Veggie Lasagna with Smoky Scamorza Cheese

Oli, lasagnas are easy-to-make one-dish meals.  Yes, they can be a little time-consuming to put together, but the results are delicious and you can have lasagna to eat for days!  Also, you can put whatever you want into the lasagnas...sometimes I'll put ground turkey or Italian sausage, or just stick with sauce, cheese, and noodles.  Use your imagination!  Here's the basics:

1. Ingredients I used for this dish: lasagna noodles, marinara sauce, San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, smoked scamorza cheese (same consistency as mozzarella), parmesan cheese, ricotta, onion, garlic, olive oil, zucchini, carrot, basil, parsley, salt, pepper, egg.

2. Dice up your zucchini, carrot, and onion into a small dice.

3. Warm up a pan and heat up some olive oil (1-2 tablespoons) and saute your veggies.  Season with salt and pepper until onions are translucent and veggies are soft.

4. Then add the tomatoes (I used whole, peeled tomatoes and crushed them with my hands, but you can use already crushed tomatoes - San Marzano tomatoes are the best and the sweetest) and their juice.

5. Stir and bring the sauce to a simmer on low heat.  Add some basil and stir that in as well.  Let the sauce cook for at least 20 minutes so all the ingredients meld together.

6. Cook the noodles in boiling, salted water.  While the noodles cook, make the ricotta mixture.  Use ricotta, 1 egg, chopped parsley, chopped basil, a tiny pinch of salt, pepper, and some grated parmesan cheese. Mix together and keep in the fridge until ready to use.

7. When the noodles are ready, drain the water and get ready for some layering fun!  Put a couple ladles of sauce at the bottom of a casserole dish so the bottom layer of noodles have some flavor to absorb.

8. Then put the first layer of noodles, overlapping so none of that yummy filling falls through the cracks.

9. Then spread the ricotta mixture as evenly as you can over the noodles.  On top of this, put the shredded mozzarella, and the grated smoked scamorza cheese.

10.  On top of the cheeses, ladle more sauce, then add another layer of noodles.  I usually do about 3 layers of noodles and enough accompanying sauce and cheese.  So it'll go: sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles cheese.  The last layer of cheese should get some grated parmesan because it gets that nice crispy, brown crust on top.  See?

11. Yum!  Chock full of cheesey, starchy goodness!  This is what the lasagna looks like after baking for about 40 minutes in a 375 degree oven.  After you take the lasagna out of the oven, let it rest for 10 minutes while it cools down enough so when you cut it, it won't fall apart.  Enjoy!