Pesto Veggie Lasagna
By: David Carson
Published: Saturday, December 19, 2009 - 11:43pm

Ingredients




1 box no-bake whole wheat Lasagna Noodles
8 ounces Crimini or Brown Mushrooms, sliced ¼” thick
6 smalls Zucchini, sliced ¼” thick lengthwise
1 (7oz) bag of Spinach, sautéed
4 ounces Parmesan or Romano cheese, finely grated
2 large eggs, beaten
1 container (16 - 20 oz) Ricotta
Salt
Pepper
8 ounces Pesto 
8 ounces Mozzarella, grated coarsely
Non-stick spray for the baking dish

Preparation

1 Preheat oven to 375F. Trim and slice mushrooms into ¼” slices or buy the pre-sliced package. Wash, trim and slice zucchini into ¼ slices the length of the zucchini. 2 Rinse the spinach and sautéing it with a little olive oil and a pinch of salt. Sauté the spinach until there is just a little liquid left. Set aside. Sauté the mushrooms with a little olive oil and season lightly with salt. On a hot pan (ideally one with ridges to provide grill marks) sear the zucchini that’s drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. Sear until nice grill marks appear and repeat on reverse side. Set aside. 3 In a bowl, mix the ricotta, eggs and grated Mozzarella cheese with a pinch of salt and a half teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper until mixture is smooth. 4 Spray a 9" x 13" baking dish liberally with non-stick spray. 5 Layer the lasagna in this order:
 
1.	Grilled zucchini
2.	Lasagna noodles
3.	Ricotta mixture
4.	Pesto sauce
5.	Mushrooms
6.	Parmesan or Romano cheese
7.	Lasagna noodles
8.	Ricotta mixture
9.	Pesto sauce
10.	Grilled zucchini
11.	Lasagna noodles
12.	Ricotta mixture
13.	Grilled zucchini
14.	Parmesan or Romano cheese 
 6 Bake dish at 375F for 40 to 45 minutes until golden brown on top.

About


I wanted to make a dish for a work potluck that was vegetarian as there are several non-beef eaters in my work team. While everyone eats chicken, I didn’t see how chicken could work in this recipe, so I simply did without. I suppose I could have used Italian chicken sausage, but I was also trying to keep the cost down. I also wanted to stay away from red sauces simply for the sake of variety at our Potluck; someone else was to bring a pasta dish with red sauce.
A co-worker from another team joined us and raved about my lasagna and how much she liked it because it didn't have a tomato-based sauce. I've increased the amount of pesto in the recipe because I thought it should have more pesto flavor than the one I assembled.