*adapted from Barefoot Contessa on Food Network. Ina Garten is a genius. I watch her show all the time. Her recipes are simple, classic, and delicious. The photography on the show is exquisite as well. Very bright (great for food). Very clear. Lots of extreme close-ups. I highly recommend her show to any Food Network fan.

What follows is my adaptation of the recipe but the spirit is all Barefoot Contessa. I think you’ll see why I would never be good at writing cookbooks. You can see her recipe here at Food Network dot com.

Ingredients:

1 package ground turkey

1 big can of crushed tomatoes in tomato puree

1 can of tomato paste

fresh parsley

fresh basil

1/2 vidalia onion, chopped

two cloves garlic, minced

3 or 4 oz. package of goat cheese

15 oz. container of ricotta

1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano

Fresh mozzarella (this is so much better than shredded so if you can find it, use it)

1 pkg. lasagna

salt, pepper, thyme, oregano

Procedure:

Get the onions working in about 2 tbsp olive oil in a large saute pan. After like two minutes, throw in the garlic and stir that stuff around. Don’t let the garlic burn. You’ll screw it all up. Then add the ground turkey and break it up nice in the pan. Season with salt, pepper, dried thyme, dried oregano. Let that cook until the meat is browned.

You’ve got some time. Turn on the oven–preheat to 400 (or if you have a crappy oven, you may need to put it up higher). Now fill a bowl with hot tap water (very hot!, very big bowl). Put the dried lasagna noodles in there and cover with saran wrap for like ten-fifteen minutes. This will soften the pasta but you don’t want it cooked through so keep an eye on it. Drain the pasta and set it aside. Don’t rinse it.

Add tomato paste to the turkey, stir around. Then add the crushed tomatoes. Cook it a little longer on low. It should thicken but not reduce by too much. Don’t mess this up either. You need that sauce.

In another bowl mix the cheeses (ricotta, parmesan and goat cheese–crumble that). Also put in an egg (I forgot to put that in the ingredients but everyone has eggs–unless they’re vegans or they don’t cook. And if you don’t even have an egg in your fridge, you probably shouldn’t attempt lasagna.) Add in the fresh basil and parsley. You know how much. The whole mixture shouldn’t be green. Mix that all together. The parmesan is pretty salty so you don’t need extra salt.

Layer the lasagna. Coat a large casserole dish with cooking spray. Fill the bottom with some sauce. Then put some pasta. Then put cheese and more sauce. Then pasta. Then cheese and more sauce. Rinse and repeat. You get the idea. On top should be sauce and sliced fresh mozzarella. Bake it for about 25 minutes covered (look for bubbles in the sauce). Then take off the tin foil and bake for another few minutes to melt the cheese on top.