La, La. La, La, La Lasagna!!

People don’t always realize that I’m Italian. They see my red hair, blue eyes, and short stature and instantly recognize I’m Irish. After all, my maiden name is Maguire. What they don’t know is that my mother’s unmarried name was Dibiase and her whole family is rooted in Italy. As a girl who grew up in a household full of spaghetti, pasta fagioli, raviolis, cannolis, anise cookies, and garlic bread, it’s a wonder that my family wasn’t featured in the original Godfather.

In reality, however, I don’t actually like that much Italian food. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother’s homemade spaghetti sauce with meatballs. No one compares or comes close to her level of cooking; but if given the choice, I would choose corned beef and cabbage over raviolis or pasta primavera.

Every once in a while I do get a craving for either a nice homemade spaghetti dinner or a pan of lasagna. It doesn’t happen often;  so when it does, I splurge and satisfy the desire.  This past time, I was sincerely wanting lasagna, but not your regular run of the mill lasagna. I didn’t want all the carbohydrates and calories of the regular pasta noodles. I wanted zucchini lasagna.

Zucchini lasagna happens when you substitute thin slices of zucchini for typical lasagna noodles.  I had heard of it before when I attended Weight Watchers and I had even tried my hand at it. It was good. It had much more flavor and was much lower in calories and fat. It was a win - win situation. I decided I would make the recipe again, only this time I wanted meat in my recipe. So I adapted the recipe again. My result was extraordinarily delicious and actually quite good for me and my family. Behold is the culmination of my creativity, hard work, and determination to eat healthy, scrumptious Italian food.


April’s  Zucchini Lasagna 

Ingredients:

3 large zucchini squash
salt
1 lb ground Italian turkey sausage **
½ package of Turkey pepperoni
15 oz (1 can) Hunts Garlic and Herb spaghetti sauce (or your own homemade sauce)
2 cups ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 TBL Italian seasoning
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese ,shredded
2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375º.

Lay out 4-6 sheets of thick paper towels. Cut the ends of the zucchini off and slice each zucchini lengthwise into thin slices.  Lay the slices out on the paper towels and salt them well. ( The more salt used, the less wet the lasagna will be.) Let stand for at least 10 minutes, until towels have absorbed most of the wetness of the zucchini.

In the meantime, brown and scramble the ground turkey sausage. (If using sausage links, remove casings and break up uncooked meat into small pieces. Mash with fork if necessary.) Cook meat thoroughly, breaking pieces into very small bites.

Add the spaghetti sauce and simmer for a few minutes.

In a separate bowl, combine the ricotta cheese with the eggs, and Parmesan cheese. Add Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and pepper. Stir until mixture is smooth with no lumps.

The zucchini will be covered in water now. Press as much of the water out with more paper towels as possible.

Spray an 9 x 13 baking dish with cooking spray.

Place a layer of zucchini in the bottom of the dish. Cover the entire bottom. Top with 1/2 of the sauce, then layer with slices of pepperoni. Add  a layer of the ricotta mixture (approx. ½ the mixture.) Sprinkle on 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese. Repeat the layering process of zucchini, meat sauce, pepperoni, and the ricotta.  The top layer should be zucchini.

Cover the lasagna with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Take foil off and bake for 20 more minutes. After the 20 minutes are over, top the lasagna with the rest of the mozzarella cheese. Bake for 10 more minutes.

When finished baking, let lasagna sit for at least 10 minutes, to allow some of the liquid to settle.

Enjoy!! Mangia!!

** Can also substitute ground turkey or ground beef for turkey sausage.**