Food I Love - Veggie Lasagna

Lasagna is one of those awesome foods in life; a food of which I've never met a person who doesn't like it. Yummy! I found this recipe for veggie lasagna years ago and although I am a meat eater through and through this lasagna is my families very favorite lasagna (my family meaning me, my hubby, and little Abe).

I apologize ahead of time for the horrible photo. This might be one of the very worst food photos on the world wide web but what can I say, I am not a food photographer... chipped plate and all. This is still super yummy, one of my favorite meals in fact!

Ingredients:

9 Lasagna noodles
10oz. frozen chopped spinach (thawed)
15oz. cottage (or ricotta) cheese
1 cup plus 1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese

1 cup of grated parmesan cheese

1 egg

1/4 cup fresh chopped basil OR 1 tsp dried crushed basil

2 cloves of garlic minced OR 1 tsp garlic powder

2 cups of sliced mushroom (I use baby portobello)

1 cup finely diced onion

1 cup diced roma tomatoes

2 cups Spaghetti sauce or Alfredo sauce

Preheat oven the 375F

I never use oven ready lasagna noodles so the first step would be to boil the noodles.

While the noodles are boiling add a little olive old to a saute pan and saute the garlic, mushrooms, onion and tomatoes. I always cook up the garlic, onion and mushrooms a little before adding the tomatoes. Saute the garlic, onion, mushrooms and tomatoes for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a bowl mix together the drained/ pressed thawed spinach, cottage cheese, 1 cup of mozzarella, parmesan, egg, and basil.

Once the noodles are done run them under cool water if you're going to roll them.

Lasagna rollups: The recipe calls for "Lasagna rolls" which means you lay out a boiled noodle, spread some of the cheese mixture on the noodle, then spread some of the cooked veggies on. Roll up the noodle and place into a 2 quart rectangular dish with a thin layer of pasta sauce coating the bottom. You'd repeat this until all the noodles are filled and placed in the dish. Then you top the noodles with the remaining pasta sauce. The "Lasanga roll" method makes for cleaner serving but is considerably more labor intensive. I make it both ways depending on what type of mood I'm in at the time. 

You can also make a traditional flat noodle lasagna with three layers of noodles if you'd prefer (that's obviously easier). The traditional flat noodle way is just as yummy but it does not hold up as well when serving as the rolls do because the veggies cause this lasagna to be more moist then a regular meaty one.

Traditional Method: For the traditional method, coat the bottom of a 9x13 pan (I only have a 9x13 and it leaves a little room. If you have a pan that's a little smaller that'd be better) with a thin layer of the pasta sauce then three noodles. top the noodles with half of the cheese mixture and then half of the veggie mixture. Layer three more noodles, remaining cheese mixture, and remaining veggie mixture. Then top with three more noodles and the remainder of the sauce.

Bake your delicious Veggie Lasagna for 45 minutes at 375F. After 45 minutes top the lasagna with 1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese and bake for 5 more minutes. Then enjoy. This lasagna is also my very favorite thing to eat as leftovers. I feel like it's almost tastier the next day.