I could talk about my kid all day. But you're here to read about food. Not Sophie. If you're my friend on Facebook, you get enough of that!
Ok. Tonight's dinner and lunch for the next two days is lasagna! I decided to clean up this recipe for all the people out there who are looking for a lasagna recipe that is in fact cleaner, but not clean. Most recipes out there that are for a healthy lasagna substitute for all the pasta.. well, that's just not lasagna to me. I need pasta!! So, I made a happy medium rendition of this delicious meal. My method was one layer of pasta, then a layer of zucchini, then pasta, then zucchini, then lastly pasta. It's a 5 layer lasagna that will knock your socks off. Now, I have to include, it is a vegetarian lasagna. Meat is not clean, any way you look at it. That's not to say I won't post meat recipes at some point, but lasagna has cheese in it..enough to make up for losing that meat. Ok. Ready for the recipe? *I must note that the nutritional values are going to blow your mind on this one. They are listed at the very bottom of this blog.
Ingredients:
9 Whole grain lasagna noodles (Photo below of the brand I prefer)
1 large egg
1 large zucchini sliced long way (you may have to use 2 medium zucchini squash. I happened to find one huge one) (see below for slicing method)
1/2 cup of skim mozzarella
1 cup of non fat cottage cheese
1/4 cup of fresh basil chopped
2 tbsps. of fresh chopped garlic
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of pepper
1 tbsp. of garlic powder
1 tbsp. of onion powder
I make my own sauce. The jarred stuff creeps me out. Too much sodium and junk.
So here's my sauce recipe:
9 roma tomatoes
1 tbsp. of sunflower oil
2 tbsp. of dry oregano
2 tbsp. of dry basil
2 tbsp. of chopped garlic
1 tsp of paprika
1 tsp of salt
Directions:
**For the sauce: peel and dice the tomatoes, put in a sauce pan. Cook on low-medium for about 1 hour. Just to where it's simmering. Add all other ingredients of course and stir every 10-15 minutes or so. Continue to cook on low for about another hour. This recipe makes about 2 and 1/4 cups of sauce.
Directions:
For the lasagna: Boil a big pot of water and salt it. Add the 9 lasagna noodles and cook til almost done.
Get your 9x13 casserole dish ready. Preheat your oven at 350.
Now. While your noodles are cooking, get a medium size bowl out for the cheese mix.
Add the cottage cheese, 1/4 cup of the mozzarella, basil, the fresh chopped garlic, egg, salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder. Stir until blended well.
Slice your zucchini up like I mentioned above. You are about to start the layering process.
Once the noodles are done, take three of them and line the casserole dish. Then spoon a little of the cheese mixture on each noodle and spread over the noodle, each noodle. On top of the cheese mixture, add a layer of sauce. Now, the zucchini layer. Add 3 of the 6 slices of zucchini on top of each noodle. Repeat each step until you are left with the top layer as a noodle layer. Now finish off the top with a layer of sauce and the 1/4 cup of mozzarella you set aside earlier. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
Before:
After:
As you can see, we paired our lasagna with a spinach salad. I encourage you to do the same!
Nutritional Values:
Calories per serving: 177.17!! yes, that's it!!! (I am a finance major as well as my husband is a finance guru...so these numbers are absolutely accurate:)
6 servings are in this recipe!
Saturated fat: 1.5 g per serving. Yep. So, indulge!
Protein: 13.6 grams of protein per serving!! Craziness! I know.
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