Lasagna Bolognese

I am almost speechless about this lasagna. It is hands down the best lasagna I have ever ever.....EVER had. It is also very different than what I'm use to.. YUM.
This recipe came from The Homesick Texan (I think. It's been a while since I found it.)
All I can tell you is that it was hands down the best lasagna I have ever had and my husband said the same thing. He just kept repeating all through our meal how wonderful it was. This is now my go to lasagna. I had intended to really be energetic and make home made lasagna sheets but I got to busy and decided to just cheat and use the store bought noodles.
So here it is. Enjoy!
Now the bolognese sauce is a long cooking sauce. I ended up only cooking mine about 1 1/2 hours. I started to late to let it go the 3 to 4 hours they say it should. It was still perfectly wonderful.
Start with the bolonese sauce first.

You will also need
 a large box of lasagna noodles

2 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese (now here is my cheat on Parmesan cheese. I buy a good huge block of parm at Costco. I then buy the Kraft Parmesan/Romano/Asiago shredded cheese. I grind up the good Parm I purchased at Costco and blend it with the store bought parm. It makes the expensive stuff go further and still gives the great flavor of the better cheese. I know its horrible. I should have my kitchen apron taken from me. But when you feed a house of Sasquatches you got to cut those corners where you can. If you can afford the good stuff exclusively then go for it and I love you.)

2 Cups or so of good Mozzarella cheese shredded



 Bolognese
In a food processor add
 one onion cut into fourths
2 carrots (if they are small thin carrots add 4) cut into chunks
2-3 ribs of celery cut into chunks
4-5 cloves of garlic minced
chop the veggues fine in the food processor.
4 Tbl. olive oil
salt and pepper (you will use a lot of this for seasoning)
2-3 pounds good quality ground beef (chuck, sirloin. I grind my own as I have ground beef issues. I used a 2.8 pound eye of round roast that I ground up in my food processor.)
2 6oz. cans good quality tomato paste
2 Cups red wine ( we used a good quality Chianti. You should never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink.)
water (I will tell you how much in the instructions.)
2 bay leaves
4 fresh sprigs of thyme

Place a 5 or 6 quart pot on the stove. Let is become hot and add olive oil. Once the olive oil is hot add all the veggies you ground up in the food processor. You are going to want to get a good carmelization on these veggies as this brings out a lot of flavor. So you are going to cook them till they kinda brown and  there is a little brown stuff on the bottom of the pan. This my friends is where the flavor is. Now you will add a good amount of salt to the veggies as they are cooking. I'm sorry I didn't measure the salt. I just eyeballed it. Not helpful I know but if you under salt the dish it will not have the flavor you want. So season generously with salt and pepper.
After you have a nice browned veggie mess add in the ground meat and again season generously with salt and pepper. You want to sear this off as best you can (again the flavor is in the browned bits.) Stir and cook till the meat is cooked through and then add both cans of tomato paste. Stir this around and brown. This will take about 5 minutes. It will become a rust color. Just let it cook for a sec and then stir and let it cook for a second and then turn etc....Once it has browned for a few minutes add the red wine and stir to blend everything. Cook a couple minutes scraping up any brown bits that are on the bottom of your pan. Cook for a few minutes till it really starts to thicken and then this is where the water comes in. You are going to add enough water to raise the level two to three inches (normally what would happen is you would add the initial water and cook it down and then add two more cups of water and cook it down and so on for 3 to 4 hours. But since I didn't have time for that whole game this is what I did.) You should have a good size pot of sauce. Turn it down to a simmer add in the bay leaves and the sprigs of thyme. Cook stirring frequently for about an hour to hour and a half.
Now when the sauce is done remove the bay leaves the the thyme stems. Check for seasoning. You should not have to add anymore water. If you do you are cooking it at too high a heat. Just add a tiny amount of water if you have to if it cooks down too much during the hour of cooking.
Now onto the noodles and bechamel sauce.
Now that the meat sauce is done put a pot of water on to boil your noodles. Cook the noodles in good salty water. While the water is heating up and coming to a boil make the bachamel sauce. Here is how you do it.

Bechamel Sauce
1 stick of unsalted butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
4 cups whole milk
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic minced
fresh ground nutmeg (use dried if you don't have fresh. You will use a couple good pinches of nutmeg)
fresh ground pepper

Melt butter in a sauce pan. Sprinkle flour over butter and whisk together. Cook for a minute to cook off the flour taste and then pour in a little of the milk. Stir as it thickens and then add a little more milk and stir as it thickens. Repeat the process till all the milk is used up. Season with salt/pepper/nutmeg/garlic. Stir till it thickens up and is like a gravy consistency. It should coat the back of a spoon. Taste for seasoning. Again we want it flavorful so be generous with your salt/pepper. You want the nutmeg to be a back note. Kinda like when you exhale after tasting the sauce you get the nutmeg but not over powered by it when the sauce hits your tongue. Sorry kids this is the best I have for helpful directions. Now set it aside and stir often so it doesn't get a film on top while the noodles are cooking. Hopefully by now they are in the pot of hot water cooking according to package directions. Drain the pasta and run under cold water to stop the cooking process and then drain them again and lets start the assembly.

In a lasagna pan (I have a pan that is a little long than the standard cake pan that I make my lasagna in but a cake pan size will work 9x13. I also use glass pans. Use what you got.)

Place a couple ladles of meat sauce in bottom of the pan and spread out evenly. Lay a layer of noodles on top making sure to cover the entire bottom of the pan. Ladle another couple 2 or 3 ladles of meat sauce over the the noodles and spread out evenly. Then ladle a couple ladles of the bechamel sauce over the meat sauce and spread the best you can. Sprinkle with some of the parm and mozzarella and then another layer of noodles. Do this till you have your pan full ending with noodles and then topping with one last layer of meat sauce and then parm cheese. I had 4 layers (your shooting for 4 to 5 layers if you can) of noodles counting the bottom and the top layer. You may have extra sauce left over of both the sauces. Thats ok. The meat sauce can be used over spaghetti. I just got rid of the left over bechamel sauce. There wasn't much of either left.
Bake  at 400 degrees for about 40-45 minutes. I ended up covering the lasagna up with foil for the last 20 minutes or so as it had got a browned as I wanted it to be.
Take out of the oven and let sit for at least 5 minutes (longer if you can.) Then cut and enjoy. This was supremely wonderful.