Here’s a sure sign that it’s getting colder: I put together the season’s first pan (left) of Pioneer Woman Lasagna on Sunday. This stuff has always been a bit of an embarrassment to make because it’s straight from the Betty Crocker Playbook of the 1960s, but that doesn’t stop me. Sure, I’ve tried an ‘upgraded’ recipe: In past batches, I’ve replaced the original recipe’s cottage cheese with ricotta, the hot breakfast sausage with hot Italian sausage, the deli-slice mozzarella with fresh buffalo mozzarella, the stinky-foot powdered parmesan with shaved high-quality parmesan.

Know what? It wasn’t nearly as good. Stick with the recipe.

Now, this recipe still isn’t for everyone, especially people who like fluffy lasagna with many layers. It’s basically a meat, tomato and cheese bomb: Only two layers thick, this recipe nonetheless contains 2.5 pounds of meat, the same amount of cheese and more than two pounds of tomatoes. A refrigerator shelf groans under the weight of a pan of this stuff. If you make it in a foil pan, you must be careful to support the bottom.

It’s also the perfect good/bad food: Loaded with calories, fat and sodium, it’s also chock-full of vitamins A, B6, B12, C and E, along with big doses of calcium, iron and (of course) protein. Don’t think — just make it.