GT's Pesto Lasagna (still experimental)

GT's Pesto Lasagna
From: gardentraveler

Based loosely on this recipe. I'm making it right now and will tweak later.

1 26-oz jar pasta sauce
1 14 1/2 oz can diced tomatoes
1 8 oz. can tomato paste
Approximately 2 cups water or broth
Additional herbs to taste (I added Italian dressing base because it was handy; you could add any of your favorite Italian herbs and maybe some garlic)

1 lb. ground beef, browned

1 15 oz tub ricotta cheese
1/2 c. grated Asiago cheese (or Parmesan or Romano)
1 10 oz package frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1/2 of a 3 oz. jar of prepared pesto
1 egg
1 c shredded mozarella cheese

About 12 lasagna noodles, uncooked

Combine tomato sauces and herbs. It's easiest to add liquid to the tomato paste slowly so that you don't get lumps of paste in your sauce.

Add some of the sauce to the browned beef.

Cover the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan with sauce. Place 4 noodles on sauce and spread a bit of additional sauce on top. Top with a layer of meat (use about 1/2 the mixture). Top with all of the ricotta mixture. Cover ricotta with an additional layer of sauce, noodles, more sauce, last 1/2 of meat, 2nd cup of shredded mozzarella and a bit more sauce. Cover this layer with 4 more noodles, then pour sauce over to make sure everything is covered with at least a bit of sauce.

Cover pan in foil and allow to sit for about 1/2 an hour.

Place in preheated oven (375 degrees) and bake for an hour. At this point you can cool and refrigerate or freeze. Or uncover, add more cheese (about 1/2 cup mozzarella and 1/2 cup of Asiago mixed, in my case) and continue to bake for about 10 minutes.

If you freeze at this point, defrost when you're ready to reheat, reheat at 350 for about 1/2 an hour-45 minutes (until bubbly), then up heat to 375, spread with additional cheese and bake for another 10 minutes or so. (Haven't done this part with this recipe, so I'll tweak as needed.)