Monday, May 9, 2011

Artichoke Spinach Lasagna

This is an amazingly good recipe if you like spinach and artichokes! I did add a little extra cheese since I love a lot of cheese in my lasagnas... but other than that - followed the recipe exactly. And it was a winner tonight!

Ingredients

Cooking spray
9 uncooked lasagna noodles
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 (14.5 ounce) can vegetable broth
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 (14 ounce) can marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained and squeezed dry
1 (28 ounce) jar tomato pasta sauce
3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1 (4 ounce) package herb and garlic feta, crumbled
Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add noodles and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.

Spray a large skillet with cooking spray and heat on medium-high. Saute onion and garlic for 3 minutes, or until onion is tender-crisp. Stir in broth and rosemary; bring to a boil. Stir in artichoke hearts and spinach; reduce heat, cover and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in pasta sauce.

Spread 1/4 of the artichoke mixture in the bottom of the prepared baking dish; top with 3 cooked noodles. Sprinkle 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese over noodles. Repeat layers 2 more times, ending with artichoke mixture and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle crumbled feta on top.

Bake, covered, for 40 minutes. Uncover, and bake 15 minutes more, or until hot and bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

Strawberry Sauce (From Our Best Bites)

This recipe is really easy and super yummy! I think you could even cut back some of the sugar and it would still be plenty sweet. I just need to come up with more uses for it since I had a whole bag of Costco frozen strawberries that didn't get put in the freezer and had to come up with a way to use them before they were ruined! I have a LOT of strawberry sauce now!


1 pint strawberries
1/3 c. white sugar
1 tsp. almond extract (my favorite) or vanilla extract

Combine berries, sugar, and extract in medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for five minutes, stirring/breaking strawberries up with a wooden spoon constantly.

After five minutes, remove from heat and allow to cool slightly (if you have a glass blender jar) and a lot (if you have a plastic blender jar). When cool enough, transfer mixture to blender and pulse until desired consistency is reached.

That's it! It freezes well so I put a bunch in my freezer to use all summer long.