I plan on making lasagna on Friday night to feed my love some good home-cooked food after being on the road all week. It will also make great leftovers for weekend lunches. To start I will need to make spaghetti sauce. I have tried to cut red meat out of most of our recipes so I now make my spaghetti sauce with ground chicken. The original recipe used ground beef, substitute beef if you prefer. This recipe is my Mom's with my own modifications over the years.
Spaghetti Sauce
2 jars of organic pasta sauce, usually tomato with mushroom sauce
10 mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, chopped
1 - 2 peppers, diced
1 small can organic tomato paste
1 - 2 lbs. ground chicken
3 to 4 cloves of garlic, minced
basil, thyme, oregano to taste
salt and pepper
Brown chicken and onion, once it has almost cooked through add mushrooms, peppers, garlic and herbs. Once mushrooms and peppers are soft add tomato sauce and tomato paste. Simmer for half hour minimum.
Lasagna
Layer spaghetti sauce with noodles and ricotta cheese mixture. Top with mozzarella and parmesan.
Ricotta Cheese Mixture
Low fat ricotta (3 to 4 cups)
Parmesan (1/2 cup)
1 - 2 eggs
Salt and Pepper
1 package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed (optional)
Order of layers - small amount of sauce, noodles, sauce, ricotta, noodles, sauce ricotta, noodles, sauce, mozzarella.
Bake for at least an hour at 400 degrees, let stand fifteen minutes before cutting and serving.
