Minestrone, Olive Garden Copy-cat

I really enjoyed this one and like Tiana, I love Italian food! I think I'll try to remember to plan on making this the same week as Lasagna (Tiana's spinach recipe : ) or Ratatouille because it uses a lot of the same vegetables and herbs.

A couple of improvisations I made to this recipe: I used chicken broth that I had boiled off of a couple of chicken breasts and added two cubes of chicken boullion. I thought about broiling the chicken with Italian salad dressing, because it's easy and spent all my energy making soup. But just ended up drizzling the chicken with salad dressing! : ) I added yellow squash, because I like it and had it on hand. It tastes a lot like zucchini to me. I didn't have green beans, which would have been yummy!

How does everyone measure their veggies? I'll just add on my eye-ball equivalant.

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup white onions, minced or one small yellow onion
1/2 cup zucchini, or one small zucchini
1/2 cup frozen green beans, Italian-cut (a handful)
1/4 cup celery, minced (two small celery sticks)
4 teaspoons garlic, minced
4 cups vegetable broth
30 ounces canned red kidney beans, drained
30 ounces canned white beans, drained
14 ounces diced tomatoes, canned
1/2 cup carrots, julienned or shredded (one carrot stick)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
3 cups hot water
4 cups fresh spinach, small leaves (or four handfuls)
1/2 cup shell pasta

Directions:1. Heat three tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a large soup pot.
2. Sauté onion, celery, garlic, green beans, and zucchini in the oil for 5 minutes or until onions begin to turn translucent.
3. Add vegetable broth to pot, plus drained tomatoes, beans, carrot, hot water, and spices.
4. Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat and allow to simmer for 20 minutes. 5. Add spinach leaves and pasta and cook for an additional 20 minutes or until desired consistency. Makes about eight 1 1/2 cup servings.

Enjoy!

Spinach Lasagna

I don't know about you guys, but I love Italian cuisine. My favorite combination is spinach and tomato sauce. I love lasagna, and have been looking for a good recipe. I found this one, and was excited, because it didn't have expensive ingredients, and was healthier then most other recipes. So, today I gave it a shot.

My impressions: We loved it.
Things that I will do different next time:
Cut down the spinach. I love spinach, but it was a bit too much. I will probably do 1 to 1 1/2 pkgs next time. Also, I will thaw it first, and do a quick squeeze to get out some excess liquid. Not all, but most. Also, this makes A TON! We barely made a dent in it. I would either cut the recipe in half, or just make two smaller pans and freeze one (before cooking it). I ended up freezing a large portion of it, to have another day. Also, a good tip would be to not fall asleep while it's in the oven, and be so dead tired that when your husband tells you the timer rang you apparently acknowledge him before falling back asleep, but then wake up 15 minutes later, having no recollection of the conversation. It still tasted good.

Spinach Lasagna

INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 (10 ounce) packages frozen chopped
spinach
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 (32 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce
1 1/2 cups water
2 cups non-fat cottage cheese
1 (8 ounce) package part skim mozzarella
cheese, shredded
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 egg
8 ounces lasagna noodles

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large pot over medium heat saute spinach, onion, oregano, basil and garlic in the olive oil. Pour in spaghetti sauce and water; simmer 20 minutes. In a large bowl mix cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, parsley, salt, pepper and egg.
3. Place a small amount of sauce in the bottom of a lasagna pan. Place 4 uncooked noodles on top of sauce and top with layer of sauce. Add 4 more noodles and layer with 1/2 sauce and 1/2 cheese mixture, noodles and repeat until all is layered, finishing with sauce.
4. Cover with foil and bake in a preheated oven for 55 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 15 minutes. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.