Gluten Free Lasagna!

Tinkyada makes a brown rice lasagna noodle that works just perfectly for homemade lasagna. We made it the other night and I literally could not taste the difference in the noodles at all. It turned out delicious. I also recently discovered the key to any lasagna recipe is mixing cottage cheese with the ricotta. It makes it easier to spread the layers, and it really adds a lot of moisture as well.

I made mine meatless, and made a meat-sauce on the side. Feel free to add ground beef to your sauce (to layer) if you prefer.

What You Need:

1 Box Tinkyada Lasagna Noodles
2 Jars Pasta Sauce (I used Classico Sweet Tomato Basil)
15 oz ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups small curd cottage cheese (I used low-fat, worked fine)
2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder

What You Do:


1. Cook noodles according to box instructions. Make sure not to over cook.
2. Drain and rinse noodles.
3. In a 9 x 13 pan, layer bottom of pan with a layer of tomato sauce.
4. In a medium bowl combine ricotta, cottage cheese, basil, oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, and 1/2 cup mozzarella.
5. Cover the layer of sauce at the bottom of the pan and make a layer of noodles across the pan.
6. Cover noodles with: cheese mixture, some mozzarella cheese, and then tomato sauce. Add more noodles to the top of the layer.
7. Continue layering in this pattern. For the top layer, simply top noodles with tomato sauce and remaining mozzarella cheese.
8. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 35 minutes.
9. Remove foil and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted on the top.

Enjoy! It's delicious! No one will know the difference in this pasta.

Some Gluten Free Updates

I don't have any new fabulous recipes at the time, but I am making gluten-free lasagna tonight and will post the recipe when I'm finished! I did want to share a few exciting things though!

My favorite grocery store, Dominick's (Safeway store, all around the Chicago area) started to label their foods with tags that say "Gluten Free!" It is great because I get very tired of searching labels all the time. I really like it. They have a new program called "Simple Nutrition." Hopefully more stores follow the same trend soon.

Also, a great gluten free breakfast or snack, that may seem obvious but I seem to overlook a lot: Smoothies! It's the best way to make fruit and yogurt a little more fun, and healthy too. Today I just did it without a recipe: Mixed lowfat vanilla yogurt (2 containers) with frozen raspberries (about 3/4 cup or so), fresh strawberries (about 1/2 cup) and 1/4 cup milk. It was delicious, filling, and healthy. I really enjoyed it. I look forward to experimenting with more fruits (I think peaches, mangoes, blueberries, blackberries, etc). I personally don't care for bananas but I know they're a popular smoothie ingredient. Anyway, I just wanted to share that since I do forget about them a lot and I really really enjoyed my smoothie this morning! I think I will start to make them in a larger batch ahead and keep them in the fridge so I can always have them ready for the mornings. Yum.

Gluten free lasagna post to come!