Posts Tagged sausage
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
Sausage, apple and sweet potato casserole….
Posted by monicajane in Food, Main Course, Poultry on November 24th, 2009
That photo looks like it’s all sweet potato and it wasn’t at all.
So I had some chicken hot italian sausages. These are really good natural sausages. They do not have that weak chicken sausage flavor so many chicken sausages have. So if I didn’t know these were great sausages and you prefer pork, then I’d go with pork for this recipe.
I browned about a pound of sausage. I took off the skins and sauteed it like ground meat. Before I did the saute I boiled a 
massively huge sweet potato. Two regular sized large sweet potatoes would do. These are from the CSA box we’re getting so nothing is typical which is lovely because you know it’s not been genetically modified or altered in any way for it to look “normal” for the grocery store. So I cut up the potato in pieces and boiled it.
After the sausage was cooked I put it on the bottom of an 8 x 8 baking dish. I topped that with a layer of thinly sliced apple.
I mashed the potatoes once they were cooked and added salt. Then I put this over the apples and sausage. I baked it covered for 1/2 an hour at 400 degrees and then uncovered for 20 minutes.
I had no idea how this would turn out except I had a vague memory of liking pork sausage with sweet potatoes—where I got this idea I didn’t know. My husband later reminded me I used to get an egg scramble in a restaurant we used to frequent in which there was both a hefty amount of sweet potatoes and sausage. The apple was a new addition. I wasn’t sure if I’d like it but I did and in fact I loved it!
Served it with also local collard greens from the CSA box for an all around southern feel. (I live in the south for those of you who do not know)
Cross-posted at BlogAsheville
