Food shortages or not, I find myself returning from a shopping trip with a few unusual items. They re-arranged the shelves and rows at the supermarket, so I look for a desired item and sometimes pick up the closest approximation. Sometimes I am forced to try a new brand, sometimes I don't read the new package very carefully. So I wanted to cook lasagna and only had gluten free spaghetti noodles. I would never have purchased that and had bought it by mistake. But it turns out the gluten free noodles are a nice light version of a noodle and makes excellent pasta dishes - sort of "diet" versions.
This is a basic lasagna, with gluten free noodles as a substitute for normal ones, a frozen burger substituted for fresh ground beef, and sour cream substituted for ricotta cheese (turns out sour cream is better).
We have been eating bacon, because you can stock up on it, and it lasts several weeks. So I have been saving the bacon fat. One real bonus to Coronavirus cooking is frying everything in bacon fat.
Ingredients (all amounts are approximate, makes 4 servings):
1 can diced tomatoes
1 cup of store-bought pasta sauce
1 frozen hamburger (defrosted)
1 cup sour cream
1 cup chopped mozzarella cheese
tomato sauce ingredients: onion, garlic, mushrooms, some parsley
1/2 package of gluten free spaghetti, or 1/2 package of lasagna noodles, or whatever you have
Step 1 - Prepare ingredients
- boil the noodles till soft
- prepare a fried onion, browned beef, fried mushroom. [I had some bacon fat for frying.]
Make a basic sauce by mixing those together with diced tomatoes, heating and adding spices like fresh parsley, garlic, paprika and a wee bit of Sri-Racha or Tabasco. Use a little minced garlic or 1/2 clove of fresh garlic. Add a bit of bottled pasta sauce to get that flavor. Mix the tomato sauce and fried ingredients and heat at low temp. You can add other ingredients, the point is to make a mild watery tomato sauce.
Step 2 - Layer the ingredients in a baking dish or pie plate
- preheat oven to 350
- make layers of sauce, noodles, mozzarella, sour cream [If I have nine lasagna noodles, I make use 3 layers, each with 3 noodles.]
Bake for 40 minutes.