I thought I'd start with a recipe that's not too easy but not too hard. Lasagna is a good recipe to know off-hand. It's great for families, potlucks, leftovers, or even just for yourself. As with most of my recipes, this one requires a slow cooker. I prefer recipes that don't require a lot of prep, since I have Baby to chase around, but it's hard to find recipes with ground beef that you don't need to brown first.
A lot of these ingredients I already have on hand, so the only things I need to buy unique for this recipe are: ground beef (unless you're using beef for another recipe as well - see below), cottage cheese, and lasagna noodles.
I prefer my meat-to-sauce ratio to be a little more even, so although this recipe calls for 1/2 to 1 lb of ground beef, I use about 1.25 lb. It also calls for 32 oz of sauce, but I only use one jar (about 23 oz). However, an important rule as a beginner is to trust trial and error! During my first time making this, I followed the recipe exactly, and I found it was a little too saucy for me. Plus, it's more convenient for me to use one jar of Ragu than to open up a second and have to find a way to use the rest of it before it expires.
