Rainy Day Lasagna Prep

When mama made lasagna, she always made two. She figured it was just as easy to make/buy a little more ingredients and cook one for supper and freeze the other for another time. I completely agree with this method. The extra one I made today is not for us though. It's for a Donald's cousin who is expecting a baby girl at the end of July. When I visit friends or family with a new bundle of joy, I always bring a meal. I try to stick with something that's in one pan such as lasagna or chicken pot pie (another thing that you should make extra of) and also easy to cook/reheat. I try to deliver it in something that doesn't have to be returned and also try to provide utensils, plates, cups. I figure when you can barely find time to eat those first few weeks/months, the last thing you want to do it wash dishes or load a dishwasher. I typically serve it with a salad and try to bring some sort of baked goodie like muffins or a sweet bread that will serve as a quick breakfast or dessert.  

Since completely starting new with the herb garden (after Snowpocalypse 1 & 2), they've really taken off and look beautiful. I wanted to incorporate as many fresh herbs as possible into the ricotta/egg/mozzarella cheese mixture. 

This is the herb garden freshly planted. The dill, parsley and catnip are HUGE now. I bought catnip because I heard it was good for repelling mosquitoes. This thing better keep them out of my yard as big as it is!

I purchased two packages of button mushrooms on managers special at Kroger and if you're like me, I just can't make/eat lasagna or spaghetti sauce if it doesn't have mushrooms in it. I also had three medium sized zucchini that needed to be used. 

I still have beautiful, stalks of dark green kale in the garden so I decided those leafy greens would be tasty in the dish. 

I cooked everything individually, but all in the same pan without cleaning in between. All of the favors will merry in the lasagna so there's no need for this step. I cooked the turkey, then sautéed the zucchini with five cloves of garlic. Next, I threw in the mushrooms & added about a shot glass splash of beef stock & covered the pan to let them steam away. Removed and added the kale to soften and turn bright green.

I mixed 2 15 oz containers of ricotta cheese, a package of shredded mozzarella, about 1/4 cup of various fresh chopped herbs (thyme, basil, parsley, tarragon, rosemary) and 4 farm fresh eggs that we saw plucked fresh from the coop when we were visiting my parents. The shells were these different and beautiful shades of brown, pink, lavender and pale white.  The yolks are almost orange.  I almost didn't even want to use them because they were so gorgeous.

I put down a layer of sauce/turkey, layer of noodles, layer of cheese/egg/herbs, then layed the sauteed zucchini and garlic down. 

I repeated the layers, but put down the steamed kale and mushrooms.

I usually end with sauce, then put the cheese on top, but had a little bit of ricotta left, so it went on top.  I topped it off with fresh mozzarella.   

I baked ours below at 350 for about 1 1/2 hours.  It was lightly covered in foil for the first hour. The last two minutes maybe, I turned the oven on broil.  

I put this in the oven pretty late in the evening (6:45) because we had a late lunch.  

I wasn't able to get a cooked picture as Stella wasn't cooperating around this time and for bedtime. We didn't eat until almost 10 o'clock!  The good thing about this was, it  had time to set and gel for a while afterwards and it was still perfectly warm by the time we finished our salad (fresh from the garden) and bread.

This one got covered in Glad Press 'n' Seal, then in foil and sent to the freezer for when Baby Olivia arrives.

 

These are our salad greens (Bibb/Red Leaf and Arugula) below. They are triple that size now and almost done producing. Too bad you can't freeze lettuce.  I've given some to the neighbors, family, friends. Grocery bags of it.