Tuesday, November 20, 2007

This is what I made for dinner last night:

Weeknight Lasagna Toss
1 lb ground beef
2 cups chopped green peppers, (about 2 peppers)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 jar (26oz) spaghetti sauce
1 2/3 cups water
1/4 cup Italian dressing
1 cup Mozzarella cheese
12 oven-ready lasagna noodles, broken into quarters
1/2 cup Ricotta cheese

Brown meat; drain.
Add pepper, garlic, spaghetti sauce, water and dressing; bring to boil. Stir in noodles; reduce heat to med low. Cover.
Cook, stirring occasionally, 10-15 minutes or until noodles are tender. Remove from heat. Stir in ricotta cheese.
Sprinkle with cheese.
Cover; let sit 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

***Notes***
I don't remember where I got this recipe, but it seemed easy and flexible (I didn't measure exactly 1/4 cup of dressing and it didn't fall apart) so I tried it. All of the kids ate it and enjoyed it. Bubba didn't like the shape of the noodles, so he picked over those. Next week he'll love lasagna (he's funny like that), so I'm giving it a thumbs up all the way around.

I didn't have ricotta cheese, but I don't think it made a huge difference in the outcome of the dish.
I'm not into chopping and all that jazz, so I just used a handful of the pre-cut frozen peppers and onion mix. One of the best kitchen inventions since sliced bread I tell you.
Needless to say I am not going to finely chop anything, so I skipped the garlic too. It gets most of it's flavor from the Ragu and wasn't needed, but maybe if I had used a generic spaghetti sauce I would have added some garlic powder to spice it up.
12 noodles were way too much. The next time I may only use 9 at the most.

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