Quick Lasagne

I normally make Lasagne with a long simmered meat sauce, but when I just want to get dinner fixed fast, I have no problem taking shortcuts. :-)

This is such a friendly meal to make and fairly easy. It assembles in under 30 minutes and I usually have the ingredients just hanging around in the fridge and pantry begging to be layered together. 

 Lasagne can be made with as many or as few different cheeses as you would like. I like to imagine how the first Italian wife must have stumbled upon this masterpiece one day in her kitchen. Maybe she was in a hurry and didn't have time to cut her noodles into the smaller sizes of fettuccine or spaghetti, and just made wide slits. Looking around her kitchen, she used leftover meat, cheeses and sauce and layered them together.  

In the same way, I like to invent or adapt recipes in my kitchen. So I swapped out the traditional mozzerella cheese for Monterey Jack in my lasagne tonight. I also used cottage cheese instead of ricotta. 

I had a stray tomato looking for a home so I sliced it and added it to the top. 

After I got dinner in the oven, I washed all the dishes because I believe in the "clean up as you go" method. Makes for a much less frightening kitchen after dinner's over. :)\

Next up was a quick tossed salad that I placed in the fridge while the Lasagne baked. And an hour later - voila! - dinner's ready!  :)