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12/21/2016 11:01 PMMadison’s Michel Vejar was recently invited to appear on CT Style on WTNH-TV, and she opted to make her “World’s Best Lazy Man’s Lasagna.”
“Lazy man’s lasagna is one of my favorite dishes to make,” says Vejar, who described herself as “an Italian at heart.”
She originally got the recipe from her dear friends, Vin and Kay Cusano, about 30 years ago.
“I had many dinners at their house and have been making this dish ever since,” she says. Over the years, she’s played with the recipe and changed it up a bit. She likes to use ricotta cheese and fennel sausage from Liuzzi Gourmet Food Market, 322 State Street, North Haven.
She says doing the cooking segment on CT Style was a blast.
“I love doing the cooking segments on CT Style! Everyone is wonderful and always interested in what treats I have brought to the set. It’s easy to cook for a show and crew like that who get excited about coming over and tasting the goodies I have made,” she says. “The set is beautiful and of course I always feel at home in a kitchen. This time around I had both Teresa [Dufour] and Ryan [Kristafer] in The Bender kitchen so it was double the fun bantering back and forth with them while putting together the Lazy Man’s Lasagna.”
Vejar recommends serving the Lazy Man’s Lasagna with a fennel and citrus salad, with a tangerine dressing, or a Caesar salad. Recipes for both are on her blog, thetravelingepicurean.com/.
Michel Vejar’s World’s Best Lazy Man’s Lasagna
Ingredients:
1 lb. rigatoni pasta, ziti, rigatoni, or your favorite pasta
Vejar’s 20 minute tomato-basil pasta sauce recipe or a favorite
store bought brand
2 lbs ground meat or 3 cups after browning of: ground beef,
turkey, veal, pork, meatloaf mix, or sweet fennel sausage
(Liuzzi makes my favorite sweet and spicy Italian fennel
sausage)
⅓ cup red wine for deglazing the pan
1 lb. whole milk ricotta
2 cups shredded mozzarella—2 cups to mix into the
lazy-man’s lasagna plus an additional 1 cup to sprinkle on
top if you are going to put the pasta into a baking dish to
bake later
Grated Parmesan
Fresh basil
Directions:
Brown the ground meat in a sauce pan on medium high heat
Drain the meat to remove excess oil in a small strainer over a bowl
Put the meat back into the pan on medium high heat add ⅓ cup of red wine to de-glaze the sauce pan scrapping up the little brown bits stuck the bottom of the pan
Keep the browned meat on warm
Heat tomato-basil sauce through—you want it hot enough to melt the mozzarella
Cook the pasta in salted water until al dente (Having a pinch of firmness to it so it’s not overly cooked)
Drain the pasta and put it back into the same pan
Immediately add 2 cups of hot tomato-basil sauce, 1 lb. of ricotta, 2 cups of mozzarella, 3 cups of browned meat and begin to stir
Add another 1 to 1 ½ cups of tomato-basil sauce
Mix ingredients until combined and pour out into a serving platter
Sprinkle with Parmesan and julienne fresh basil...mangia mangia!