Homemade Spinach Lasagne

Yesterday, when I made lasagna, I ran out of cottage cheese that I was going to use instead of ricotta.  Well, one of my munchkins had already eaten half of what I needed.  I replaced it with Greek yogurt and you couldn’t even tell it wasn’t ricotta!   The lasagna turned out delish!

 

Pasta e Fagioli Soup

Felt like soup today instead of tomorrow.   Decided upon Pasta e Fagioli because I love it when I go to Olive Garden (which is on rare occasion).  Pulled out a recipe and was missing an onion so substituted with dried onion.   Tomorrow is shopping day so we are low on all the fresh vegetables.  I also had to replace celery with celery seed.   Instead of using cannellini beans, I had great northern.   I will let you know how it turns out.    However, it already smells great.   I put it into the crock pot this morning.   My grandmother always cooked for the day early and loved it (and her).  It seems to really help on home school days to be ahead of the game when I can throw food in the crock pot or even just have a great game plan for the rest of the day so we don’t end up with sandwiches and noodle soup.   So without further chit chat the recipe (which I doubled for my crowd):

• 2 T olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 rib celery, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 15 oz cans cannellini beans, drained & rinsed
• 1 28 oz ca crushed tomatoes
• 4 c low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 T fresh chopped thyme
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup small pasta such as shells or elbow

Warm oil in a saucepan over medium heat.   Add onion, celery, and carrots and cook, stirring often until they are soft but not brown.  Add garlic and saute 1 minute longer.   stir in beans, tomatoes, broth & thyme.   Season with salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.   Add pasta, stirring often until the pasta is al dente, 10-12 minutes longer.   Season again with salt and pepper if needed.   Thin with more broth if desired.

 

Since I did mine in the crock pot.  I am waiting to put the noodles in one hour before our meal and cranking the crock pot up to high.  I’m not crazy about soggy noodles so I want them just finished before we eat.   Hope you are having a blessed day and enjoying these unusually cool mornings for August (if you are in Georgia).   I’m LOOOOOVING it!  

 

 

January 8 and January 9 – Ziti

Brunch

French Toast

Dinner

Baked ziti.  This is an easy meal.  We took our leftover ground venison & onion from pizza night.  We added more pasta sauce.  We boiled our ziti noodles, drained, and placed in our 13 x 9 dish.  We put all the sauce on top of the noodles.  We put leftover Mozzarella cheese from pizza night on top and added some Parmesan.  Voila.  Serve with salad and enjoy.  We’ve also placed pepperonis on top before the cheese (on another day) and it was yummy also.

Michael also made a clown cake today all by himself.  Great job Michael!

January 9

Breakfast

We were running late this morning so you either ate a piece of fruit or you fasted until lunch.  Just how it was today.

Lunch

Leftover ziti and Michael’s cake.

Dinner

Baked chicken, honeyed carrots and green beans.

 

 

January 3 – Soaked Oatmeal and Spinach Lasagna

Breakfast

We had baked oatmeal this morning.  This is different from my oatmeal squares.  The kiddos love the oatmeal squares better but this is a healthy, quick breakfast also.  I got this recipe from the Graham Family Ministries website.  You can find it here:  http://www.school4jesus.com/baked-oatmeal.  You soak your oatmeal the night before.  If you ever read Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon you will learn that soaking your grains improves the quality of nutrition for you in whatever you are cooking.  I’ll have to explain that more on a day that I did not teach school and watch two precious grands.

Spinach Lasagna

It’s almost funny that I’m sending folks recipes I use because I am not a good “measurer” in the kitchen.  I’ve cooked for so long that I eyeball a lot of what I make.  But to the best of my guesstimation this is how I made this yummy dish.

• 1 package frozen spinach (this time I used the bag but I’ve used the small boxes before but drained them well)
• lasagna noodles
• 2 c cottage cheese
• Parmesan cheese
• Colby jack cheese, shredded (I know what your’re thinking.   I’ve also used mozzarella but this was really good!)
• pasta sauce (homemade or store bought will work)
• small onion, chopped

Okay, I boiled the lasagna noodles.  (The directions are on the package if this is new to you.)  I began steaming the spinach soon after.   I drained the lasagna noodles next.  I then sprayed my 9 x 13 pan with olive oil spray.  I placed a layer of lasagna noodles on the bottom.  I spread my spinach atop this layer pretty evenly.  I then put about 4 T Parmesan into my cottage cheese.  I spread about 2 cups of this mixture on the spinach.  Placed a layer of sauce over this.  I then sprinkled a light layer of the shredded cheese atop of the sauce.   Then I started over.  I put a layer of noodles.  However, this layer has just the cottage cheese, the pasta sauce, the cheese.  You could bake here but I have 5 huuuungry boys and 2 growing girls so I did a third layer of noodles, pasta sauce and cheese.  The top layer gets the onions sprinkled on top and I sprinkled a bit more Parmesan.  Baked at 350 for 20-30 minutes. 

You could do more spinach and more cottage cheese if you want thicker layers.  You could shred carrots and zucchini in the sauce and the wee ones wouldn’t even know.  Be creative…you just can’t mess up with pasta sauce and cheese. Hope you enjoy.