My Best Veggie Lasagna Ever!

Now that I'm back in the kitchen I have been making some real comfort food. One of my favorites is vegetarian lasagna. Lately, we had been eating the boxed kind (yuck) because I hadn't been cooking but last night I whipped up a huge, fresh lasagna and it was divine! I threw this together in 1 hour. It is the perfect recipe if you are having anyone visit over the holiday season and need something that will suit everyone's taste and your budget.

Ingredients & Preparation: ("Recipe" is my own, but I just go by taste and experience)
Serves approx. 10 people

For the tomato sauce:

(you can use this one of this one if you prepare it ahead of time - http://betterthantakeout.blogspot.com/2008/08/basic-homemade-tomato-sauce.html)

• 1/2 large yellow onion, diced
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1-2 tsps herbs of your choice
• 1 large can of diced tomatoes
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• olive oil

Dice the onion. Saute in heavy bottom pot with olive oil until soft - about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute or so. Be careful not to burn garlic. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste. Stir until mixed through. Add herbs and stir. Let this heat on medium until you are ready to build your lasagna. Cook at least 15 minutes to incorporate flavours.

For the Lasagna:

• 2 packages of fresh lasagna sheets, approx. 12 sheets that are 9 x 6 inches (or make your own)
• 1 container of ricotta
  
• 1 container of cottage cheese
• 1 egg
• approx. 2 cups fresh baby spinach, chopped
  
• salt & pepper to taste
• mozzarella or mixed cheeses, grated (approx. 340 grams)

The first thing you want to do is make the sauce. After you have done that, whiz your ricotta and cottage cheese up in a food processor until smooth. Add one egg and salt/pepper to taste. Whiz again to blend. Chop the spinach up. Grate your cheese. Pre-heat over to 350 degrees.

Now take a large rectangular pan and start to layer your lasagna. Add some of the sauce at the bottom to avoid sticking. Then add 2 sheets of pasta (if your pan is the same size as mine then the sheets should fit perfectly, 2 side by side). Top with ricotta mixture so it covers the pasta and then add some of the spinach. Next layer is tomato sauce and a little mozzarella cheese. Make sure to reserve quite a lot of the cheese for the top layer. Continue with the layering alternating between ricotta/spinach and tomato sauce/cheese. The final layer will be the remainder of the tomato sauce and the rest of the cheese. You should have 6 layers.

Cover with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 mins. remove the foil and bake for another 5 minutes. Let sit for about 5 minutes - then cut and serve! Best with Italian or French bread and a green salad.

Note: You will see in my photo I used parchment paper in my pan to reduce clean up. Don't do this. Big mistake on my part! It didn't ruin the meal at all but scooping out the lasagna = scooping up some bits of paper too.