Lasagna Rolls

After last week's 5 Cheese Lasagna, I figured I'd share the first lasagna I ever made. It's a lot less work and just ridiculously easy.

Lasagna rolls are the easier and time-efficient version of lasagna. It's all the same ingredients, except instead of layers of ricotta and pasta--it's ricotta rolled in pasta. It's also really easy to serve and doesn't get messy since there is no slicing and cutting involved.

I first made lasagna rolls in college from the Giada De Laurentiis recipe on Food Network. Since then, I've made it so many times that I've managed to tweak it to taste, in my opinion, a little better. The recipe below has more veggies and cheese than the original.

Ingredients:

• 1 (15-ounce) container whole milk ricotta cheese
  
• 2 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, squeezed dry
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
• 1 large egg, beaten to blend
• 3/4 teaspoon salt, plus more for salting water
  
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 12 uncooked lasagna noodles
• 2 cups marinara sauce
• 3 cups shredded mozzarella (about 4 ounces)
• Fontina Cheese
• Romano Cheese
  

Recipe:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
2. Mix ricotta, egg, salt and pepper in a medium bowl to blend.
3. Add spinach, 1 cup Parmesan and 1.5 cup mozzarella to the ricotta filling. Add oregano or herbs to taste.
4. Add a tablespoon of oil to a large pot of boiling salted water. Boil noodles until just tender, but still firm to bite.
5. Drain. Arrange noodles in a single layer on a baking sheet to prevent them from sticking.
6. Butter a 13 x 9 x 2 glass baking dish.
7. Pour 1/2 the sauce over the bottom of the dish.
8. Add 3 tablespoons (or more based on what your noodle permits, and what you want) of ricotta mixture evenly over each noodle. Starting at one end, roll each noodle like a jelly roll. Lay the rolls seam side down, without touching each other, on top of the sauce.

9. Top the rolls with the remainder pasta sauce.
10. Sprinkle the remainder of the mozzarella and Parmesan over the lasagna rolls. If you want a more cheesier lasagna, add Fontina and Romano Cheese.
11. Cover tightly with foil.
12. Bake until heated through and the sauce bubbles, about 20 minutes.
13. Uncover and bake until the cheese on top becomes golden, about 15 minutes longer. Let stand for 10 minutes.

Pasta Sauce:
36 ounces of your favorite red colored pasta sauce (I use a type with mushroom)
1 ten ounce package of spinach

Directions:
1. Pour pasta in a saucepan.
2. While sauce is heating in a pan, defrost the spinach. Add the defrosted spinach (once water is removed) to the sauce.
3. Optional: Add ground turkey.
4. Pour pasta sauce in prepared bake dish as directed above.

*Note: I'm not sure if this is purely psychological, but I found that when I let my ricotta mixture refrigerate overnight, it tasted better.

For a few laughs:

5 Cheese Lasagna

Everyone knows Lasagna is an Italian pasta dish. There are so many wonderful variations to this classic dish--meat, no meat, with marinara sauce, with bechamel sauce, etc.

The first published recipe was found in the first cookbook written and published in England which gave rise to the urban legend that the recipe was conceived in the British Isles.

Some speculate that the word lasagna originates from the Greek word lasana which means "chamber pot". The Romans borrowed the word from the Greek as "lasanum" which means "cooking pot" and the Italians named the dish lasagna after lasanum in honor of the dish it is served in.

An alternating theory speculates that the word lasagna is derived from the Greek word laganon which is a flat sheet of pasta dough cut into stripes.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter OR margarine
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk

1/4 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes - minced
1 Tbls. minced garlic
3 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
1 package frozen spinach
3 eggs
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
12 lasagna noodles - prepared as directed, cooled
4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup fontina cheese
Your favorite bottled marinara sauce
Parmesan for topping

Directions:
1. Melt butter in a 1 quart saucepan.
2. Add flour and stir until it is thoroughly blended (no lumps). Stir until frothy.
3. Add milk. Stir constantly with a wire whisk until the mixture simmers.
4. Stir for 3-4 minutes until the mixture has thickened. Refrigerate.
5. Drain the sun-dried tomatoes. Chop or mince in a chopper or by hand. Place in a large bowl. Thaw and drain frozen spinach and add to bowl with tomato's.
6. Add garlic, ricotta cheese, eggs, Parmesan cheese, Romano cheese, salt and pepper to the minced tomato's. Mix with a spoon or spatula.
7. Add 1 1/2 cups of the cooled cream sauce and mix until well blended.
8. Place 3 lasagna noodles in a 9" x 13" x 2" baking dish. Make sure you have lightly oiled the dish.
9. Spread 1.5 cups of the cheese filling on the noodles. Sprinkle 1 cup mozzarella and .25 cup of fontina cheese.
10. Repeat the pasta-cheese layering 3 more times (4 rows of pasta with 3 rows of filling). Make sure to top the lasagna with 3 lasagna noodles.
11. Pour 1/2 cup cream sauce over the top.
12. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
13. Remove from oven and pour marinara sauce. Top with mozzarella.
14. Bake at 350 for another 30 minutes.
15. Garnish with Parmesan cheese.