Sunday, March 20, 2011

Carb free Lasagna (possibly gluten free)

I LOVE this, but it is a bit of work. If you are going to make this and end up liking it, I'd make extra and free one so you don't have to go through all the work, unless you are like me, and okay with that kind of thing.

Stuff to have on hand:
4-6 small zucchini or yellow squash or both!
One can of stewed tomatoes
One large container of ricotta cheese
One small container of shredded Parmesan
1 lb of ground turkey
one cup of mozzarella
Olive Oil

(you can also add mushrooms and olives to the sauce you make or you can switch in other ingredients like eggplant instead of the zucchini)



First you want to get a potato peeler or if you have one of those straight edged mandolin graters. After washing your zucchini, squash or eggplant cut off the ends.
Now peel or grate them into long type noodles. They should look like this:


Preheat the oven to about 425, and grab your ground turkey. In a saucepan just brown a packet or a pounds worth of ground turkey. You can use ground beef instead if you like that, or ground pork sausage. I like to use the pork sausage from time to time because it gives it a little zip. You can also use firm tofu and cook it up just like you would ground beef.

 It is your choice to add garlic and onion to the mix and cook it on low.
Add a can of stewed tomatoes. If you can get the kind with olive oil, garlic and onions already cooked in:

I get the kind above when I can because it adds a little extra flavor in.  You want to cook the turkey mix on low and set it aside to cool a bit. Should look like this:

Grab a small mixing bowl and put in your ricotta cheese. Try to get the low skim one. The less water in your mix, the better. If it's too soupy, get a paper towel and dump it on top and let the towel soak up some of the water. 
Add about one cup of mozzarella to this, and salt/pepper it to taste. Set this aside.

Now you want to grab a glass lasagna dish or metal one, doesn't really matter. Drizzle a little olive oil on the bottom and layer your "veggie noodles" on the bottom like you would regular noodles.

Now you want to put a layer of the ground turkey mix on top of this. Don't make it too thick, if you want to have more layers. take small spoonfuls of the ricotta mix and randomly put them on top of the meat mixture. 

Sprinkle a little Parmesan on top of that, then add a new layer of veggie noodles. Add another layer or turkey, then ricotta, and cheese, then continue until you get to the top of the pan. Try to save some of the tomato sauce for the top and spread it over the vegetable noodles. Drizzle fresh grated Parmesan on top, and bake in the oven for about 25-30 minutes. I sometimes just do this until the cheese on top bubbles because I don't like soggy vegetables, but it's pretty much what you eye it and want it to be like.
When finished it will come out like this, hopefully:


I  promise it will look better than this picture and it tastes great!  It usually takes me about 15-20 minutes to prepare it then with the baking time another 20-30 minutes, so look for about an hour until you eat.

As I stated at the beginning with the ingredients, you can add olives, mushrooms, onions, garlic, carrots, or any vegetable to the sauce.
Even better is when you can add a cup of drained spinach to the ricotta. I REALLY love that and the extra fiber is great.
If you can, experiment with this, post pics, or just let me know that you've tried it. I used to make this for a friend with gluten problems, and it's great for diabetics.

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