And meanwhile.....

Meanwhile, while Dot was cooking chicken chili, the Story Crock Pot (we don’t have a unique name for ours like Mark does for his) was cooking up some lasagna. I live very close to where I work, so I have the luxury to go home for lunch, which is when I put a lot of our family’s meals together in the Crock Pot. It was ready when we got home and was delicious! Maybe it's something Mark could try? It's so simple to make and I’m thinking very affordable on Mark’s budget as well. I make a vegetarian version, but meat can be added if desired. I make this so often that I don’t know exactly how much of each ingredient I use or where I originally found the recipe. This is the beauty of using a Crock Pot, in that you don’t really have to have exact measures in “casserole” type meals for them to turn out tasting great!

Here’s how I usually put it together:

First, break up the lasagna noodles and place them into the bottom of the Crock Pot. Add a couple tablespoons of water (only a small amount of water is needed, as the noodles will soak in the water from the other ingredients, and you don’t want soggy noodles!). Next, begin layering the Crock Pot with ricotta cheese or cottage cheese, spinach or other seasonal vegetables (I have used winter squash, zucchini, yellow squash, onions, and carrots in my versions). Here’s where you can add the meat if so desired. Next layer is tomato sauce or stewed tomatoes (canned or made fresh), then top with shredded cheese. You can repeat the layers as desired (except for the noodles, as they only go in once on the bottom of the Crock Pot), but it’s best to end with shredded cheese on top. Again, buying the block of cheese and shredding it may be more economical than purchasing the cheese already in shredded form. Set the Crock Pot on high for ~5 hours, and walla….lasagna! Dinner is served!