New Recipe: Martha Stewart's Lasanga

I think I mentioned a long, long time ago (ok, almost a year ago) that my friend's surprised me with homemade meals for my 30th birthday. One of those meals was lasagna from my friend, Anh. It was so yummy so I asked her for the recipe, which happened to be from Martha Stewart.

You all know, I am no chef over here so if I find a recipe and make it more than once, it has to be good and it has to be easy enough. This recipe meets those requirements!

I've made this a couple times now and I love it because it's easy to cut up into individual serving sizes and freeze in containers. Make for quick, easy lunches!

So here's the recipe (also found online here):

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces spicy Italian sausage, removed from casings and crumbled (you could probably use a mild sausage if you don't like spice)
• 2 large onions, halved and thinly sliced (4 cups)
• 1 to 2 bunches kale (1 1/2 pounds), thick stems removed
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 8 ounces lasagna noodles (about 9 noodles), each broken crosswise into 4 to 6 pieces
• 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 3 cups part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a 5-quart pot, cook sausage over medium heat, stirring often, until browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in onions; cover, and cook until softened, 5 minutes. Uncover; cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Add garlic; cook 2 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl.
   
2. Add kale and 1/2 cup water to pot; season with salt and pepper. Cover; cook over medium-low heat, tossing occasionally, until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain; coarsely chop. Transfer to bowl with onions.
   
3. Meanwhile, cook noodles 2 minutes less than package instructions. Drain; rinse under cold water. (Once I just used the no pre-cook noodles and layered then like regular lasagna; it worked fine).
   
4. Add noodles, tomatoes, and ricotta to the bowl; season with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Toss well. Pour into a 9-by-13-inch baking dish; smooth top with a spatula. Sprinkle with Parmesan. Bake until golden brown, about 40 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

Variations: You can replace the kale with two 10-ounce packages of frozen chopped spinach; thaw spinach, and squeeze out excess water before adding to noodle mixture in step 4 (skip step 2). I haven't tried this yet, but I think I will. I prefer spinach to kale.

All the prep work.

Before

After