I was very pleased to discover this month that lasange does not require pre-cooking of the noodles (which, if you count water-boiling time, almost doubles the preparation time). I just soaked the lasagne noodles in tap water while I heated up some pasta sauce (which I made earlier in the week by frying onions and cut-up sausage in a whole lot of butter and then simmering with a large can of crushed tomatoes and a lot of salt). I layered the noodles and sauce with soft and hard cheese and raw spinach. I reserved a lot of cheese for the top. I put it in a 350 F oven for an hour, let stand for 20 min, and then ate it! Warning: A big pan requires a double order of sauce.
It is clear that if you are in a real hurry, you could just layer unsoaked, uncooked noodles with raw spinach, unheated crushed tomatoes, cheese, salt, and pepper, and cook it for a bit longer and it would work just fine; I have yet to try this, though.
It is also clear that it will be possible to make macaroni and cheese with no pre-oven preparation: That's tonight's experiment!
