Comfort Food Friday

Psst! Guess what- it's Friday!

Green Power Lasagna

This lasagna is super good for when you need to eat more vegetables than you really want to. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE me some veggies, but these post holiday weeks have needed some serious greenage. There's still lots of gooey cheese and starchy noodle, but there's also zucchini, carrot, garlic, onion, mushroom, parsley, and arugula! Also, I don't cook my noodles beforehand, because that's how I roll. It works, I promise.

Ingredients

lasagna noodles
2 cups tomato or untomato sauce
1 1/2 cups mushrooms, chopped
1 large yellow onion, chopped small
2 cloves garlic, chopped very small
olive oil
3/4 - 1 pound mozzarella or chihuahua cheese, grated
2 cups ricotta cheese
1 big bunch Italian parsley
2 cups arugula
1 medium zucchini, grated
1 large-ish carrot, grated
3/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 cup water
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
salt and pepper

Directions

Cook onion in a skillet (cast iron, preferably) over medium heat.
When starting to brown, add mushrooms and garlic.
Once mushrooms have sweat a bit, add (un)tomato sauce and Italian seasoning.
Let it get all delicious-smelling, then stir in water and turn off heat.

Throw the parsley and the arugula in the food processor until it's in small bits, but before it looks like pesto. You might have to do this in a few batches.
In a pretty big mixing bowl, mix together ricotta, zucchini, carrot, half of the parmesan, and the greens you just processed. Salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 350.
In a lightly oiled 9 x 13 pan, spread a little of the tomato sauce before laying down the first layer of uncooked noodles.
Alternate between layers of the ricotta mixture and sauce w/ cheese until the pan is nearly full. End with a layer of sauce and top with the rest of the grated cheese and parmesan.
Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 40 min.
Then remove the foil and bake uncovered for an additional 20-30 min or until the cheese is beautifully browned.

Let cool a bit, or eat right away and burn your mouth (I usually choose the latter).

Time to Woop it Up!

Have a Great Weekend!