Before I get into my recipe, I have to confess that I really tried to take my own photos this time. I made a special effort to take during, before, and after shots of my lasagna, despite the fact that I am a pretty lousy photographer. Then, I sent them from my phone to my email, and finally I deleted them from my phone. Whoops. I think I must have deleted them a little too quickly, because only one (very blurry) shot actually made it to my inbox. So I’m stuck using creative commons photos again. Oh, well. On to the important part–the food!
A few weekends ago we ended up with a crate of ripe tomatoes, so I made three jars of homemade sauce. A need to use said sauce while it’s still good inspired me to make a lasagna, which is one of my fallback dinner choices as I can generally make one successful without using a specific recipe, and it gives me the chance to find creative ways to get my children to ingest more vegetables. This time I decided to use spinach and carrots, and the lasagna alla mamma was born.
Lasagna Alla Mamma
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1/2 lb ground beef (or meat substitute)
Italian seasoning
salt & pepper
1 jar tomato sauce
1/2 cup frozen spinach, thawed
no-cook lasagna noodles
1/2 cup grated Italian cheese of choice
Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs…
I love that’s getting cool enough to make lasagna again. The addition of spinach and carrots sounds really good.
BTW: I did a quick search and seems that you can substitute farmer’s cheese or ricotta cheese for cottage cheese.
Thanks, Beth! I was thinking maybe ricotta would work–I’ll try it and let you know how it goes.
Sounds delicious, I love lasagna with béchamel! And all the vegetables.
Carol, me too! I used to make it with cottage cheese when I lived in the U.S., but there’s something about the béchamel that keeps it from getting dried out.
Delicious! Thanks for sharing.
I do that all the time, take photos with my phone! Sometimes I have better results with the phone instead of using the camera. One thong, don’t delete your photos before posting!
Lasagna is a comfort food for me. Love the spinach and it sounds good as well ad healthy.
Yummy and perfect for fall…thanks for sharing this and so sorry about your photos
I relate to your photo issues. Almost always your own photo no matter how blurry is better, though than the other ones – gives your post character – that’s what I like to tell myself anyway. Like your lasagne description. Have a good weekend.
My mother used to add extra carrots and zucchini to pasta recipes as well – some times to more success than others. This sounds delicious – thanks for sharing!
Yum! I love recipes with hidden vegetables — and I don’t even have kids.
Good for picky eaters, too, or anyone who wants to eat healthier but doesn’t want to sit down to a plate of veggies at every meal.
This looks great, but my mother-in-law was Italian-American, and if I tried to deviate from her methods, my husband would not be happy. Funny how conservative people are about their childhood food memories. In his mind, nobody is ever going to make better lasagna than his mother did. Case closed.
Ha–I think a lot of men are like that about their mother’s cooking!
My own is the same way about certain foods, but I still do them my way. Otherwise, he’s welcome to take over the cooking!
I love vegetables in my lasagna, this recipe is one I’m going to bookmark.
I’ve never heard of adding Béchamel Sauce to lasagne. Although after reviewing the recipe again I wonder if this might be the equivalent to me adding ricotta. Sounds deliciously creamy!
I’m going to make your zucchini boats for dinner. Is this the Béchamel Sauce you recommended?
Yes, Trish, that’s pretty much my go-to sauce! I use it all the time, and it adapts well to the flavors of different dishes.
I hadn’t really thought about mixing the sauce with the bechamel. I tend to do layers ending with bechamel on top.
It’s so cute that your children call it lasagna alla mamma
If you lived nearer, I’d live to have a slice as well. Homemade tomato sauce and bechamel (I know too many people who use powdered formulas instead of whipping it up themselves) and lots of veggies… yum 
Are there any vegetables that your girls don’t like and that you have to be extra crafty about?
Ps. about photos: Beth F said on Twitter that she uses photos of ingredients instead of the final result, if the latter is not very pretty. I hadn’t thought of stock photos myself
great idea!
To me homemade béchamel is so easy that I can’t imagine not making it that way. But I’ve been making it for a long time, too–once you get the hang of it it’s a no-brainer. My girls will eat almost any veggie, with a few exceptions, but my rule is they have to try everything whether they like it or not.
For the photos, I figured out that you can do an advanced search of flickr for creative commons license photos and I find a lot of good stuff that way. But I do need to make more of an effort to take my own!
That sounds like a good rule to me
Veggies may look icky the first time, but they may taste pretty good once you try! I’m really going to try that creative commons licensee search on Flickr, thanks 