French bread and sort of, but not really, Lasagna

I haven't been too exciting on baking day lately.  It's all I can do to get some bread baked for the week, but since I had made some lasagna for dinner, I thought something different would be nice to go with it.  It's my first time trying french bread and I think it turned out pretty well.  The kids loved it, especially with nutella spread on it.  We ate the first loaf before it was completely cooled, and the second loaf disappeared with our dinner.  There have been a few requests for more already.

It is a slightly more complicated process than regular bread due to the egg, or I should say, the separation of the egg.  Once that's done though, it's pretty simple.  Although, with the yolk mixed into the dry ingredients, it looked kind of strange when I dumped the water in.  Suddenly, the bits of yolk showed up so well, that I was afraid the water was too hot and had cooked it!  But, as it turned out, everything was fine and there were no cooked egg yolk chunks in our bread. 

Our lasagna wasn't really lasagna in the traditional sense, in fact, it probably has a name that I'm not aware of.  I'm hesitant to ever make lasagna, because I never have actual lasagna noodles around, or ricotta cheese for that matter, but spaghetti was getting a bit repetitive, so I decided to use what I had on hand to make a pasta casserole of sorts.  I have lots and lots of macaroni style noodles and a container of cottage cheese that needed used.  Not knowing how much pasta to cook, (I always cook too much or too little, never just right) I made way too many macaroni noodles.  No worries though.  The kids love plain noodles.  I'm set for lunches for the rest of the week.  The family loved my lasagna creation, so I thought I'd share my recipe here.

Use whatever you have Lasagna
Ingredients:
Some kind of pasta (maybe 8 oz?)
Jar of pasta sauce (I used my home canned stuff)
Cottage cheese that is coming close to the expiration date (of course if you actually have ricotta, use that)
Parmesan cheese
Lots of shredded cheese (I used a mix of mozzarella and monterey jack)
Dried parsley

Directions:
Cook the pasta until al dente.  Mix cottage cheese, parmesan and some parsley flakes. (I totally forgot the parsley till the end, so I just sprinkled some on top.)  Put a little sauce on the bottom of the pan and put a layer of noodles on top.  Then layer on the cottage cheese mixture, followed by shredded cheese, and then sauce.  Repeat as many times as possible.  The macaroni noodles take up more space than lasagna noodles, so I was only able to do two layers.  Top the whole thing with more shredded cheese and bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.  Let cool a bit and serve with some fresh french bread. 

*Food Storage application:  While the noodles, sauce and parsley all came from my year's supply of food, this meal can't technically be a "food storage" meal because of all the cheeses.  Someday, when I have my own milk cow and I am making and storing cheeses, I'll be able to do it without any dependence on the grocery store.