Eat garlic on date night

Tonight, as a special treat for girls' date night, I served up a hot dish of vegetable lasagna for my friend Katherine. In her words, "It's filling without seeming heavy." Or something to that complimentary effect.

the damages

• Sauce pan
• 2 large mixing bowls
• Spatula
• Ladle
• Baking dish
• Chefs knife

the ingredients

• Bell peppers, diced (pick your favorite colors)
• Medium yellow onion, diced
• Yellow squash and zucchini, diced
• Baby portobello mushrooms, quartered
• 5 cloves of garlic, diced
• 28-oz can tomato sauce 
• 1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes 
• Olive oil, salt and pepper
• No-boil lasagna noodles (I used about six noodles, or less than 1/2 a box)
• 9-oz package frozen spinach
• 15-oz container ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 3 slices provolone cheese (from the deli case)
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

 the preparation

Preheat oven to 350. Saute the vegetables in about 1 tablespoon of olive oil on high heat. (Medium or low will cause them to stew, resulting in mush; high steams off the liquid more effectively and retains the individual flavor and shape of the veg.) Once cooked through, season with salt and pepper. (Adding the salt earlier, likewise, will cause the veg to give off water too soon and turn things to mush.) Transfer the veg to a large mixing bowl.

Add the can of tomato sauce and crushed red pepper flakes to the pan; cover and simmer on very low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring once or twice during commercial breaks.

Thaw the frozen spinach (microwave works well - make sure the plastic pouch has a slit) and strain in a small colander. Press remaining liquid out with a couple paper towels. Leaving it a little moist will help with the next step.

In the second mixing bowl, combine ricotta, parmesan, and spinach. Add a teaspoon of olive oil if the mixture seems dry.

Add a ladle of sauce to the bottom of the baking dish and lay lasagna noodles down. (I broke the bottom noodles into halves to make them fit a little better.) Spoon on a layer of the veg, then four gobs of the cheese-and-spinach mixture. Sprinkle about 1/4 cup mozzarella and ladle on a bit of sauce. Add another layer of noodles and repeat this twice more. On the top layer, sprinkle the remaining mozzarella cheese. 

Cover tightly with foil and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove foil and return the lasagna to the oven for another 10-15 minutes. IT MAY BOIL OVER, so I recommend keeping a foil-lined baking sheet on the oven rack below the lasagna dish.

Remove the lasagna from the oven and let sit for about ten minutes. While that's... sitting... whip up my arugula salad with lemon dressing. (Coming soon to a blog near you.) When you're ready to serve, coat the blade of your knife with cooking spray to slice the lasagna.

SERVES TWO vegetarians PLUS TWO SETS OF LEFTOVERS for the date night couple.

a few notes

• Instead of dirtying multiple pots and pans, use easy-to-clean mixing bowls to set aside oven-bound cooked food.
• Spray nonstick cooking spray over the sink - never the floor. It's slippery. I found out the hard way.