Italian seasonings, so go ahead and do that and mix it all up. Depending on how strong a garlic taste you want depends on when you toss it in. If you toss the garlic in early a lot of the flavor will cook away, toss is in toward the end if you want a stronger garlic taste. Let that simmer together for a few minutes then pour in your spaghetti sauce and mix together! Yum!! Then set aside and LETS GET READY TO ASSEMBLE!!!!

Preheat your oven to 350.

Next get out your muffin and grease the pan. I used Pam spray because it's easier and neater and cleaner then regular margarine or butter. Once greased place the wonton wrappers inside the muffin pan and use a regular small spoon to spoon in your cheese. If you have a small melon baller you can use that but I found a regular kitchen spoon works just as well. Next spoon a small amount of your meat sauce on top of the cheese and layer another wonton wrapper on top. Repeat with the cheese and meat sauce and then top with whatever shredded cheese you chose to use. Do this for all of them and then place in the oven and cook until the cheese melts.

Pull out and let stand for about 5 minutes or until cool enough to handle by hand. These slide out of the muffin pan extremely easy and bonus you don't need to dirty a dish to eat these :-)

RATINGS:

Gavin and Magnus both gave this recipe two hands up! Gavin loved that he didn't have to use a fork and Magnus just loved eating it.

Phillip gave it a 7 out of 10
Roxanne's rating is pending her trial taste tonight.


WHY I LIKE THIS RECIPE:

I love versatile recipes and this one is hands down the most versatile I've seen outside of Jamabalaya. I loved how easy it was to cook and assemble. The bonus of this recipe, other than it's portability, is the left over meat sauce. I don't know about the rest of you but when I can stretch one meal out into three or four I feel like a SuperMom and a SuperWoman all rolled into one and this recipe lets you do just that! With the leftover meat sauce you can either refrigerate it or freeze it to use later for spaghetti or bonus you can boil some lasagna noodles and make regular lasagna with the leftover meat sauce and ricotta cheese.
Since I was already in the kitchen and pretty slap happy by now I decided to use my two fancy new loaf pans to make two lasagne's with the leftover meat sauce and cheese. That means this one recipe yielded three dinners for my family of four. Now if my teenager had been home that would not have stretched near as far ;-)