Lasagna night

The night before last, Casey worked late & I prepared a lasgana with Stephan that we would eat the following night. We watched our show and cooked together. He wanted to dig in right then & there! As part of my new efforts to make as much of our dinner as I can the right before or the morning of, I prepared the lasagna the night before & wrapped it up. Other nights I might cook the meat we will eat the next night or chop veggies. I get up early and do some of it in the morning too. It makes after work/dinner time SO much easier. Otherwise, after my drive home, by the time we cooked & ate, it was late. This way we have more time for play, walks, etc.

The lasagna was great & I have to share the recipe. I found a gluten free version from Kim at 3 Pean*ts and she found the original here. That site has a lot of yummy recipes, but in this case, I stuck more closely to Kim's version. (She has posted a lot of very helpful gluten free info on her site...kid approved gluten free info I should add!)

1.5 pounds ground meat (I used turkey breast)
1 pound of ground breakfast sausage (I left this out...I was not at a store where I could get the kind of sausage or even ground pork that I would have wanted to use...but I'd like to add it next time)
2 cloves mixed garlic
2 14.5 ounce cans of tomatoes (I used petite tomatoes because I prefer it to the large)
2 6 ounce cans of tomato paste
4 T of dried parsley
2 T of dried basil
(The original recipe calls for a t of salt, but I didn't use it or need it.)
3 c lowfat cottage cheese
2 beaten eggs
1/2 c grated parmesan
mozzarella cheese

Brown the meat & garlic. Add 2 T of parsley & the basil. If you want to use the salt, add it now. Then add the tomatoes and paste. Let simmer for about 45 minutes. (play time with kids!) Beat eggs and add in the cottage cheese, parm & 2 T parsley. (The recipe says to boil the noodles, but OOPS! Quickly pull them out of the water when you realize the box of GF noodles says no need to boil!) Layer noodles, meat, cottage mixture, mozzarella cheese. Cook at 350 for 30 minutes. (I cooked it a little longer...maybe 10 extra minutes? It wasn't ready, perhaps because of the noodles.)

Very good! I like that it is not heavy on sauce. Even Casey who never really has a taste for lasagna loved it! I can't wait for leftovers.

Later that night, the kids cracked us up while they played together. Norah wanted Stephan to chase her. She would run with her arms straight out & say "Get you! Get you!" not knowing that she should say get me. And every now and then she would collapse into him with a big hug. She also tried some salsa the day before that was too spicy for her so once in a while when it is totally out of context, she will look at us and say "No salsa! No salsa! No salsa!" It's funny to hear her say salsa.