Lasagna

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 16:39:37 EST
From: davenpor@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Donna Davenport)

LASAGNA

Since I come from an Italian family, Thanksgiving wouldn't be anything
without pasta. We traditionally serve lasagna as the second course and
this year I'm making it again. I thought I'd share the recipe:

Marinara sauce:

3 cans of crushed tomatoes
5 - 6 cloves of crushed or chopped garlic
handful of parsley
basil if you have it
1 small onion
salt to taste


In a large pot, saute the onion and garlic in a little water. Add the
tomatoes and basil. Let simmer on low for an hour, then add salt and
parsley to taste.


Lasagna:

1 and 1/2 box of lasagna noodles - you will have some left over
3 - 4 lbs of Fat Free ricotta cheese
4 egg whites
2 cups of steamed spinach leaves, de-stemmed
2 cups of boiled and mashed carrots
3 long zucchini, cut into long strips and steamed
sun-dried tomatoes, chopped fine (or, buy the flakes)
white pepper
black pepper
crushed garlic or garlic powder
chopped mushrooms

Boil the lasagna noodles and lay them out on a tablecloth so they remain
flat and dry, set aside. In a large bowl mix ricotta cheese with egg,
white pepper, black pepper and sun-dried tomatoes. Place 1/3 of the
mixture in a separate bowl with the spinach and 1/3 of the mixture in a
separate bowl with the carrots (add extra pepper to carrots) - you should
have 1/3 plain cheese left. Ladle some marinara sauce on the bottom of a
large lasagna pan and then add noodles to cover the bottom. Layer the
steamed zucchini on top of the noodles -- spice the zucchini as you like
garlic and pepper is good. Add another layer of noodles. Add the carrot
and cheese mixture and another layer of noodles. Add the spinach and
ricotta mixture and another layer of noodles. Add some marinara sauce and
the remainder of the cheese. The top layer is the topped with noodles
tomatoe sauce and the copped mushrooms plus any left-over sun-dried
tomatoes and/or parsley you have around. Bake at 350 for about 45
minutes. Serve with marinara sauce.

Enjoy. My family was amazed that this was "healthy"!

Notes:

You can substitute tofu for cheese if you don't want to eat cheese, and
egg beaters for the egg whites. Also, I've made this with only 3 layers:
the zucchini, the carrot & cheese, and the spinach and cheese -- when I
was feeling like less cheese was in order and it was still delish.