Hearty Vegetable Lasagna & Ariel's Pasta Sauce

"The heavens opened and a stream of light bathed this lasagna in a well-deserved celestial glow. This is the stuff that would make Garfield a vegetarian." -Andrew

The missionaries were over for dinner, and they also had two or three large helpings each, which is pretty good for missionaries and vegetarian lasagna.

This recipe I got off allrecipes.com. It's a place where users can post a recipe, and other people can try it and rate it. You can also see all the nutritional information for each recipe, and plug in the number of servings you want and the site will adjust the recipe to fit your group so you don't have to do all the calculations in your head (I always seem to forget half way through and so the first half of the ingredients are halved and not the second). This is a good place to find any kind of basic recipe that you want. Search something like "guacamole," and 47 recipes come up. The top recipe is rated 5 out of 5 stars and has 1792 reviews, so you can safely assume it's going to be a pretty good recipe. The only trouble is that these recipes make no claims to being healthy, so you may have to look for a while before you find some really healthy ones.

Source

This lasagna is not one of those really healthy ones, unless you are comparing it to a regular lasagna. I don't exactly follow the recipe, so you can see my comments at the bottom.

PREP TIME	25 Min
COOK TIME	1 Hr
READY IN	1 Hr 40 Min

SERVINGS-12

INGREDIENTS

1 (16 ounce) package lasagna noodles

1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced

3/4 cup chopped green bell pepper

3/4 cup chopped onion

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 (26 ounce) jars pasta sauce

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 (15 ounce) container part-skim ricotta cheese

4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

2 eggs

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook the lasagna noodles in a large pot of boiling water for 10 minutes, or until al dente. Rinse with cold water, and drain.

2. In a large saucepan, cook and stir mushrooms, green peppers, onion, and garlic in oil. Stir in pasta sauce and basil; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.

3. Mix together ricotta, 2 cups mozzarella cheese, and eggs.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spread 1 cup tomato sauce into the bottom of a greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Layer 1/2 each, lasagna noodles, ricotta mix, sauce, and Parmesan cheese. Repeat layering, and top with remaining 2 cups mozzarella cheese.

5. Bake, uncovered, for 40 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

For the sauce, I make my own. I guess now that I have my own place to put my cooking recipes, I can call this, "Ariel's Pasta Sauce."

I just chop up some garlic (maybe 2 cloves), about 1/2 of a large onion, or 1 small, and whatever other veggie I have. Zucchini (which, by the way, is SUPER easy to slice thinly on the side of a cheese grater), yellow squash, mushrooms and spinach are my favorites. You can also use bell peppers, but I chop them small so as to diminish the texture. You'd be surprised how much you can veg this up. I saute them in olive oil until somewhat wilted, and then pour in a can of tomato sauce and a can of diced tomatoes with the juice. If you have too many veggies, add another can of sauce or diced tomatoes. I add fresh ground pepper, salt if not already in the tomatoes, fresh basil if I have it, and any combo of dried basil, oregano, Italian seasoning, and crushed red pepper. If you didn't have any garlic or onion, here's where you can add onion or garlic powder or garlic salt. Then I bring it to a boil and let it simmer for as long as I have, which usually isn't very long. If you or your family doesn't like big chunks in your pasta, you can put the veggies in the food processor and just use tomato sauce instead of diced tomatoes. You could also put the whole thing in the blender.

I don't know why that looks so long, it's really very easy.

Okay, back to the recipe. For me, after I get done with my sauce, it usually makes a lot. And I find that I have twice the noodles and cheese that I need for one lasagna, so it makes two pans of lasagna just fine. Sorry no picture. You can see what it looks like on the website--it looks just like any other lasagna.