Lazy Lasagna - so easy and so good

I love having lasagna for dinner but hate making it. This is a great way to make a nice lasagna dinner without the hassle.

You only need three ingredients - Spaghetti sauce, frozen Ravioli (I like beef filled) and Mozzarella cheese. As far as exact amounts there aren't any.  Just use what you need for the size of pan you are using.  Tonight I used a  9 x 13 pan so I used two bags of frozen Ravioli.

I do like to make my own sauce because I like to use my home canned things.  Tonight I used a pint of stewed tomatoes and a pint of tomato sauce from my pantry.  I looked through my fridge and used up some things from there.  I used some zucchini, mushrooms, onion, minced garlic and a yellow bell pepper.  I also added some basil, oregano and parsley from my herb garden.  I put it all in my little pressure cooker and cooked it for 10 minutes. I love using my pressure cooker because it only takes 10 minutes but tastes like it cooked in a slow cooker all day.  I don't measure anything I just toss it all in there.  It turned out great.  If you don't want to make your own sauce just grab a jar of store bought sauce. Using already made sauce will save time too.

 So now all you do is spray the bottom of a pan with non-stick spray and put a little bit of sauce over the bottom.  Then line up the little frozen Ravioli.  Don't thaw them either, there is no need to. Just line them up in nice little rows.

  Now you cover them with sauce and sprinkle cheese over them.   

   

Continue to layer the Ravioli, sauce and cheese until you have as many layers as you want.  For this 9 x 13 pan I used two bags of Ravioli. Each layer used 24 pieces and I got four layers from the two bags.  Leave enough sauce and cheese to cover the top of the final layer.

Final layer covered with sauce and cheese.

Bake it in an oven at 350 degrees until it's hot and bubbly throughout.  This large pan took about 50 minutes. It looks delicious!  And as you can see from the serving on the plate it has all the layers you would expect from a regular lasagna.  

Hot and bubbly!

Served with a salad makes a wonderful dinner!

Serve with a side salad and some garlic bread and honestly most people would never know you made it from frozen Ravioli! 

    

Blueberry/Huckleberry Jam - Delicious!

Did you know that you can use Huckleberries in any recipe that calls for Blueberries?  Well, you can.  I have a bunch of both (frozen) so I decided to mix them and make Blueberry/Huckleberry jam.  It turns out delicious.  Take a look at how much smaller the Huckleberries are than the Blueberries. I understand that in other parts of the country Huckleberries are a lot bigger than the ones we get here.

In order to get a good recipe I went to my good old trusty So Easy To Preserve book from the University of Georgia.  The recipe is easy and turns out great.

Since this recipe is only processed for 5 minutes the jars have to be pre-sterilized.  Any recipe that is processed for less than 10 minutes must have the jars pre-sterilized.  If the processing time is over 10 minutes pre-sterilizing isn't necessary because it will take place during the 10+ minutes in processing. However, lots of people feel better if they pre-sterilize jars anytime they can.  It's ok, not a big deal it just takes extra time.  So, to pre-sterilize your jars all you have to do is put them in the canner filled with water and let them boil for  10 minutes.

This recipe calls for 9 cups of crushed berries and 6 cups of sugar.  That's it, nothing else, how easy is that?

I use a potato masher to crush the berries. Then I put them in a pot ready to put on the stove and add the sugar.

                                   

  

Once the sugar is added and you continue to stir it so the sugar dissolves you will notice a lot of liquid develop. That's perfect because you have to bring it to a boil.  Once that happens you will simply continue to cook it down slowly until it becomes thick or to the jellying point.  The thicker it gets the thicker the jam will be.

Once it's thickened up you will pour it into the hot sterilized jar, wipe the rim, put on the lid and the ring and put it in the canner.  Fill all the jars.  Once they are in the canner it must come to a boil to begin the 5 minute timing.

       

After the 5 minutes of processing remove the lid and wait another 5 minutes. That helps keep the jam from siphoning out of the jars. When you remove them from the canner, set them on a rack or towel undisturbed for 12 hours.  Then remove the rings, wash the jars well, label them and smile. You have delicious jam ready whenever you want.  YUM!