Kid-Friendly Vegetable Lasagna

In the spirit of Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious, I have developed a veggie- packed lasagna that even your toughest critic will love. This is a great dish to serve when you have a lot of vegetables on hand and you don’t want to serve them as a side dish that will only get pushed around your child’s plate. Normally we struggle to get our kids to eat anything green, but they readily ate this recipe, secretly jam packed with zucchini, spinach, and even asparagus! This dish is gluten and corn-free.

Ingredients:

1 box of De Boles Rice Lasagna (no boiling, oven ready)

1/4 cup asparagus tips (finely chopped in food processor)

1 small zucchini (finely chopped in food processor)

1 medium onion (finely chopped in food processor)

3 cloves garlic (finely chopped in food processor)

olive oil

1 jar organic gluten-free tomato sauce (Eden Foods have a good selection of products that gluten and corn-free.)

1/2 eggplant, peeled and thinly sliced (1/8 inch thick, or slivered with a food slicer for best results)

for cheese sauce:

32 oz of small curd cottage cheese (or corn-free ricotta, if you prefer) *Nancy’s Organic Cultured Lowfat Cottage Cheese is corn-free

3 egg yolks

2 tablespoons grated romano cheese

1 tablespoon basil

1 tablespoon oregano

1/4 cup milk

Directions:

for cheese sauce: Put 16 ounces of cottage cheese, spices, milk, romano cheese, and egg yolks in a vitamix machine or magic bullet and blend until creamy. Add remaining cup of cottage cheese and stir.

for vegetables: Heat olive oil in the bottom of a large saucepan. Add finely chopped vegetables and cook on medium heat for 15 minutes.

for assembly: Spread a small layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of a 9 x 13 glass plan. Add a layer of rice lasagna noodles straight from the box. Place a layer of finely chopped and rendered vegetables. Pour a layer of cheese sauce, than another layer of noodles, then tomato sauce, then a layer of thinly sliced eggplant (I dipped each piece of eggplant in olive oil), a layer of chopped spinach, another layer of cheese sauce, a final layer of noodles, a layer of tomato slices, then sprinkle with romano cheese, and about a 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese. Bake covered at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes, then uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes to brown the cheese topping. Let the dish sit 20 minutes before cutting and serving.

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