Delitious, light, and healthy vegetarian lasagna

Photo by Mikkahoo@Flickr

Finally! I came up with a lasagna, that is sooo good and that fully fits to a healthy profile. This version also has no bechamel souce. You can add it, but it is also good without. You can also use lasagna noodles from the pack, but it is just not the same! The sour red part nicely plays off the slight sweetness of spinach and ricotta mix, and surprises your taste buds.

Ingredients

Green part
125 g low-fat ricotta chease or sweat (not sour) cottage cheese
250 g frozen finely chopped spinach
a spoon of olive oil
one big onion
2 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
a pinch of peper
a pinch of nutmeg powder
a teaspoon of salt

Red part
1 can of tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
1 carrot
A handful of black olives
a spoon of olive oil
basil
a pinch of chilli (optional)
a pinch of paprika powder
a teaspoon of salt
80 g of low-fat mozarella (fresh or shredded)

Lasagna noodles
2 eggs
1 glass (or a bit more) of all-purpose wheat flower
3/4 glass of full-corn wheat flower
a teaspoon of salt for boling

Preparation

1. Defreeze the spinach in hte fridge, some 10 hours ahead. You can also use the fresh ones and cut them in tiny pieces, but that will heavily increase the preparation time.

2. Prepare the noodles: add flower to eggs and put it together with hands, until it is uniform and not sticky. If the dough is still too soft, add some more flower, but not too much. Then, roll it out on a kitchen table until it is very thin. When it already seems very thin, make it double more thin. Then, cut in squares and let them dry (skip the dryng part, if in a hurry). You can add some spinach to half of the dough - for the green part.

3. Cut garlic and carrots to small pieces.

4. Prepare the green filling. Cut garlic cloves to halves and fry a bit in olive oil in a sauce pan. Then, add onions and saute until they are transparent. Add spinach and a bay leaf and saute a bit more. At the end, add salt, spices, turn it off, take out garlic and bay leaf, and mix with ricotta. I used home-made low-fat ricotta.

5. Prepare the red filling. Cut garlic cloves to halves and fry a bit in olive oil in a sauce pan. Then, add onions and saute until onions are transparent. Add tomato, basil, sliced olives, and saute until part of liquid evaporates. At the end, add the rest of the spices and take out garlic.

6. Put everything together. Bring the salted water in a big pot to boil, and add some 5 noodles at a time. Add a bit of red sauce on the bottom of an oven dish, then cover with 1 layer of noodles. Add a bit more of red sauce, cover with a bit of mozarella, and a layer of noodles. When the red sauce and the biggest part of mozarella is finished, continue with the green one. Finish with the green sauce and some mozarella on top.

7. Bake it in pre-heated oven and bake for ~30 min. Take it out and let it settle down for few minutes before cutting.

Experiences

It was great, fresh and light and tasteful. The noodles went out much thicker than I had expected, so really roll them out until they are transparent. Full-corn flower spoil the taste, but use some white flower as well, otherwise it becomes too bitter.

Possible changes - bell pepper and mushrooms for the red sauce, no onion for the green sauce. A handful of freshly greated parmezano chease would be great, too.

For a perfect dessert to go with this lasagne, try an amazing warm fruit pie.