I love me some Italian food. Well, I love me some Americanized pseudo-Italian influenced food...but that's neither here nor there (Olive Garden, if you're looking for a spoken women for those banging breadsticks, give me a shout out) :-PBack to the actual cooking.....one of my absolute favorites is lasagna. However, not a fan of making it. Sure, I know you can freeze it and then bake it later, but if I'm going to go into all the work of making it, I want it have it for dinner that night. (Patience is not a virtue in my kitchen) Well, ta-da! A "lasagna" that can be ready to devour in less than 30 minutes (29 according to the cookbook...) Thank you random Pampered Chef booklet for your lovely Skillet Lasagna.
How Long Is This Gonna Take:
Well, if you read my witty little intro, you'd already know this answer. However, for you skimmers out there (don't worry, I'm one of them), this one will take you 30 minutes.
What You'll Need:
1 jar spaghetti sauce
3 cups water
8 oz lasagna noodles (instead I used a box of penne because my grocery store doesn't carry whole wheat lasagna noodles)
1 lb hot Italian sausage (or links, casings removed). I used turkey sausage
2 garlic cloves, pressed (I used minced)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
2 tsp dried parsley
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 tsp black pepper
What To Do:1. Combine sauce and water in large skillet. Cover and bring to boil.
2. Meanwhile, wrap noodles in a clean kitchen towel and break into quarters. Stir noodles into sauce. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 16-18 minutes for "normal" noodles or 10-12 for no-boil noodles. Stir occasionally.
3. As noodles cook, place sausage into small skillet and cook over med-high heat, breaking into crumbles, for 6-8 minutes or until no longer pink. Add garlic, cook 1 minute, then remove from heat. Stir sausage into noodles and sauce.
4. Meanwhile, combine parmesan, ricotta, and mozzarella cheeses along with 1 tsp parsley and pepper in a separate bowl. Spoon out "balls" of cheese on to noodles. Cover skillet and simmer gently for 3-5 minutes or until cheese is melted and heated through. You can mix it all up if you'd like, or keep the cheese in "balls" (I know, sounds weird....look at the picture)5. To serve, sprinkle "lasagna" with remaining 1 tsp parsley and any additional parmesan cheese you'd like.
I'll be making this for lunch today! I am not a fan of ricotta and never have it on hand, so I've been using cottage cheese that I pulse in the food processor (or blender) to make it ricotta consistency. Can't wait to give this a try as I'm a big fan of lasagna and have these ingredients on hand!
ReplyDeleteOkay, so I'm eating and typing (healthy combo, right!?;) ) Here's what I did... I also had Ronzoni rotini whole grain, so that's what I used. I replaced the ricotta with low fat small curd cottage cheese and- since my dh is boycotting sausage after watching a show on the Food Network- I opted to cut up some eggplant and saute that with 5 fresh cloves of garlic (pressed), sea salt, and some canola oil. Mixed it all up as instructed and it is super YUM!!! Need to figure out how many points my 1.5 cup serving is, but it's super filling and it is an assault on my tastebuds for sure!! I may do regular ronzoni next time but that's more of a texture issue I have with wholewheat than anything else! Thanks for sharing, Sarah, great Sunday lunch for my family!!
ReplyDeleteNote to self: figure out points BEFORE you eat! It came out at 12 points for 1 cup and I had a cup and a half for LUNCH. I'll be having a light dinner! :)
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