Lasagna

#1

I feel that Lasagna can be made with anything, even sandwich meat, gouda, sliced eggplant and tomato with olive oil and seasoning. Today, I needed to use up as much stuff in the fridge since Kalen probably wouldn't have time to get around to messing with some of this stuff. So I bought some portabella mushrooms, lasagna noodles (no boil), and some dried parsley. Everything else was either in the fridge or cabinet. Today's Lasagna consists of Tofu, Veggies, and Cheese with a prep/cook/serve time of 1.5hr.

 In bowl, beat (eggs) then mix in and set aside

• 2 large eggs
• 3T dried parsley
• 15oz low fat ricotta cheese



#2

• 2t cayenne peppers

In a large skillet with olive oil cook 1.5 portabella mushrooms, sliced length wise. Make sure they are tender and no white/light color is left showing. This will bring out the flavor more. Clean out pan, begin sauteing 1.5 large belle peppers, sliced length wise and deseeded, in olive oil. These will take much longer than the mushrooms.

Slice thinly 3 Roma tomatoes

#3

In bowl and set aside

• mix left over butternut squash sauce
• 15.5oz low sodium spaghetti jar
• 1/8c water (wash out jar)

Start Layering

#1) Olive oil on bottom, sauce, noodle, tofu

#2) Roma tomato slices, noodle

#4

#3) Layer all of the ricotta mix over noodles, add portabella mushrooms

Clean out the ricotta bowl. In bowl, mix in and set aside

• 8oz low fat cream cheese
• 2T parsley
• 1/4c shredded pepper jack cheese + hard Cesar blend cheeses
• 2 large eggs

Continue Layering

#5

#4) Noodle, Roma tomatoes, the last of the tofu

#5) Spoon out more sauce, and layer noodles.

At this point I realized that I should break part of the noodles to fit in length wise. Which you can see in #5 at the end pieces. What frustrated me was by the end of laying, I have one noodle left over. Which I could have put on the bottom two noodle layers. Oh well...

#6

 Continue Layering

#6) Remove the red bell peppers from pan, use all. Smash 3 garlic cloves, remove shells and slice cloves to layer on top of red bell peppers.
With pestle and mortar, crush rosemary, basil leaves, thyme and a pinch of oregano. Sprinkle on top.

#7) Layer last of the noodles. Use the last of the sauce. Then finally add the cream cheese mix. Cover with foil.

#7

Preheat oven for 375. Bake covered for 25minutes. Take out of oven.


Continue Layering

#8) I added bread crumbs from the breads that I baked this week just to give it a nice crunch. Next time, I'll be sure to buy non stick aluminum foil because the cream cheese mix stuck some to the foil cover.

Place back in the oven to continue cooking for another 10-15minutes. And let rest for 10minutes before serving.

#8

So far it smells great!  I can't wait to cut it open later and see how the noodles cooked. I was a little concerned how these work. Because the instructions indicated that your supposed to layer your stuff and then microwave on high for 10minutes. Well that is great if you have convectional microwave oven because then you turn around and bake it for 30minutes. I decided to just cook over all 40minutes in the oven and screw the microwave because there was no way my pan would for one fit in the microwave, let alone be safe to cook in the microwave. Who knows, I might stick to regular noodles. I did contemplate last night about making sour dough noodles but I've had enough of sour dough for awhile. Otherwise, I won't fit into my wedding dress. :-/

Beautiful Crust!!

10 minutest later, and there you have it :) Just lovely, creamy and just the amount of water content that I like (not runny). And it did need a little bit of salt. I didn't use any throughout the cooking. I guess I'm trying to get used to not cooking with so much salt. I did however add some red pepper flakes since it wasn't spicy, even though there was some spicy ingredients.

That's right...steamy and hot out of the oven!