Yummmm

So I made dinner last night. For those of you that knew me pre solid food inhaling Molly, this was a rare occasion. I am proud to say now I cook at least 4-5 nights a week  3-4 nights a week which is a lot people! So my mom brought over this butternut squash because, well, Molly loves them. So, during her nap time yesterday I was doing some pinterest perusing to see what I could make with the squash. I knew I didn’t have enough stuff for her all time favorite, butternut squash mac and cheese, so I settled on butternut squash lasagna. OH.MY.WORD. It was so good! Danny even loved it which for him was HUGE. This man doesn’t eat veggies, period. Well, I should say that, he will eat lettuce with ranch dressing and now he will eat butternut squash lasagna. Winning!!! Here is the recipe courtesy of Mom Foodie Robin Gagnon.

Butternut Squash Lasagna (on-the-fly)

Ingredients

• 1 cup of reduced fat 2 % milk
• 2 tbs. fat free plain yogurt
• 1 tbs flour
• 1½ cups marinara (or pasta sauce of choice)
• 6 sheets of no boil lasagna noodles
• 4 slices of cheese (prewrapped singles or equivalent easy melt cheese) - I just used grated parmesan for this
• 3 cups cubed butternut squash (steamed)*
• 1 egg
• 1 tbs grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Whisk together the milk & flour in sauce pan. Place over medium-high heat bring to boil, whisk regularly. Cook until sauce starts to thicken, but not reduce. Remove from heat & set aside.
3. Spread marinara on bottom of 8×8 baking dish, and top with 2 sheets of noodles.
4. Spread a little of the white sauce on top, just enough to coat noodles.
5. Mash the squash, and mix in egg (this can easily be done in food processor).
6. Spread a layer of the squash over white sauce, layer on 2 torn slices of the cheese, then marinara. Top with 2 more noodles and repeat. 
7. On top of the final two noodles, spread the remaining white sauce, then marinara, finally top with the grated Parmesan cheese.
8. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 40 minutes. Uncover and bake for a final 5 minutes.
9. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

Notes

* squash can easily be steamed by placing in glass bowl, wrapping in plastic wrap and microwaving until tender

* Yogurt gets spread over 1st squash layer (sorry, forgot to add that in)

The only thing I will change in the future would be to add meat (I will probably do spicy ground turkey) per Danny’s request because this man is a carnivore. I could easily be a vegetarian but I digress. I would also boil the noodles. I used the no boil necessary noodles that the recipe called for and hey less work for me….I will take it but the noodles were still hard after 45 minutes of cooking or as Jenna called them, al dente. We are not that fancy so we just called them hard. And I didn’t have plain yogurt on hand because plain yogurt is gross but I did have ricotta cheese so I added that. So, sans yogurt add ricotta. Go try it! You will not be disappointed. Soooo yummy and let’s go ahead and call this healthy. ;)