Posts Tagged lasagna
Lasagna Rolls
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Italian, Low Calorie, Main Course, Pasta, Vegetables on April 8th, 2010
There’s always room for pasta. We all love it. Even low-carbers hate the fact they dream about it. So here’s another way to satiate that desire. This was a nice change of pace from the traditional layered dish but was just as filling.
Lasagna:
8 uncooked lasagna noodles
4 tsp olive oil
1/2 c finely chopped onion
1-8 0z pkge sliced mushrooms
1-6 oz pkge baby spinach
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 c mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 c part skim ricotta cheese
1/4 c minced fresh basil, divided
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
Sauce:
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (7 oz) bottle roasted red bell peppers, undrained
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper
1. For lasagna, cook noodles according to package direction, omitting salt and fat. Drain and rinse with cold water.
2. Heat oil in skillet over med-high heat. Add onion, mushroom, spinach and garlic – saute for 5 mins or until veggies are tender. Remove from heat and stir in cheeses, 2 tbsp basil, salt and red pepper.
3. For sauce, place your sauce ingredients into a blender and process until smooth.
4. Place cooked noodles on flat surface; spread 1/3 c cheese mixture over each noodle. Roll up noodles, jelly-roll fashion, starting with short side. Place rolls, seam-side down, in a shallow 2 qt microwave safe dish. Pour 1/4 c sauce over each roll and cover with heavy duty plastic wrap. Microwave at HIGH 5 mins and sprinkle with remaining basil. Makes 4 servings of 2 rolls each.
As you can see the sauce, at first, was more watery than I anticipated but I had to let it sit for a bit. The sauce was fine after a few more minutes. The rolls were also a bit ‘flatter’ than I expected. Other than that the taste was great! I’m sure you can substitute some of the veggies for a meat if you wanted more substance to them. I served this was a side of sauteed asparagus – yum! If only I had gelato. . . .
Nutritional Information:
Calories: 393
Fat: 11.7 g
Protein: 19.3 g
Carbohydrate: 58.3 g
Fiber: 5.9 g
Cholesterol: 20 mg
Sodium: 924 mg
Kitchen Scrap Lasagna
Posted by Van Santos in Italian, Main Course on December 18th, 2009
After several days of cooking and making new dishes I had a number of items left over. As I did not want to see the food go to waste I decided to make a dish mainly with the items I had leftover. The result is what I am calling “Kitchen Scrap Lasagna”
½ lb chicken breast tenders sliced paper thin
½ lb ground pork
½ lb ground beef
½ yellow onion
1 green onion sliced, diced and chopped (essentially to the consistency of dried oregano)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 can diced tomatoes (14.5 oz)
2 cans tomato sauce (15 oz)
1 can tomato paste (the wee little 6 oz type)
2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon basil
2 tablespoons parsley
6 oz of Parmesan Cheese
2 cups of cottage cheese (small curd)
8 oz shredded mozzarella
12 lasagna noodles
Here we go:
1- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, also bring a large pot of water to a boil. When water is boiling add salt (1 teaspoon) and 12 lasagna noodles. Cook for 9 mins or until noodles are “al dente” Remove and set pasta aside (all of this is going on when you are doing the other steps, btw)
2- Place 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, heat and add chicken, pork and beef. Cook and stir over medium heat for 3 mins.
3- Add yellow onions, garlic oregano and basil, stir and cook for 3 more mins.
4- Remove from heat, drain oil
5- Put meat back into the pan and over the flame, mix in the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and paste
6- Simmer over a low heat for 30 minutes while stirring to prevent burning
7- While your sauce is simmering, mix together your cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese and parsley
8- With your sauce ready, in a 9 by 13 oven safe dish spread a coat of sauce. Then lay down 3 noodles side by side – do not cross.. Add a coat of the cheese mixture, followed by sauce. Repeat once. Note that I said to make 12 noodles… I only use 9. In case some stick while cooking it always makes sense to have some extra on hand. After you lay your last 3 noodles top with sauce, followed by shredded mozzarella cheese.
9- Bake for 45 mins to an hour (depending on how brown you want your mozzarella)
The dish lasagna going in…
Our dish going into the oven
And coming out, all brown and ready to eat..
Oh, the baked goodness!
I know you are going to get tired of hearing it but this was outstanding. Truly. How good do you ask? I ate 1/3 of this pan by myself in one sitting. I have never made lasagna before, let alone just throw things together and and think it would turn out to be an edible lasagna.
A few things to note – I enjoy things a bit more “baked”, hence the darker cheese on top, as I experience a number of flavors that wouldn’t be there otherwise. Obviosuly you will want to bake to your taste.
Also, I do not care for Ricotta cheese AND I had cottage cheese left over so I simply used that. And yes, you’ll be happy to know that cottage cheese has a lower fat content!
The dish takes a bit of time to prep and bake but the payoff is worth the effort. In total you can expect about 12 servings from a pan of this size.
