Eggplant Lasagna

Ingredients:

(feeds ~ 5)

2 Small/medium eggplants

1 container frozen chopped spinach

one 14 oz jar your favorite pasta sauce ( I prefer Trader Joes basil garlic)

2 standard sized packages of dry mozzarella slices (~18 slices)

500 g fresh ricotta cheese

1 egg

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp garlic powder

salt to taste

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First, let your frozen spinach thaw. While waiting, prepare your eggplant. For baking I prefer to leave on the purple skin but this makes it more difficult to cut when you're eating later. If you are concerned, you can peel the eggplant first. Next, cut the eggplant into thin slices the long way. These will be your "noodles". Lay the slices down on paper towels and lightly salt them. These slices need to sit for at least 20 minutes to allow the salt to draw out the water.

While waiting on the drying process, you can prepare the rest of the lasagna layers. I usually use two medium bowls. I fill one with the pasta sauce and the other with ricotta cheese. In the ricotta cheese bowl, mix in all the herbs listed in the ingredients above (including salt!) plus the one egg, then put the bowl aside. Next, press the water out of the frozen chopped spinach using a strainer. After removing as much water as possible from the spinach, stir it into the pasta sauce.

Once these two bowls of wet ingredients are prepared, the eggplant should be ready. Using paper towels, press out as much water as possible so that your eggplant is dry.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. The following steps fare just assembly. Try to make the layers even and covering the whole dish. Put your pasta sauce on the bottom of your baking dish. Next place your eggplant "noodles" then cover the noodles with your ricotta cheese mix. After, layer the dry mozzarella slices to cover the ricotta cheese. Repeat this pattern until your dish is quite full, usually complete this pattern three times. The dry mozzarella cheese should be the final layer so it can get nice and browned on top. Bake your lasagna for 1 hr - 1 hr + 15 minutes. You can tell when it is done when the eggplant is easy to cut through. Let it cool then enjoy!

#glutenfree #eggplant #spinach