Lasagna

Sunday night I got the craziest craving for lasagna. Unfortunately I left it in the oven just a touch too long and it was a tad dry, but the flavor was amazing.

I used an 8 in x 8 in baking dish.

About 1/2 a package of whole wheat lasagna pasta
Part skim ricotta cheese
91% lean organic ground beef
Part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese
3 carrots, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
8 ounce package sliced mushrooms
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 package spinach
Wine
Worcestershire sauce
Salt/pepper
Organic tomato basil pasta sauce

As far as I can remember those were the ingredients I used. I should really start writing things down as I go.

First you need to boil the pasta because they don't make whole wheat pasta the kind you can just put in the oven.

Saute, over medium-high heat the onion, garlic, red bell pepper, carrot. Add the meat and brown. Add salt, pepper. Add mushrooms and spinach and saute until the spinach is wilted. Add the pasta sauce (homemade if you have it, I didn't.). Add some wine and Worcestershire sauce to taste.

Prepare the ricotta cheese by adding some salt and pepper to it.

And then you layer!

Meat sauce, pasta, ricotta cheese, repeat! And top it off with a nice layer of mozzarella cheese.

Oven at 350F for... 30 minutes? I left it in for 45 minutes and I think 30 would have been perfect.

Yum.

I left all the vegetables pretty big to make a chunky, textured meat sauce. If you don't like it that way, just chop everything up really small so that you just get the flavor.

Thursday night: Oven-fried chicken with coleslaw!