Lasagna Extraordinare

Have you seen Julie & Julia? I loved that movie. I have always been an alright cook. My stuff tasted pretty good. It was edible and Andrew seemed to enjoy it. Now, after I saw the infamous blogging/chef film I decided to set my bar a little higher when it came to the meals my family would be feasting upon. Andrew seemed more than ok with this plan. And for christmas (i know it was like 3 months ago) I got a cooking BIBLE! No, it isn't the book from the movie, but it is Ah-MAZING non-the-less. "The Joy of Cooking" , and oh how cooking has become a joy. It is the 75th Anniversary addition, 4500 recipes and over 1000 pages of delicious information. I 100% suggest this book to anyone who 'thinks' they know how to cook. Even the leftovers are good!

ok. so that's not what i wanted to blog about this morning. (well sortof anyways) So I am on this cooking kick, and last night I made a gorgeous lasagna. I did it from scratch the whole way through. I made the sauce the day before (which is so much easier than I thought it would be) and then I layered this bad boy up with fantastic flavors.

so here is the finished masterpiece:

And here are some photos of my prep work:

this spinach was gorgeous. I only thought it was green, then I blanched it to go in cottage cheese layer and it turned an even bolder color.

see how the green changed from the hot water? Isn't that cool. Maybe I'm just simple, but I was really fascinated when I saw this:

And oh, how the mushrooms browned!

The cottage cheese mixture got the blanched, chopped spinach thrown in with it. Great for flavor and some good color:

ART! It's layered lasagna noodles, cottage cheese mixture, mushrooms, homemade sauce w/ italian sausage then cheese.