Between my job and Russ' decline I became emotionally soggy, not really caring about much except getting through the day. Certainly what we ate became less important as long as there were 3 meals a day. Until... the week we ate pizza, store bought chicken cordon bleu, sandwich meat, burgers, a frozen pasta 'meal' and canned chili (yes it was Organic Amy's) on baked potato with grated cheese. A Facebook friend is always making and posting photos of yummy meals while I was lost in the land of additives. I cruised through the week's meals in my mind and realized I needed to get back to REAL.
In a recent post titled 'What Do You Know?' I spoke of being driven to remember what exactly real food was. I ordered the book from the library (that's how we do it during Covid...order online and do a driveway pickup) and am thoroughly enjoying reading it. It spurred me on to plan some real meals for us this week. I don't plan to be fanatical, but thoughtful. It can be quick, but must be real. To that end I made some quick lasagna.
Lasagna can be rather time consuming. One premise in the book is it is OK to use packaged foods with 5 or less ingredients that you can read. Meat is OK if you know th farmer. Organic is best and if you need to give yourself a bit of grace... go with it. I started with that.
I used an 8" square glass plan which served us two dinners.
INGREDIENTS...what I used for 4 servings
- 2 (local) sausage
- 1 jar 16 oz of Mezzetta Marainara Sauce
- 1/2 container 15 oz organic ricotta cheese
- 8 ounces fresh grated mozzarella cheese
- 1/2+ cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
- 1 bunch fresh spinach, cooked and squeezed of moisture
- 1 egg
- 6 no-cook lasagna noodles
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees
- If using sausage links, skin them. Cook, breaking up into bite size pieces
- Drain and add to marinara sauce
- Simmer
- In a bowl mix together ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan cheese, spinach, egg
- Put a bit of sauce in bottom of dish
- Now layer things
- 2 noodles, not touching
If using no bake noodle they shouldn't touch each other or sides because they become crunchy - 1/2 ricotta
- cheese mix
- sauce
- 2 noodles
- 1/2 ricotta mix
- sauce
- 1/4 cup parmesan (you know me, I L-O-V-E parmesan)
- 2 noodles, not touching
Look at the layers and think about dividing up the ingredients.
- Cover with foil and put in a preheated 425 degree oven
- Bake 40 minutes
- Uncover
- Bake 20 minutes
- Turn oven off and 'rest' 15 minutes
- Serve.