Stovetop lasagna

Listen, chatty Kathy, take me to the recipe

It’s so cold. And so dreary. And so dark. All I want to do is hibernate under a giant blanket and eat cheesy pasta. You?

But, I also feel really low energy. Like, I don’t have the wherewithal for a complicated, multi-step, multi-method recipe. So, I reconcile these incompatible ideas with stovetop lasagna. Cook the noodles in a jarred sauce, top with cheese, and serve. Seriously, so so easy and so so good.

A few notes:

• I added turkey to this dish to increase the protein, but feel free to leave it out to make it vegetarian.

• There’s pesto in the ingredients photo because adding some dollops of pesto in this dish is fab. But I bought a mass-market brand pesto that was, in a word, inedible. So, I wanted to add it to the photo, but we actually eat the food I photograph and I could NOT stomach this sauce. Use one you’ve had before and liked, one you’ve made, or skip it.

• When you start the noodle cooking, make sure the noodles aren’t touching (see the photo above). They’ll start touching through the cooking process and you’ll stir to keep them from sticking together, but I’ve found that as long as you start off with the noodles not touching, they’re easy to separate later on.

• It might seem like a lot of liquid, but the noodles soak up a lot of it and you still want the sauce to be saucy.

Stovetop lasagna

1 Tbsp olive oil or butter
1 small onion, minced
2-3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 lb ground turkey
3 cups tomato sauce (about a 32 oz jar of sauce)
2 cup stock (turkey, chicken, or vegetable), divided  
13 regular or no-boil lasagna noodles (half of a box, uncooked, broken in half)
Mozzarella balls

In a large cast iron pan (with a lid) or Dutch oven, saute the onions on medium heat until translucent and starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for one more minute, until fragrant.

Add the turkey and cook, breaking up any large chunks, until no pink remains, about 10 minutes.

Add the tomato sauce and broth and stir to combine. Turn the heat to high to start heating the sauce.

Break the uncooked noodles roughly into halves or thirds (don’t mind the noodle shrapnel that will ensue; just toss it all in the pot) and tuck them into the sauce, making sure they don’t touch each other. (You want them to be perpendicular to how you would normally layer the noodles in lasagna.)

Turn the heat to medium high and cover your pot and cook the lasagna for five minutes.

Turn the heat down to medium or medium low and stir the noodles around (it’s okay if they touch now), cover, and cook for another 5 minutes.

Uncover and stir the noodles and separate any that have begun to stick together. If the sauce looks like it’s cooking down too much, add more stock ¼ cup at a time.

Cook, uncovered, for 3-5 more minutes. Stir the noodles and sauce frequently to ensure that nothing is sticking or cooking too fast. Add more stock as needed. Cook until the noodles are al dente and just about done.

Add the cheese, cover, and cook for another 5 minutes until the cheese melts.

Yield: 6 large bowls

Meatless Monday: Spring vegetable baked gnocchi

This easy gnocchi dish elevates all of its ingredients into a creamy, cheesy, veggie delight that’s ready in under 30 minutes. #meandthemoose #gnocchi #asparagus #mushrooms #meatlessmaindishes #vegetarianmaindishes

While I usually nix the idea of a two-step pasta dish (it’s still so good even if you don’t cook it twice!), this one is so quick and easy, even a lazy cook like me can have this on the table in under 30 minutes!

Take me to the pasta!

This easy gnocchi dish elevates all of its ingredients into a creamy, cheesy, veggie delight that’s ready in under 30 minutes. #meandthemoose #gnocchi #asparagus #mushrooms #meatlessmaindishes #vegetarianmaindishes

Whelp, it's been a while since my last post and if I'm being honest, it's because I've been obsessively online shopping for shoes to wear to my college reunion. But it's not as shallow as it sounds! I'm focusing my energies on something I can control because there's a lot right now that I can't. It's easier to compare heel heights and debate the pros and cons of suede in DC humidity than to worry about, say, authoritarianism or long-term career plans or huge and imminent life changes. It's enough to give me an ulcer. Which is also something I worry about.

This easy gnocchi dish elevates all of its ingredients into a creamy, cheesy, veggie delight that’s ready in under 30 minutes. #meandthemoose #gnocchi #asparagus #mushrooms #meatlessmaindishes #vegetarianmaindishes

This easy gnocchi dish elevates all of its ingredients into a creamy, cheesy, veggie delight that’s ready in under 30 minutes. #meandthemoose #gnocchi #asparagus #mushrooms #meatlessmaindishes #vegetarianmaindishes

This easy gnocchi dish elevates all of its ingredients into a creamy, cheesy, veggie delight that’s ready in under 30 minutes. #meandthemoose #gnocchi #asparagus #mushrooms #meatlessmaindishes #vegetarianmaindishes

This casserole is a helpful one to have in your repertoire on busy days and is, as always, a helpful vehicle for vegetables. I tend to shy away from baked pasta since it requires an extra step that the original ingredients don't necessarily need to taste great. But smothering things in cheese is always better than NOT smothering things with cheese and since the gnocchi cook so quickly, the overall prep and cooking time isn't overwhelming. Also, the gnocchi have a lot of starch thanks to the potatoes, which thickens the ricotta so that a bechamel or flour-based sauce isn't necessary.

This easy gnocchi dish elevates all of its ingredients into a creamy, cheesy, veggie delight that’s ready in under 30 minutes. #meandthemoose #gnocchi #asparagus #mushrooms #meatlessmaindishes #vegetarianmaindishes

Spring vegetable baked gnocchi

Time: 25-30 minutes, all active
Yield: 4-6 adult servings, depending on your appetite

1 package shelf-stable potato gnocchi, cooked al dente
1 Tbsp butter
1 large shallot, minced
1 box baby bella mushrooms, chopped
1 box shitake mushrooms, chopped
3 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 bunch asparagus, woody stems chopped off
1-2 Tbsp water, if needed
½ cup full fat ricotta
½ cup parmesan
Several large pinches of salt
1 cup shredded mozzarella

Preheat broiler.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

While the water is heating, melt the butter in a sauté pan over a medium/ medium-low flame and cook the shallots until opaque, about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until they soften and begin to release some water, about 5-7 minutes. Add a large pinch of salt.

Add the garlic and asparagus and cook until the mushroom water evaporates. If the mushrooms don’t release any water, add 1-2 Tbsp of water with the asparagus and cook until it evaporates.

Once the water boils, add the gnocchi and as soon as they start floating to the top, scoop them out with a slotted spoon or strainer and put into a large bowl. If only a few gnocchi float at a time, scoop them out in small groups. If the gnocchi aren’t floating or some seem to be cooking at the bottom of the pot for longer than 3-4 minutes, test for doneness and scoop out as long as they no longer taste doughy.

In a large bowl (or right in the baking dish!), mix the gnocchi with ricotta, parmesan, sautéed veggies, salt and pepper. Transfer to a baking dish (if necessary) and top with shredded mozzarella. Bake under the broiler until cheese is brown and bubbly, about 3-4 minutes.