Adventures in Living: Recipe #2 Lasagna with Meat Sauce

So far so good, two new recipes in two weeks.

This weeks recipe comes thanks to my stepdaughter Ashlee. I have been trying to cook something with her when we get together after she mentioned that she had never had a cake made from scratch. So for no good reason we made a cake from scratch, then an apple pie with help from my mother, because I had never made a pie crust from scratch. Next on the list was a lasagna, my only request was that the recipe include both meat and vegetables. Meat because then my husband would eat it and veggies for me.

This recipe comes from the weight watchers new complete cookbook (slightly adapted)

Makes 8 servings
9 lasagna noodles
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 pound ground beef
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
2 (15 oz) containers refrigerated marinara sauce
1 1//2 c ricotta cheese
1/2 c shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 c grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1. Cook the lasagna noodles according to package directions. Drain and rinse the noodles, then set aside.
2. In a small dry skillet over medium-low heat, cook the fennel seeds, shaking the pan and stirring constantly, until lightly browned and fragrant, 2-3 minutes. (Watch them carefully when toasting; seeds can burn quickly.) Transfer the seeds to a coffee grinder and grind to a powder. Or pound the seeds between two clean kitchen towels with a mallet until finely crushed.
3. In a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, heat the oil; add the beef, onion, bell pepper and zucchini. Cook, stirring occasionally, until all the pan juices evaporate and the beef browns, about 10 minutes. Stir in the marinara sauce and fennel; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered until slightly thickened and the flavors blend, about 10 minutes.
4. Preheat the over to 375 F. In a 9x13-inch baking dish, spread one-fourth of the meat sauce. Top with 3 of the noodles; spread with 1/2 cup of the ricotta, Repeat the layering twice, ending with the meat sauce.
5. Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes, Remove the foil and sprinkle with the mozzarella and Romano. Bake until heated through and the cheeses are lightly browned, about 20 minutes longer. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

This link should take you to the recipe as it looks in my book. Hopefully this is not plagiarism since the exact same information is available with a simple google search.

Link to recipe from Google Books search

Shopping:
Lasagna noodles $1.42
Fennel seeds - got 'em
Olive oil - got it
ground beef - grew it, kind of
onion - grew it
bell pepper - $1.98 (they didn't have organic red so I went with organic orange)
Zucchini - grew it
marinara sauce - $7.76
Ricotta - $4.46 (I went with part skim, in the interest of having the hubby eat it)
mozzarella - Forgot it! I used the cheddar I had at home instead, this is shaping up to be a very orange lasagna.
pecorino Romano - way too expensive I went with a 3 cheese blend that had some romano in it $3.63
total = $19.25

Fun stuff:
Toasting fennel seeds.
Did you know they smell like licorice? I knew that so I never knew how to cook them, I tried once before with a request from hubby to not do that again. So toasting and grinding huh? We will see.

Home grown beef.
We have the butcher trim all of our meat lean, I have no idea if it is 10% fat or less. We have it bundled in 2 pound packages, so to get 1/2 a pound you cut it into 4ths, at least that is what Ashlee said. :)