Misadventures in Domesticity: Lasagna Roll-ups

I want to share with you a recipe that I’ve done a few times now. Every time I’ve made it, it’s gone over really well with my family. I actually got my 13 year old brother to compliment my cooking with this one (and believe me, he’s hard pressed to say much nice to me about anything! Haha)

If you’re like me, cutting lasagna is something that never really ends well. It’s always a messy affair. This take on lasagna completely gets rid of all the mess and puts it in easy to serve rolls. One or two rolls are plenty for a meal. This recipe was used as dinner for 5 people, including a 13 year old with a bottomless stomach, so it’s a lot of food.

Here’s what you need:

· 12 lasagna noodles

· 1 lb. ground meat (beef, pork, turkey, etc.)

· 33 oz pasta sauce (half of the big 66 oz bottle)

· 1 tbsp olive oil

· 2 cups baby spinach leaves

· ¼ cup chopped green onions

· 16 oz ricotta cheese

· 1 egg
· 2 Cups grated cheese (parmesan, mozzarella, whatever you prefer)

· Salt, pepper, other seasonings you enjoy

· Wax paper

· 9 x 13 glass baking dish

Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees. You could wait to preheat it til you are closer to using it, but my oven takes FOREVER to preheat so I went ahead and did it right at the beginning. Then, start preparing the lasagna noodles according to the package.

While the noodles are boiling, brown your meat. I used ground turkey, which was really good. You could use pretty much any kind of ground beef or pork or whatever you like, or it can be meatless as well.

Add the turkey to your favorite pasta sauce. I used a “traditional” tomato sauce and then seasoned it to my liking.

In the pan with the juice from the turkey and the olive oil, wilt baby spinach leaves with chopped green onion. Season to make it delicious. After the spinach is wilted I would suggest chopping it up a little. I didn’t this time and it got pretty clumpy in the ricotta. It was probably an entertaining sight seeing me take a knife to the bowl of ricotta trying to cut up the spinach after the fact.

Bowl up your spinach and onion. (Is that a thing? Bowling?) Add ricotta cheese and one egg. Stir it all up. Salt, pepper, and otherwise season to taste.

Lay out some wax paper, and lay out your lasagna noodles. In case you were wondering, lasagna noodles are very slippery. And you will drop them and try to catch them and burn yourself. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything….. OK, I only dropped one!

Next spread a few spoonfuls of the ricotta mixture onto each noodle. About 2 or 3 tablespoons on each.

Roll up each noodle.

Pour enough sauce in your baking dish to cover the bottom. Place the rolls in the dish in rows.

Cover the rolls with the remainder of the sauce. Top with your choice of grated cheese. I just used what we had on hand, which was some monterrey jack cheese, but parmesan would be good or whatever you prefer.