Bow Tie Lasagna

I asked C#2 what we should have for dinner and she said something with ground beef.  We just had pizza the night before, so I told her probably not spaghetti. So she suggested lasagna. Well. Ummmmm... That is kind of the same, too, butttttttttttttt, we will go with that.

Then we discovered that there were no lasagna noodles. What to do? What to do? Bow tie pasta!

Around lunch time I prepared a pot of homemade spaghetti sauce... Sauteed 1 lb ground beef, 1 medium onion chopped, minced garlic (sauteed, too,) 1 large can of pureed tomatoes, 1 large can of whole peeled tomatoes that I hand mooshed, tomato paste, spaghetti Italian seasonings, S&P, granulated garlic, a few tablespoons of sugar, 1/2 cup or so of water and I think that was all.

I then realized we didn't have any ricotta or cottage cheese for lasagna.But, never fear! I love substituting ingredients.  I even have a nifty book with all sorts of switcheroos that work great!

This lovely edition suggested cream cheese and so we went with that.  I sort of followed three recipes, sort of...  I left most of an 8 oz package of cream cheese out to soften and then proceeded to mix that with one egg, some Parmesan cheese, 1-2 cups thawed spinach and about 3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese.  

I layered the lasagna pan with a little bit of spaghetti sauce, then 1/3 of the bow tie pasta (I cooked up about 1/2 lb), 1/2 the cheese mixture, then repeated all the steps -- spaghetti sauce, pasta, cheese mix. Then I topped that with the remainder pasta, 1/2 cup or so of sauce and 1/4-1/2 cup mozzarella cheese on top of that. OR something like that.  

I unfortunately didn't take a picture until I was having leftovers. But, you get the gist.

Bake that beast in the oven for 30-40 minutes or if you have an over hot oven like mine put foil on top and it will probably only take 20 minutes or so...  I took the foil off during the last 5 minutes to brown up the cheese.  And it was delicious! Everyone liked it. Had second helpings, so it was a win!

So the moral of this story is, don't let the lack of ingredients dissuade you from making something. There are always substitutes!

Till next time...