My first attempt at Lasagna

A few weeks ago, I ordered The Skinnygirl Dish through Amazon. Yes, it is a cookbook by reality star Bethenny Frankel, but she's also a trained chef. And I'm upfront about my love for bad TV, so I'm not afraid to say that I like Bethenny even though she is a little wacky (and she knows it). I'm also not afraid to say that I think Skinnygirl Dish is a great cookbook. It's part-cookbook, part-cooking philosophy book -- one of the major ideas behind the book is to get over one's fear of cooking and feel comfortable enough with cooking to make recipes healthier and experiment.

Tonight I tried a recipe for a healthier version of classic lasagna and it came out really well. It was my first time making a lasagna of any kind and I was really happy with the results. I don't have any great pictures of my version, but here is a picture from Bethenny's website.

Lighter Lasagna

- 8 oz lasagna noodles (whole wheat if you can find them) non-boil are much easier
- 1lb+ of ground turkey or turkey sausages with casing removed (I found some ground turkey that was pre-seasoned with Italian seasonings and it was great.)
- 1 jar of tomato sauce
- 1/2 C chopped fresh basil
- 2 TBS parsley (The original recipe calls for more parsley and less basil, but I reversed the ingredients by accident and liked all the fresh basil in the lasagna!)
- 15 oz part-skim ricotta cheese or low fat cottage cheese
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 4 oz part-skim shredded mozzarella
- 1/3 C shredded parm cheese (I skipped the parm and it was still tasty with just mozzarella)

1. Boil lasagna noodles if necessary. Brown and drain turkey in a sprayed, non-stick skillet. After turkey is cooked, add tomato sauce and then remove from heat and set aside. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Mix ricotta/cottage cheese with herbs.
3. Spray a large glass dish and put first layer of noodles down. Alternate layers of noodles, meat/tomato sauce mixture and ricotta/herbs mixture. Sprinkle the top with the shredded cheese.
4. Cook in oven for 25-30 min; until bubbling and warmed through. Remove from oven and let settle for 20 min before serving. Delicious and better for you, too!