Lasagna

Yesterday was my first half day in a long time, so I thought I'd make something.

Ingredients (Makes 6 servings, though Will ate 2 in one go)
9 lasagna noodles, cooked, rinsed and drained
250g or so of ground beef
1 tsp of ginger paste (optional)
1 bottle/can of pasta sauce
1 carrot, chopped
1 zucchini, halved lengthwise, then thinly sliced
1 orange pepper, diced
1 lb mushrooms, thinly sliced
Seasonings (oregano, sugar, salt, pepper, cayenne)
1 package frozen spinach, thawed, and squeezed of excess water
1 tub cottage cheese (500g)
340g mozzarella, shredded


Method:
In a large bowl, mix together cottage cheese and spinach.

In a large pot, brown the beef with ginger.
Add mushrooms, carrots and pepper.
If the mushrooms release a lot of moisture, drain, and add pasta sauce and zucchini.
Cook the sauce and season as you wish.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Assemble the lasagna:
Put a small amount of sauce on the bottom of a rectangular pyrex dish.
Layer like so:
Noodles. Trim the noodles to fit and use the trimmings to fill in gaps.
Sauce. Sprinkle with a bit of mozza.
Noodles.
Spinach and cottage cheese mix.
Noodles.
Sauce with some mozza.
Noodles.
Sauce and top with the rest of the mozza.

Bake until the cheese is bubbly. Then broil at 400F to brown the top.

Enjoy!


Comments:
This filled my pyrex to the very brim and there was still sauce leftover. A large Corning casserole dish could probably hold more, and the noodles would probably fit better too, with each layer having 3 noodles, instead of a length of just short of 1 noodle, and a width of just more than 2. (Provided, of course, that the noodles come in standard sizes). Oh, and it was a lot of cottage cheese for that size dish.

I don't like that beefy smell, so hence the ginger.

Things probably would've gone faster if I had used the v-slicer.

This is a bit blurry, but there are the layers.

Verdict:
A bit of work, but worth it! Cheaper and waaaaaay healthier than the frozen stuff.