Oh, and on a side note… I think I may have found the perfect pasta sauce recipe in this creation.
Hot and ready to eat!
Have fun!
Sausage and Spinach Lasagna
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Low Calorie, Main Course, Pasta, Poultry on December 13th, 2009
Okay. . .so here goes another night of cooking! I’m sure many of you have made a lasagna in your lifetime, so here is another variation. This dish turned out very well and is perfect for cold weather comfort food!
You will need:
8 oz uncooked bulk turkey sausage/extra-lean ground beef
3/4 c chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, minced
1-15 oz can tomato sauce
1 c bottled roasted red sweet peppers, drained and chopped
2 tbsp snipped fresh basil/2 tsps dried basil, crushed
1 tbsp snipped fresh oregano/1 tsp dried oregano, crushed
1/4 tsp black pepper
6 dried whole grain lasagna noodles (I used whole wheat and just customize the size length of the noodles to your baking dish)
1-15 oz carton light ricotta cheese
1-10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
1 egg white, lightly beaten
1 c shredded reduced fat mozzarella cheese
1. Preheat oven to 375 and prep your baking dish. In a large skillet combine sausage, onion, and garlic and brown the meat. Don’t forget to drain the fat!
2. Stir in tomato sauce, red peppers, dried basil and dried oregano (if using), and black pepper. Bring to boiling then reduce heat. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes and stir occasionally. If you are using fresh basil and oregano add it at this time.
3. In another bowl stir ricotta, spinach and egg white together.
4. Place the bottom noodles (Two says the recipe - depending on your dish size. I had shorter noodles so I used three to fill up my dish) in the prepped baking dish. Put 1/3 spinach mixture, then 1/3 meat mixture, then some mozarella. Repeat two more times but do not put the mozarella on just yet. Cover with a sprayed piece of foil and bake for about 40 min (since whole wheat/whole grain takes a little longer).
So here is the first layer . . .
5. Remove foil and sprinkle remaining mozarella and bake for about 5 minutes more. Makes 8 servings!
Fresh and ready to go!
Mmmm delish!
Side note: This *is* a lower calorie version of a ‘traditional’ lasagna. If you didn’t want to go that route then obviously you can go with different meat/sausage and use cheeses that aren’t skim. There is no extra sauce leftover – just for those of you who happen to want more – so keep that in mind. You can always make 1/2 more of the recipe’s meat sauce if you want, especially for leftovers.
Nutritional information:
Calories: 237
Total Fat: 7 g
Cholesterol: 42 g
Protein: 18 g
Carbohydrate: 25 g
Fiber: 5 g
Sodium: 613 mg
Ground beef and eggplant lasagna
Posted by monicajane in Food, Main Course, Pasta on August 9th, 2009
I took a whole bunch of pictures of the process of this lasagna and managed to leave out the layer of eggplant!! How very annoying.
Here is the progression, sans eggplant. First a layer of pasta, then the first layer of meat sauce.
Then a hefty layer of parmesan:
Then a layer of cultured cottage cheese (yes it’s got a bit of a yogurt flavor)
Then the layer of EGGPLANT that is missing then you repeat the whole thing (the second time I did not put eggplant as the first layer was pretty thick–I sliced them in circles and lay them down on top of the cottage cheese) Then this is the finished product before cooking. After the second layer I finish with a layer of pasta and then just s tiny bit of sauce and cheese to top it off lightly:
This is overflowing so I put it on a cookie rack in the oven.
So the recipe:
Red meat sauce
1 lb grass fed beef (I have a very inexpensive source for organic ground beef so I’m eating red meat a whole lot more than I used to!)
1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
14 oz can diced tomatoes (these happen to have roasted hot peppers in them so the sauce will be spicy!)
1/4 cup frozen pesto sauce (from our garden)
Salt to taste
Saute onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil. Toss in beef and brown. Pour in can of tomatoes and the pesto sauce. Cook just long enough for flavors to blend. (this is a meat heavy sauce…I don’t like heavy tomato in my lasagna)
So I cooked the lasagna pasta before I started all this. I used brown rice lasagna pasta. I only cook the noodles for about 5 minutes. I take them out when they are still very firm as they cook a lot in the oven and aid in keeping the lasagna firm and not watery.
Also before putting this together brush slices of eggplant with oil and put under broiler for a couple of minutes until soft.
I placed one layer of pasta at the bottom of the dish then put a layer of meat sauce, followed by a generous amount of parmesan, followed by a layer of cottage cheese then a layer of eggplant.
Repeat.
Finish with a last layer of pasta, a very small bit of sauce, parmesan and lastly I put a small layer of mozzarella for looks.
Cook for (I just went to check on it) it was perfectly done and took about 50 minutes. I did not heat the oven up first though so go by how it looks on top…nice and lightly browned, like this:
It did not overflow. You can of course use a cheese other than the cultured cottage cheese. I used it simply because it needed to be eaten and I cook completely based on what is currently in my fridge.
