Lasagna!

As a kid, I was always a big lasagna fan. My mom always made really good lasagna. One thing I never appreciated was the amount of time it took my mom to prepare it. That is, until tonight, when I made Guy Fieri's Pepperoni Lasagna. When I was home sick last month, I saw an episode of "Guy's Big Bite" on Food Network, and pepperoni lasagna was the dish he made. As I was watching it, I thought, "I can make this." Today, I printed off the recipe and set about making it.

This pepperoni studded lasagna was one of the best lasagna dishes I've ever had. The pepperoni provides a nice, spicy bite, but isn't overwhelming. The best thing was the sauce, which I originally thought was going to be too sweet, but it blends nicely with everything for a good, rich flavor. One other personal note about the sauce. I was shocked that you could actually have a tomato sauce that doesn't come from a can or jar. I'm thinking their may be more homemade tomato sauces in our future. This sauce was easy to make and really good.

A few notes, if you decide you want to try making this yourself.

1) It took me 2 hours and 40 minutes in total to get this dish to the table. I started the sauce at 3:30, and we ate about 6:10. This was the first time I've ever made lasagna, so I can probably shave some time off that in the future, but I'd recommend allocating at least 2 hours.
2) I would make more sauce than is recommended in the recipe. I ran short on the last layer. Since I did a half batch, I made 3 and 1/2 cups of sauce...I wish I would have made 4 to 4 and 1/2 cups. Also, I added extra onion and oregano to the sauce recipe.
3) You don't need 2 lbs. of pasta. For a full recipe, 1 lb. would be enough...I used 1/2 lb. of pasta for the half batch, and that was plenty.
4) Definitely brown the pepperoni first. The little bit of crisp that this adds is really nice.

I highly recommend this lasagna recipe if you want to try something a little bit different. It was DELICIOUS!