Hearty lasagna

It was another busy weekend for us. We ran many errands and occupied ourselves quite a bit. By Sunday I was tired, and for the life of me I couldn't cross anything off of my To-Do list for the move or for the wedding. Slowly and surely things are getting done but no big task got completely finished this weekend. I am a big To-Do list person and I enjoy very little more than being able to cross something off my list. Thus, when Sunday dinner rolled around I was feeling somewhat under accomplished.

In comes big dinner plans. I meant to make lasagna a while ago to use up my 1/2 empty box of noodles. Enter heat wave in New York and my plans were put on hold. This weekend was warm and humid but in the about to have a big storm way with lots of clouds. It didn't seem like too big of a pain to turn the oven on last night so off I was to whip up lasagna.

I don't really have a recipe for this venture. It is called the look in the fridge for yummy veggies and put them in. I happened to have ground turkey, mushrooms, and spinach this weekend so there was my filling.

Ingredients:

whole wheat lasagna noodles

16 oz can crushed tomatoes
16 oz container of ricotta cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

8 oz fresh mozzarella - sliced

1 egg

1 Tbsp Italian seasoning

1 cup chopped fresh baby spinach

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1/2 LB ground turkey

1.Ricotta mixture - Combined 16 oz container of ricotta cheese, 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, egg, and Italian seasoning. Set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Saute ground turkey until cooked through. Remove from pan and set aside. Add mushrooms to same pan with a bit of olive oil. Add to ground turkey when finished.

3. Boil water and cook lasagna noodles as directed by box instructions. I use 1/2 of the box and make a small pan instead of the normal large casserole dish.

4. Assemble lasagna starting with spreading 1/4 cup of crush tomatoes on the bottom of your pan. Add a layer of noodles, followed by the ricotta mixture. Add the turkey and mushroom mixture, a layer of spinach and then some sauce. Repeat again with another layer finishing the remaining ingredients. Depending on how many you are serving you can add another layer or two.

Don't get too excited though. If you over stuff the pan the tomato sauce will bubble over and make a mess in your oven.

5. The last layer should just be crushed tomatoes followed by a layer of the sliced mozzarella.

6. Place in lower rack of oven for approximately 35 minutes. I like the sauce to be bubbling and the cheese to be browned.

Let sit for about 10-15 minutes. It will be very hot. The sooner you slice into the pan the more runny the juices will be. Of course with Jordan and I, we normally only make it like 5 minutes till we have to eat.