Venison Lasagna

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground venison
• 1 ½ lb ground Italian sausage venison
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 large chopped onion (I prefer Vidalia for its sweetness)
• 1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 15 oz can tomato sauce
• 2 6 oz cans tomato paste
• 1 cup venison bone broth (beef broth is acceptable)
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/c cup chopped fresh basil
• ½ cup chopped parsley
• 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
• 2 teaspoons ground oregano
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 12 “strips” of oven ready lasagna noodles
• 32 oz ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 lb thinly sliced mozzarella cheese

How to Prepare:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, brown both the ground venison and the Italian Sausage together, breaking the meat apart during the process.  Add the garlic and onion and cook with the meat, stirring constantly.
3. Stir in the oregano, 1 teaspoon salt, basil, sugar, fennel seeds, pepper, and ¼ cup parsley until combined.
4. Pour in all tomato products and bone broth into the dutch oven.  Stir well and bring to a simmer.  Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for approximately 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
5. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese, egg, remaining parsley, ½ teaspoon salt and stirring to incorporate.
6. Lightly grease 9×13 deep dish pan
7. To assemble, spread about 1 cup of the meat sauce in the bottom of the deep dish pan.  Place 4 noodles on top barely overlapping each other.  This should cover the majority of the pan.  Spread 1/3 of the ricotta mixture on top of the noodles.  Top with mozzarella cheese slices.  Spoon 1/3 of the remaining meat mixture of the mozzarella.  Then spread ¼ cup of parmesan cheese over meat mixture.  Repeat layering two more times until you have three complete layers.  Top with remaining parmesan cheese.
8. Loosely cover with aluminum foil (I tent my foil with toothpicks that I have set into the top layer of the lasagna)
9. Bake covered for 30 minutes.  Remove foil and bake an additional 25 minutes to brown the top layer of cheese.  It would be wise to place a cookie sheet underneath the lasagna to catch drippings.

Chef’s Note: Thinly sliced eggplant strips can be substituted for the pasta for a reduced carbohydrate meal.