Zucchini Lasagna

Hello blog friends!

Sometimes I say

"You never know what you'll find on Kristie Kreates"

This is one of those times.

 I don't know if you all know that

I recently had weight loss surgery.  If you are interested

you can click on the link at the top of my home page for

"My Weight Loss Journey"

where I have chronicled my experience very openly.

Today I decided to make something a little different for dinner.

I can't have pasta so I decided to make zucchini lasagna,

replacing the noodles with zucchini strips.

I got this idea from my friend Sue when she posted on facebook

that she was trying it.

I was just okay'd to have some of these veggies that I hadn't

been allowed to have since my surgery.

So follow along below and see how I made it.

Here are the ingredients that I used, except that I did 

put some parmesan cheese in too, but forgot it for the picture.

I don't have a recipe and that's how I cook most of the time.

I just put in what I like and we'll see how it turns out.

I started by putting some of the sauce in the bottom of

the baking dish.  Then I laid down the strips of zucchini,

covered it with spinach, mushrooms and sauteed onions.

I added some sauce on top of the veggies, then another layer

of zucchini strips.

Next I mixed the ricotta with garlic powder, salt, pepper,

oregano and basil and spread that over the zucchini layer.

I cooked up hamburger and drained it, then put that over the

ricotta.

Over that I added shredded mozzarella and 

parmesan cheese. Then covered it with sauce and more

zucchini.

I added a bit more cheese,

covered it with sauce and a little more of both cheeses

and popped it into the oven at 350* for about an hour.

It smelled so good while it was cooking!

It looked so good when it came out of the oven

that it was hard not to dig right in, but I was good

and let it sit for a bit.

You know how hard that first piece is to get out.

It didn't stay together perfectly, but not too bad.

It was pretty liquid-y, you can barely see where I took my 

piece out of the pan. I'm betting once it cools some more it

won't be quite so runny.

How was it?

This dish definitely gets a thumbs up from me.

The flavor was wonderful,

the zucchini was a little al dante and that was perfect for me,

it gave a little crunch and I liked that.

If you don't like the crunch, you could cook it longer to let 

the zucchini get softer.

All in all it tasted pretty much like the lasagna I usually make.

It was DELICIOUS!

Now here's the problem, I don't know how to cook small.

There is a LOT of lasagna left.

Once it cools I think I might just put it into containers and freeze 

some of it.  I'll just have to remember to make some very small

portions, since that is what I eat now.

Here are some of the amounts I used:

zucchini  -  3 medium sized - about 2 lbs.

ricotta  -  one container - 15 oz.

mozzerella  -  about 8 oz.

hamburger  -  about 8 oz.

mushrooms - 4-5 sliced

spinach  -  about 2-3 oz. fresh

sauce  -  one jar - 24 oz.

Thanks for stopping in today.

I hope you'll give this a try or maybe something

else that you eliminate one ingredient and use another.

Changing up the pasta for zucchini worked great,

who knows what else might work.

Until next time,

think outside the box!

Come again soon, like I said:

You never know what you'll find on 

Kristie Kreates!