Dutch Oven Lasagna

We are big fan's of another Dutch Oven Chef's blog- Mark's Black Pot. We've tried several recipes from his blog site with much success. So far, our favorite one is Dutch Oven Lasagna (http://marksblackpot.blogspot.com/2007/07/lasagne.html).

We first made this when we were camping in 2008 at Glacier National Park in Montana. Who knew that campers could have such a hard time finding ingredients for a simple lasagna? But, we did. We stayed on the eastern side of the park which is shy on services & grocery stores. We ended up finding the stuff we needed in Canada.
Instead of using Italian sausage for the meat, we ended up using just ground beef. That is what we normally use when we make lasagna, so we liked the substitution.

Here is Mark's recipe with our substitution:

Dutch Oven Lasagna
10" Dutch Oven
7 coals below 14 coals above

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 jar commercial spaghetti sauce
a couple hefty shakes of oregano
a mild shake of Basil
2 Tbsp minced garlic
Lots of salt (to taste)
16 oz ricotta cheese
1 box (12 oz) uncooked lasagna noodles
Shredded mozzarella

To start with, fire up a lot of coals. As they get white, layer them flat and close together and put the dutch oven with the ground beef (crumbled) in it. Cook the sausage. While this is going on, mix up the sauce, the onions, and the spices. When the sausage is done, add it. Stir it all up. Then, you'll make a stack of layers in the dutch oven.

From the bottom, those layers are:
A thin layer of the sauce mix
A layer of dry noodles (still uncooked)
Spread on a layer of ricotta cheese
Scatter a layer of mozzarella
A layer of sauce mix
More noodles
More Ricotta (the last of it)
More mozzarella
More sauce
More noodles
A little more sauce

Smother the whole thing in deep mozzarella. Spread the coals into a ring of 7, and set the dutch oven on it. Then put 14 burning coals on top. Bake it for about 45 minutes or so, turning the oven and the lid every 20 minutes or so. The cool thing about it is that the moisture in the sauce and the ricotta will cook the noodles soft, so you don't have to precook them. It's really delicious.