Friday, August 22, 2008

my lasagna recipe

(since jennifer wants it)

it's really more of a method than a recipe, though. and i use very untechnical terms. ;)

sizzle up a pound of free-range organic ground meat (i use turkey, but you can use sausage or beef or ground chix...)
while the meat is browning, add whatever raw veggies you have in your fridge to the food processor and buzz it up.
(i usually use squash, zucchini, broccoli, carrots, green beans, onion, celery, any variety of bell peppers, spinach, a couple cloves of garlic...anything really.)

add a little EVOO to your ground meat and add your buzzed up veggies. sautee for a few minutes.
add 1 can undrained diced tomatoes, 1 can tomato sauce, i small can tomato paste, 1/2 a can of pureed pumkin (not pumpkin pie filling! be careful! and no, you can't taste the pumpkin), a splash or two of red wine, few sprinkles of red pepper flakes, italian seasoning (basil, oregano, parsley...), and a bay leaf. plus salt and pepper to taste.
let this sauce simmer as long as you can...the longer it simmers, the better it tastes.
i like to start it early and then put it in the crockpot on low to simmer all day long, adding a little veg broth if it needs it later in the day.

now, mix together one large container of small curd cottage cheese,2 eggs and some parmesan cheese. add a little italian seasoning to that also.
(here is where personal preference comes in...use ricotta if you like it better. sometimes i do half ricotta half cottage, but most always i just use cottage. you can also add silken tofu in the mix and you won't know it's there)

i use whole wheat no boil noodles. use your favorite.

spray your baking pan.

layer this way:
1) sauce
2) noodles
3) sauce
4) cheese mix
5) mozerella cheese
6) noodles
7) cheese mix
8) sauce
9) mozerella cheese

cover with foil. bake at 400 for 45 mins. remove foil. bake additional 15 mins until cheese is browned and bubbly. remove from oven and let sit for 10 mins before serving.

enjoy!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This has made my day! Thank you so much!
I'm going to make it this week. I'l let you know how it turns out.

Jen said...

I'm going to make it too. And I think I'm just going to keep Asher on soy for now. I'm really stressed out about that, but thanks for talking to me!

Meghan said...

Thanks to Jennifer's last blog entry I am now going to try this out on my boys as well!

Hurrah!