Recipe Review – Spinach and Prosciutto Lasagna

The cooking bug is back. During those 100°+ degree days of summer the last thing I wanted to do was fire up my stove and hover over it for an hour. Oh, we still ate, but it was usually some boxed carb concoction with a salad and some form of grilled meat. The days of fall are upon us now and it seems my desire to cook is inversely proportionate to the temperature on the scale. I've vastly looking forward to chili's, stews, soups, and baked dishes.

So I was knocking about on Martha Stewart's website the other day and found a segment of recipes for fast Italian dishes. My roommate mentioned the other day wanting lasagna and Stouffer's in the same sentence, but I couldn't bring myself to that. I did find this recipe Spinach and Prosciutto Lasagna which can be whipped up and ready to bake in seriously, 10 minutes. I made a few mods from the recipe and here it is. The boys each devoured two servings so they must have given it their stamp of approval too! Next time, I think I will use regular lasagna noodles instead of the no-boil ones- they seem to be a bit thicker and therefore, more delicious!

Ingredients

Serves 6

• 2 packages (10 ounces each) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
  
• 1 1/2 cups part-skim ricotta (actually just bought a standard sized tub and used the whole thing)
  
• 1 garlic clove, minced
  
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
  
• 2 1/2 cups jarred tomato sauce (again, I bought a jar of sauce and used the whole thing, but ran short and ended up using some additional sauce I found in the fridge)
  
• 8 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, finely chopped
  
• 9 no-boil lasagna noodles
  
• 2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella
  

  Directions
  

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make filling: In a medium bowl, stir together spinach, ricotta, garlic, teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper; set aside (I also threw in some bread dipping seasoning I had on hand Dean Jacob's Seasoning in the Tuscany Blend).
   
2. In an 9X12-inch baking dish, spread cup tomato sauce. Layer 3 noodles, 1/3 filling, 1/3 prosciutto and 1/3 remaining tomato sauce; repeat twice. Top with mozzarella. Bake until browned, 35 to 40 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.