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Saturday, February 4, 2012

Simple Slow Cooker Lasagna | Modern Day Moms? | The Essential ...

As a working mama, coming home at 5:45 every day makes it very hard to have a really great meal every night. I tend to throw together whatever is simple, a quick stir-fry, spaghetti, pizza, etc. I LOVE to use Jessica Seinfeld?s recipes when I can because I love her healthy approach and additions of veggies my son and hubby can?t detect. So whe I found out that she had a recipe for a simple slow cooker lasagna I jumped on it! Made it that night, with my own little tweaks to it and it was DELICIOUS. It was fresh, simple ingredients and took only a little bit of prep. Her recipe called for no meat, but hubby and I love a good meat lasagna, so we added meat and onions. I had also only bought 1 container of ricotta, so I used a container of cottage cheese instead of a second container of ricotta. I LOVE cottage cheese in my lasagna, so it was the perfect blend, and calmed the ricotta flavor, which some people don?t like so much.

So here?s my version, but check out the link to Jessica?s recipe-she has an awesome video tutorial to go along with it!

adapted from Jessica Seinfeld?s recipe

Ingredients

2 28-ounce cans crushed tomatoes
4 cloves?garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoons?dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon?kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon?red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon?freshly ground black pepper
1lb ground beef
1 link mild italian sausage
1 onion, chopped
15-ounce container fresh ricotta
16-ounce container 2% cottage cheese
2 cups?grated mozzarella (8 ounces)
1/4 cup?grated Parmesan
16?lasagna noodles (about 3/4 of a 1-pound box)
5 ounces?baby spinach (about 6 cups packed)

Directions

Brown the ground beef, sausage and onion in a skillet, drain the grease.

In a medium bowl, combine the tomatoes, meat mixture, garlic, oregano, salt, red pepper and black pepper (12 turns on pepper mill).

In a separate bowl, mix the ricotta, 1 cup of the mozzarella and the Parmesan.

In the bottom of a 5 to 6-quart slow cooker, spread a thin layer of the sauce. Top with 4 of the noodles (breaking to fit as necessary.) Spread 1 1/2 cups of the sauce over the noodles and layer with 2 cups of the spinach and 1 1/2 cups of the cheese mixture. Repeat twice more with the noodles, sauce, spinach and cheese mixture. Top with the remaining 4 noodles, sauce and 1 cup mozzarella.

Cook on low, covered, until the noodles are tender?especially in the center of the lasagna, 3 to 3 1/2 hours. 3 hours was perfect for us.

If you?ll be gone all day, prep the lasagna (you could even prep it the night before and refrigerate) and turn it on high in the morning while you?re getting ready (for about an hour or so) and turn to warm when you leave for work. It will be finished when you get home!

Enjoy!