Squash Lasagne

Lasagne is a wonder food.  You can sneak all kinds of health things into it and it only gets better!  Also, by replacing the ricotta cheese with low-fat cottage cheese and substituting in skim motzarella, you can make it truly healthy.  Here is a late-fall version that includes my favorite seasonal vegetable - squash!

Ingredients

- 1 package lasagne noodles

- Large tub of low-fat cottage cheese

- 4c shredded part-skim motzarella cheese

- 2 jars pasta sauce

- 1 medium sized acorn squash. sliced in thin slices and peeled.

- 1/4c shredded parmesan

Start by spreading a thin layer of pasta sauce in the bottom of your pan.  Then layer the uncooked noodles, cottage cheese, motzarella and squash. There is no need to buy fancy tomato sauce for lasagne.  Particularly when you're adding squash or other vegetables, you don't need the extra flavor in the sauce.  I buy whatever is on sale and then store it until I'm making lasagne.  We buy the nicer stuff when it is plain spaghetti or something where the sauce really features.

Add two more layers of sauce, pasta, cheese, and squash (or however many fit in your pan).  I like the very top to be sauce, cheese, and then the 1/4c parmesan cheese. 

Cook at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, or until everything is hot and bubbly.  Cut and serve!

If you want to add more protein to this dish, you can brown ground turkey breast and then add the pasta sauce to the turkey meat.  Follow the rest of the same directions as shown here.  You can also add or substitute in additional vegetables.  Some of our favorites are spinach (add lots, it wilts down to almost nothing), tomatos, eggplant and red peppers.  This is a great way to get picky eaters to get a full serving of vegetables.