Submitted by Linda Palmer, Knoxville, TN

·         1 lb. ground beef

·         1 onion, chopped

·         1 large jar of Ragu – I use “chunky garden style”

·         9 lasagna noodles

·         1 8 oz. package cream cheese

·         1 8 oz. can parmesan cheese

·         1 8 oz. package grated mozzarella cheese

·         Italian seasoning

·         oregano

·         1 Tbsp. sugar (optional)

·         garlic salt

Brown the ground beef in a large frying pan with the onion.  Drain off excess grease.  Pour in the jar of Ragu and I usually just shake in a bunch of Italian seasoning and I add a lot of extra oregano and some garlic salt to taste.  Then if you like your sauce sort of sweet you can add a Tbsp. of sugar – I don’t like mine sweet so I leave it out.  Stir it all up.

Boil the lasagna noodles according to package directions.  Drain.  Take a lasagna pan and either spray it with Pam or you can use a little bit of the sauce and spread it on the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking.  Line the pan with 3 noodles.  Then I cut the cream cheese into 3rds and take a third of the cheese and with my fingers I break off little dots of the cream cheese and just evenly distribute the dots on top of the noodles.  Then sprinkle evenly 1/3 of the mozzarella cheese over the cream cheese dots.  Then I take some of the sauce and spread it evenly on top of the cheese (be careful not to use too much sauce... just a thin layer or you’ll run out by the time you get to the top layer!).  Then sprinkle 1/3 of the parmesan cheese evenly on top of the sauce (it’s a lot... but mmmm... good!) then begin the layering process again... 3 noodles, dot the cream cheese, mozzarella cheese, sauce and parmesan cheese.  And then do the layer a third and final time.

Then bake at 350 for about 40 minutes or until browning and bubbly on top.  You can put it together a day in advance and cook it the next day.  And another thing I like to do is cook it and if there are leftovers cut it into individual meal sized cubes, wrap in foil and put in the freezer.  Then, when ready to eat just pull out a cube, unwrap foil and pop in the microwave for a few minutes.  It’s really good!