Fresh Vegetable Lasagna

Southern Living often features a "Lighten Up" section in their magazines with healthier versions of our favorite dishes. The February edition had a recipe for Fresh Vegetable Lasagna made with zucchini, mushrooms & peppers, rather than meat. I made it last week & it turned out to be quite tasty!

Ingredients

• 4 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced (about 1 1/2 lb.)
• 1 (8-oz.) package sliced fresh mushrooms
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Vegetable cooking spray
• 1 medium-size red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 medium-size yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups fat-free ricotta cheese
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups (8 oz.) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided
• 5 cups Basic Marinara Sauce (or just over 1.5 jars of sauce)
  
• 1 (8-oz.) package no-boil lasagna noodles

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 450°. Bake zucchini, mushrooms, and garlic in a jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray 12 to 14 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender, stirring halfway through. Repeat procedure with bell peppers and onion. Toss together vegetables and salt in a bowl.

2. Reduce oven temperature to 350°.

3. Stir together ricotta, egg, 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese.

4. Spread 1 cup Basic Marinara Sauce in a 13- x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Top with 3 noodles...

1 cup sauce & one-third of ricotta mixture...

and one-third of vegetable mixture.

5. Repeat layers twice, beginning with 3 noodles. Top with remaining noodles and 1 cup sauce.

6. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan.

7 . Bake, covered, at 350° for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake 10 to 15 more minutes or until cheese is melted and golden.

7. Let stand 10 minutes. Cut into 8 pieces & serve with warm garlic bread.


My Tid-Bits:

* If you follow their recipe & use their homemade Basic Marinara Sauce, this lasagna yields 8 hearty serving with 282 calories and less than 10 grams of fat each.

* I, however, did not have time to make marinara AND lasagna, so I just used the jarred version.

* I also used 1 red & 1 green bell pepper due to the fact that a yellow bell pepper cost 3x the green. You'll probably notice from my picture, I used 2 zucchini. I wish I had used 3. I think 4 may have been excessive.

* The Hubs comment was, "This was actually pretty good, but it would have been even better with meat." In his mind, it's not dinner if there's not meat. So if you have a manly meat eater in your home, feel free to brown some Italian turkey sausage and toss that in.

* I will warn you, making this lasagna is a bit time consuming. With all the chopping, roasting & assembly, the prep probably took me almost an hour. It then takes another hour to bake & 10 minutes to rest. So be sure you start plenty early if you plan to make this for dinner and want to eat at a decent time.