My Favorite Lasagna

I remember the first time I made lasagna. I think I was 17, and I got the idea that homemade lasagna would be amazing for dinner that night. So I went out to Kroger (which was quite a journey from our backwoods house), spent $35 on ingredients (which I felt was an extravagant amount), and went home to prepare the recipe on the back of the box of lasagna noodles. It was the first time I ever cooked anything for my family. I'm not sure if they liked it or even if everyone ate it, but I was so proud of myself for creating a homemade lasagna, it didn't matter.

Ever since, I've tried variations of lasagnas and have come to the point where I no longer follow recipes but instead do my own thing with whatever I have in the fridge. My most recent attempt is my favorite tasting dish so far:

about 8 lasagna noodles (I used 4 whole wheat and 4 regular, because that's what we had)
1/2 jar spaghetti sauce
1 28 oz can whole tomatoes, pureed in blender
1 tablespoon italian seasoning
1/2 lb ground beef, browned
1 10 oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1 15 oz container low-fat ricotta cheese
some mozzarella cheese
about 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 375. First, prepare the sauce: combine the spaghetti sauce with pureed tomatoes, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning in a saucepan, slowly simmer while you get the other ingredients ready. Cook the lasagna noodles in boiling, salted water only until flexible, about 6 minutes. Remove from water and lay out on an oiled cookie sheet to cool. In the meantime, prepare the ricotta filling: combine ricotta, parmesan, egg, salt and pepper in a bowl, set aside. Assemble the lasagna in an 8X8 ceramic pan sprayed with nonstick cooking spray as follows: 1/4 cup sauce, noodles (cut to fit and cover the bottom), 1/3 of the ricotta mix, 1/2 of the spinach, 1/2 of the beef, mozzarella cheese, 3/4 cup sauce, noodles, 1/3 of the ricotta, remaining spinach, remaining beef, some more mozzarella, 3/4 cup of the sauce, remaining ricotta, noodles, and all the sauce that will fit on top without spilling over. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil, place on a baking sheet (so that when it bubbles over it won't get the oven nasty), and bake for 55 minutes. After baking, remove the foil, throw some more mozzarella cheese on top of it (or cheddar if you run out of mozzarella, as I did), and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool for 15 minutes, and enjoy.

I don't know what it was about the combination, but it worked! I had extra sauce left over for a garnish or further drenching if desired.

Rosalie's Lasagna

Rosalie is getting married in July. As you might expect, in preparation for the "big day," our eating habits in A50 are, well, healthy. Very healthy. Our diet is best described as low fat (except when I have a bad day and end up topping whatever it is I just made extremely low fat with 2 TB butter - which I have done on several occasions this semester). We are not about to give up, completely, the foods we love, so I've invented low fat versions of almost everything I make. Still pretty inspired to cook thanks to the weekend in Miami, here is my newly invented low-fat lasagna. In honor of my betrothed roommate, I call it:

Rosalie's Lasagna
12-16 whole wheat lasagna noodles
3 links Italian turkey sausage
3 cups nonfat cottage cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
salt & pepper to taste
1 1/2 jars Barilla tomato & basil marinara sauce
2 cups low-fat mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 400.

Cook lasagna noodles in large pot of boiling, salted water, 10 minutes. Do not overcook. When noodles are done, remove from water, place on baking sheet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, and allow to cool slightly.

In the meantime, brown sausage in nonstick pan, about 10 minutes on medium heat.

In a large mixing bowl, combine cottage cheese, parmesan, egg, salt, and pepper.

Layer ingredients in a 9 x 13 pan in the following order: 1/2 cup marinara, 3 lasagna noodles (may need 3 1/2 depending on size of pan), 1/2 cottage cheese mixture, 3/4 cup mozzarella, 1/2 sausage, 1 cup marinara, 3 more lasagna noodles, remaining cottage cheese mix, 3/4 cup mozzarella, remaining sausage, 1 cup marinara, 3 more noodles, 1/2-3/4 cup marinara, remaining mozzarella. Bake for 1 hour or until bubbly. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

This makes enough to serve at least 6(or 2 hungry grad students for an entire weekend), and if you only get 6 servings out of it (which you should get way more than that), it turns out to be somewhere around 14 grams of fat per serving. If you are on extremely low-fat diets, this lasagna is the one for you. It's lower-fat than the competition because of the cottage cheese. While I can find low-fat ricotta, I can find fat free cottage cheese. I have shunned using cottage cheese in my lasagna for a long time, but I really didn't mind it here. I also cut fat grams by swapping my usual pork sausage/ground beef combo for a small amount of turkey sausage. While pork sausage has about 18 fat grams per serving, turkey sausage only has 9. What a nutritional bargain, as my new friend Ellie Krieger would say! It's also a very "saucy" lasagna, which is another reason I named it after my roomie. She's a saucy lady! And she likes her pasta loaded with sauce. It's definitely appropriate. I think spinach would be a nice addition (or substitute for the turkey), as long as it's very thoroughly drained. Otherwise, you'd get a watery lasagna, and who wants that?

Whoever said fat free eating isn't yummy clearly never lived with us for a semester before a wedding.