Healthy Vegetable Lasagna

A great way to use up fresh vegetables is to throw together a stir fry or roast them. Another great idea is to throw them all together and put them in a pasta dish. You can never go wrong doing this. I love pasta, even though I try not to eat it very often, and this is a great way to incorporate my indulgence in pasta and also get benefits of vitamins and minerals from tons of vegetables. This is a great vegetarian entree that I think you all will enjoy. You can definitely add meat to this lasagna if you wish, but I think it tastes fabulous without it. If you did add meat, I would suggest chicken or ground turkey, not beef. This recipe could be prepared and then frozen for a later time if you are looking for ways to get in healthy dinners during the week but not have to spend hours cooking dinner. Another great thing about this dish is that it is so incredibly filling that one serving is plenty for a meal. We had just the lasagna for dinner and then had some fresh fruit on the side for dessert.

Healthy Vegetable Lasagna
Serves 6 (can be doubled if you want a 12 serving meal)

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup carrots - sliced
1 cup zucchini - sliced
1/2 cup red bell pepper diced (feel free to use a red, green, yellow, or orange bell pepper )
1 cup baby spinach leaves - chopped
1/2 large red onion - chopped
1 cup fresh broccoli florets - chopped
1 1/2 cloves of garlic - minced (or use 1 teaspoon minced garlic in oil)
1 cup low fat cottage cheese
1/2 cup low fat or non fat ricotta cheese
2 large eggs or 1/2 cup eggbeater egg substitute (I use eggbeaters)
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 cups Marinara Sauce or Spaghetti Sauce (I use Muir Glen Organic Marinara Sauce)
9 lasagna noodles - cooked (I use Healthy Harvest Whole Wheat Lasagna Noodles)
Grated light parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top of lasagna

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-In a large stock pan, boil water and cook lasagna noodles according to box directions. (you can add a little olive oil to the boiling water to prevent pasta from sticking together)
-While noodles are cooking, in a large skillet, add olive oil and heat on medium high heat.
-Add your carrots, zucchini, bell pepper, onion, and broccoli and saute for about 7 minutes. Stir occassionally. Add garlic and baby spinach and saute for an additional minute. Set aside.
-In a medium size bowl, combine cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, eggs, basil, oregano, and pepper and combine well.
-In an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 baking dish, spray with nonstick cooking spray.
-Place some marinara sauce on bottom of baking dish (just enough to sort of cover the bottom of the dish)
-Place 3 lasagna noodles in a row on top of the sauce
-On top of lasagna noodles, add a layer of the vegetable ragu and then a layer of the cheese mixture. Then add some marinara sauce on top of that.
-Repeat the same steps for the remainder of the lasagna noodles and mixtures of veggies and cheese.
-The final layer should be lasagna noodles and then a little marinara sauce on top. Sprinkle some grated parmesan cheese on top of that.
-Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

Enjoy! :)