White Veggie Lasagna Dinner

The Game Plan

• Breakfast - French toast
• Lunch - Snackin' Plate - cheese and pepperoni or ham slices, crackers, apple and banana slices, peanut butter
• Dinner - White Veggie Lasagna, tossed salad
• Snacks - Homemade Granola bars

The Plan In Action

• 8:00am - Make French toast. While it is cooking, slice the meats and cheese for lunch. Put in a plastic baggie until lunchtime. Also, put a large pot of water on the stove to boil for the lasagna noodles.
  
• 8:30am - Finish breakfast and chop veggies for lasagna. Heat olive oil in a skillet and start cooking the veggies. Put noodles in water to boil. Drain and rinse with cold water when done.
  
• 8:50am - Put lasagna noodles and veggies in the fridge. Go do something fun (or productive...find a way to combine the two and that's even better) for awhile. Or continue on this point and just finish the lasagna all at once.
  
• 10:00 am - Stir together the ricotta filling at put bowl in fridge.
• 10:05 - Make the white sauce for the lasagna.
• 10:15 - Pull all of the already prepared ingredients out of the fridge and line up assembly line style on your counter. Start layering the lasagna in a 13 x 9 casserole dish.
  
• 10:30 - Cover finished lasagna with tin foil and place in fridge. Wash all dishes.
  
• 10:40 - Chop any ingredients you'd like to have in your tossed salad and store in individual baggies. (Confession time - our tossed salad is usually more like lettuce "salad." Lettuce, dressing, and croutons or chickpeas if we have any on hand. I suppose this is because I do not like raw tomatoes or onions. My family doesn't seem to mind though.)
• 12:30 - Slice apples and bananas. Arrange crackers, meat, cheese, fruit slices and peanut butter for dipping on individual plates. Have fun with your arrangements. The kids will have a blast with this lunch, at least mine always do.
• 12:45 - Eat lunch.
• 3:30pm - Snacktime. We love this recipe from Mom Advice for our homemade granola bars. (I use honey in place of the corn syrup with no problem.) A tray of these usually lasts 2 or 3 days in our house.
• 5:00pm - Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take the lasagna out of the refrigerator to bring to room temperature, but do not remove the foil.
• 5:15pm - Put lasagna in oven.
• 6:00pm - Remove foil from lasagna and continue cooking 10 - 15 minutes.
• 6:15pm - Remove lasagna from oven. Let sit at least 5 minutes before cutting. Combine all of the prepped salad ingredients and toss together.
  
• 6:25pm - Eat and enjoy!

White Veggie Lasagna

• 12 lasagna noodles, cooked
  
• vegetable filling
• ricotta filling
• white sauce
• 1 1/2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

For The Vegetable Filling

• 1/2 large onion, finely diced
• 1/2 large green pepper, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1/2 pound mushrooms, diced
• 1 zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced
• 5 - 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 bag frozen spinach, thawed
• 1/2 bag frozen broccoli cuts, thawed
• 1/2 t. nutmeg
• Salt & pepper, to taste

1. Warm 2 T. of olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onion, green pepper, and celery. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat.
2. Add the mushrooms, zucchini, and garlic, and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the thawed spinach and broccoli.
3. Add the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Cook for yet another 5 minutes.

For The Ricotta Filling

• 16 oz. ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
  
• 1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese

1. Combine and set aside.

For The White Sauce

• 3 T. butter
• 3 T. flour
• 1 c. milk
• 1/2 c. chicken stock or white wine
• 3 oz. cream cheese
• 1/3 c. grated or shredded Parmesan cheese
• Salt & pepper, to taste

1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour and let cook 1-2 minutes. Whisk in milk and chicken stock. Cook until sauce just begins to thicken.
2. Add cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, and salt & pepper. Cook until all cheese is melted.

To Assemble The Lasagna
1. Spread 1/4 c. white sauce on the bottom of a 13 x 9 casserole dish. Top with 4 lasagna noodles. Top lasagna noodles with 1/3 of the ricotta filling, 1/3 of the veggie filling, and 1/3 of the remaining sauce. Repeat layers, ending with a final layer of white sauce. Sprinkle 1 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese over the top. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 10 - 15 minutes longer, until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit at least 5 minutes before slicing.

For just the lasagna recipe, go here.

**If you have about 20-30 extra minutes, and all of the necessary ingredients, why not make a second lasagna with red sauce to put in the freezer? (Note: Lasagna with white sauce does NOT freeze well, at least in my experience.) Go here on my other blog to get the full recipe and instructions for making both lasagnas at once.