Remove sausage casings and crumble sausage. Brown meat in large pot,stirring occasionally to break up the meat. Drain off fat.

Remove meat and set aside. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in the same pot, addonion, garlic and bell pepper and cook over medium heat, stirringoccasionally, about 5 to 8 minutes or until onion is tender.

Stir in the reserved meat, tomato puree, tomato paste, water, basil,oregano, sugar, 0.75 teaspoon salt, quarter teaspoon pepper and bay leaf andbring to boil. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, about 2 hours,or until flavors mingle and mixture thickens slightly (there will beabout 4.5 to 5 cups of sauce).

Combine ricotta, quarter cup parmesan, egg, quarter teaspoon salt, and 0.25teaspoon pepper in a medium bowl; set aside.

Bring 3 litre of water to boil in a large pot. Add 1 tablespoonsalt, then gradually add lasagne noodles so that water continues toboil. Cook noodles until barely tender, about 5 minutes, stirring onceor twice; do not overcook. Drain noodles; rinse in cold water and drainwell. Return noodles to pot and toss them gently with 1 tablespoon oil toprevent them sticking.

Line the bottom of a a buttered 9 x 13 x 5 cm pan with 4 lasagnenoodles, cutting one as necessary to completely cover the bottom. Spreadevenly with half of ricotta mixture (1 generous cup). Sprinkle evenlywith half of mozarella (about 2 cups). Spread with half of the tomato/meatsauce.

Top with remaining 4 noodles, cutting one noodle as above so that thesauce mixture is completely covered. Evenly layer on remainingingredients in the same order as above. Sprinkle the top of the lasagneevenly with quarter cup parmesan and quarter cup mozzarella.

Bake in a preheated oven at 190ºC or about 45 or 50 minutes or untillasagne is hot in center. Remove from oven; let stand for 15 minutes.

Cut in squares and serve on heated plates with garlic bread.