LASAGNA

Steps:

• Prepare by cutting onion, (I prefer cutting over dicing). Cover a large deep sauce pan with olive oil and heat on high temperature adding garlic, onion. Saute' on medium temp until softened trying not to burn the garlic. Remove from pan and set aside.
• Add more olive oil to pan and add 16 or 32 oz's of mushrooms. Once steaming add enough red wine vinegar to stop it from sizzling. (About 4 to 6 oz). Salt and pepper to taste, but be generous. Lower temperature to medium and simmer, cooking mushrooms until shrunken and brown. One of the only things that separates a professional chef from a home chef is their use of salt and pepper. Pro's season everything with salt and pepper! Remove mushrooms, prepare your slow cooker on high heat and add mushrooms to bottom of slow cooker.
• On high heat, add olive oil to cover pan adding onions and garlic. Add 1lb of ground italian sausage, and 1lb of ground pork or bison. Lower heat to medium and brown for about 10 to 15 minutes generously adding italian seasoning. Add salt and pepper generously. Add about 4oz of red wine vinegar anytime while browning but I like to add it toward the end when everything is brown. Be generous with the vinegar because if anything it will reduce if you add too much, so don't worry.
• Prepare your cheese mixture while your meat is browning. Chop spring onions and 2oz of basil and add to mixing bowl. Add ricotta, mozzarella, and cream cheese mixing it thoroughly. Again Salt and pepper it as you go. Mix it thoroughly adding a whole stick of melted butter as you stir it. Refrigerate. Remove from refrigerator one or two hours before your sauce is ready to bring it to room temperature.
• After meat is browned, add 2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes first. With wooden spoon, chop the tomatoes in half. Don't worry about their large size after you chop them because they will fall apart in the slow cooker. After chopping the tomatoes add the 3 cans of diced tomatoes. Cover top of sauce with italian seasoning heating on high until bubbling. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for an hour allowing sauce to reduce. Add a generous amount of red wine vinegar to sauce at any time. Use as much red wine vinegar as you feel you would like because it is one of the things that makes this recipe great. Lower the temperature of your slow cooker to low so your shrooms don't dry out. Add a splash of red wine vinegar into the crock pot to keep this from happening.
• After an hour has passed and the sauce is reduced add it to the heated crock pot. Cook on low temperature for about 6 to 8 hours until there is a black residue on the top sides of the sauce. After about 4 hours of slow cooking add 2 cans of v8 and your favorite pizza sauce stirring it thoroughly. Add fresh basil and again red wine vinegar toward the end of cooking so as to not lose its flavor. Remember to salt and pepper generously as you can now do it to taste. Preheat you oven at this point to 350-380 degrees.
• After the sauce is cooked and there is a black residue on top of it, remove it from the slow cooking heat and prepare your lasagna noodles. Bring 4 quarts of salted and olive oiled water to a boil and add lasagna following the cooking instructions on the side of the box. Once cooked remove and strain water. Immediately coat noodles with olive oil and lie them out on two cookie sheets so as to not touch each other. Be generous with the olive oil. If you removed the cheese from the refrigerator as instructed about one or two hours ago it should be at room temperature not having coagulated butter.
• In an 8x11 baking dish, add olive oil coating the entire dish sides and all, add a layer of noodles, then spoon cheese mixture with fingers completely covering the noodles. Scoop and add your sauce completely covering the cheese mixture. Cover the sauce with mozzarella cheese, and repeat this process until the pan is full. Try to time it to end up not with noodles on top, but with sauce and mozzarella cheese. If you have left over ingredients I end up grabbing an 8x8 dish and making a little lasagna, cooking it separately from the large one. Cover with aluminum foil and cook for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove aluminum foil and cook uncovered for another 15 minutes or until a little brown on top.
• This is a great traditional Italian sauce, which pairs nicely with spaghetti, linguine, or angel hair pasta. Remember to use Tillamook or Sargento cheese. Don't use generic store brand cheese because it will be dry and rubbery.