The Lasagna Compromise

I love my mom's lasagna! It is full of cheeses; it even has cream cheese in it, yummm. But Mike thinks it is too cheesy, and dislikes the cream cheese especially. Mike likes his mom's lasagna which I find doesn't have enough cheese or sauce in it and has too much meat. Because of this I didn't make lasagna for the first few years of our marriage since neither of us could agree on which recipe to make. After a while I decided we should come up with an entirely new recipe that would satisfy both of our lasagna tastes. We finally found a wining recipe that scored big points with both of us.

Serves: 9 servings
Start to Finish: 1 1/2 hours (only 20 min of this is actual prep work the rest is cooking and cooling)
Recipe By: Original recipe by Becky Ruff, with alterations to fit our tastes.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb ground beef
1 (13-oz) jar spaghetti sauce
1/4 cup water
1 egg, beaten
1 (12-oz) ctn cottage cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 TBSP dried parsley flakes
1/4 tsp each garlic powder, pepper, dried basil and oregano
9 uncooked lasagna noodles
3/4 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Grease an 8-in x 8-in baking dish.
3. In a large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain.
4. Stir in the spaghetti sauce and water.
5. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine egg, cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, parsley flakes, and seasonings.
7. Spread 1/2 cup meat sauce into the baking dish.
8. Layer with three noodles and a third of the cheese mixture, meat sauce and mozzarella cheese. (You will need to break up the noodles a little to get them to fit, but no one will notice any breaks after it has been cooked)
9. Repeat layers twice, ending with mozzarella cheese.
10. Cover and bake at 375° for 45 minutes. (Covering is important to keep the lasagna from drying out.)
11. Uncover; bake 5 minutes longer. (Just long enough for the cheese on top to cook up nicely)
12. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.