a sans ricotta lasagna

I've never cooked lasagna so this recipe was entirely improved. I just glanced at the oven temp and the suggested ingredients and went from there. Turned out great, surprisingly. Haha!

I used a 9 x 13 glass casserole dish that I buttered up

Boil plenty of lasagna noodles in water (I add a little salt to water when I cook pasta). In a 9 x 13 you should be able to fit about 3 noodles lengthwise. I did 3-4 layers of noodles, but plan accordingly to how many noodles you want to work with. I cooked mine almost to completion, so when they baked, they cooked the rest of the way.

Meat sauce
1.5-2 lb ground beef
2/3-1 cup Ragu pasta sauce
10-14 oz diced tomatoes w/ chilies
diced garlic
chopped yellow onion
a pizza/pasta seasoning mixture that has your standard italian herbs like basil, oregano, fennel, etc (you can   use whatever hearthy seasonings you prefer)
cayenne, salt and pepper to taste

In butter I sauted the onions for a spell and then added garlic. Added dried ground beef to start browning it and added the pasta sauce, tomatoes and the seasonings. I like a little spice in my meals and love enhancing those flavors with salt so I usually use a lot of both.

Cheeses:
Obviously ricotta is the traditional cheese in lasagna, but I fucking hate ricotta, so I replaced it with about a cup each of mozzarella and colby jack.
I also used about a cup of those hard cheese blends you get in the supermarket made with parmesan and romano.

Make sure you're oven is preheated to 375
I don't know if there's a rule as to how to layer, but I started with the meat sauce, then cheese, then lasagna noodles and then went willy nilly from there. I ended with noodles on top. You can end with cheese to get that nice gooey topping, but I didn't only because I ran outta cheese. I don't think the layering makes a damn difference though since it's held in by a casserole anyways. I think as long as it looks consistentish from the side, you're all good.

I cooked it covered for 20 mins and then uncovered for 20 mins. I have a convection oven that cooks pretty fucking fast so you may wanna up that to 25 mins each if you have an oven that doesn't cook as fast.

I let it cool for about 10 mins before hacking into it.
I felt mine had a little too much parmesan, but other than that it was pretty damn good. Who says you need ricotta!? haha