Lasagne Bolognese with a twist (pic heavy)

There are going to be a lot of pictures...and blood.

We were in Italy in 2015 and I took a cooking class. It's mid to northern Italian food so this is not a dish with marinara sauce.

I prepared two sauces. The first is a northern bolognese which has tomatoes but is not a tomato based sauce. The second is an Aglione sauce which is a tomato and garlic sauce. It's ridiculously simple and delicious. Both sauces take extended cooking time to meld the flavors.

On to the photos and descriptions.

The bolognese starts out with an onion, a carrot, a celery stick and some minced garlic in 1/3 cup of olive oil and 1/2 stick of butter.



Then I added two pounds of meatball mix. I'd usually use ground pork and ground veal but the grocery store was out of ground veal.



Add three whole blanched tomatoes. Don't worry about coring. It's going to cook a long time and will break down.



Northern Italian herbs. Basil, Thyme and Rosemary.



Got a new knife for Christmas from my son. I love it but it's sharp.



Really sharp. Ouch



Tomatoes starting to break down.



Time to start the Aglione. Simple sauce of garlic, olive oil, tomatoes and cayenne pepper. If you don't have one of these for husking garlic get one now. It save a lot of time and effort. I'm an advocate of cooking and not wasting time prepping.



Aglione uses a lot of tomatoes. Like 20 to make a sauce for a few people. However, as seen on TV.



It makes things go much faster. These are going to cook down a ton. First the garlic then the tomatoes.





Aglione cooking down.





Time to build a lasagne.

Layers are bolognese, pasta, bechamel sauce, truffles, parmagiana reggiona, bolognese. Rinse, repeat.











Aglione on top. Finished dish. i had some Aglione left over so I made a side of spaghetti with it.







The damage. Love this vineyard. It's owned by 82 year old brothers who survived WWII as kids with shells flying over their valley and started a vineyard on family land in 1973.



Thanks for viewing and for any (kind) comments.