HealthiFood: HealthiFood Seven-Vegetable Lasagna

Friday, June 3, 2011

HealthiFood Seven-Vegetable Lasagna

Lasagna is my most favorite dinner dish, which I guess I have in common with Garfield, and it was meant to be when my birthday is National Lasagna Day! This recipe is the result of a lot of different tries to come up with my favorite lasagna. Stoffer's scoot over!

HealthiFood Seven-Vegetable Lasagna

2 ½ c HealthiFood basic red pasta sauce (divided)

¼ c cauliflower puree

¾ c cooked and drained ground sausage

2 c nonfat cottage cheese

3 c chopped fresh baby spinach (divided)

4 c grated mozzarella cheese (divided)

10 dry, uncooked lasagna noodles

Mix together 1 ½ cups of the sauce (reserving 1 cup), the cauliflower puree, the sausage, and the cottage cheese in a bowl.

Spray a square glass pan (8x8 or 9x9) and spread half a cup of the sauce you reserved (not mixed in the cottage cheese mixture) on the bottom of the pan. Place a layer of noodles on top of the sauce.

Spread one-third of the cottage cheese mixture (about 1 ½ cups) over the noodles. Sprinkle on 1 cup of spinach followed by 1 cup of cheese. Add a layer of noodles on top of the cheese, then another third of the cottage cheese mixture (another 1 ½ cups), and another cup each of spinach and cheese. Start with noodles again for one more layer (noodles, cottage cheese sauce, spinach, and cheese), using the rest of the ingredients you have left except the last half cup of reserved red sauce, one cup of cheese, and enough noodles for the top layer. Place your final noodles and spread the reserved sauce on top. Sprinkle on the cheese.

Cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 375 degrees for about an hour (until nice and bubbly), removing the aluminum foil for the last 20 minutes of baking. (Hint: this makes a nice and full casserole that will most likely drip. You will want to either bake it on a foil-lined cooking sheet or place foil on the bottom of your oven.)

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The HealthiFood Program: One to Four

1. Lower Fat
Most recipes can be adapted to cut the fat in half through substitution (of things like ground flax seed meal, applesauce, etc.) or elimination. Another easy way to lower fat is to cook with lower fat options, like low or nonfat milk products. Usually you can't tell the difference when it's cooked in, and you can save A LOT of calories and fat grams.

2. Better Fat Choices
We all know that nonfat isn't usually that good. Instead of eliminating all the fat and richness from recipes, the HealthiFood Program aims to replaces bad fats with better fats. HealthiFood uses olive oil, canola oil, ground flax seed meal, and naturally-occurring fats as much as possible to reduce hydrogenated and saturated fat content as much as possible.

3. High Fiber and Protein
Fiber is essential to good health, especially in the long run. The HealthiFood Program increases whole grains and fiber content by using whole wheat flour, oat flour, yellow corn meal, and ground flax seed meal. These substitutions also add protein.

4. More Vegetables
Using vegetable puree addition techniques of the Sneaky Chef and Jessica Seinfeld, the HealthiFood Program enriches recipes with vitamins and more fiber while lowering the calorie content per serving.

No Gimmicks

Sometimes the Nutrition Facts I provide may surprise you. This is because I usually post how much of a dish I actually eat. If you wanted tone-downed, unrealistic serving sizes to make all recipes look diet, this isn't the place. However, usually the serving size given will be for your whole meal, such as 1/9th of a 9x9 lasagna or 1/4th of a round of Rosemary bread. If you aren't in a habit of understanding serving sizes, start here and now, and definitely apply it to the packaged foods you eat.