Ladies night and Vegetable Lasagna

This has been the best week ever. Parties all weekend, quiet days at work, and fun stuff every night! Monday night I hosted what is now a traditional holiday event with my best friends from college, our Secret Santa gift exchange! We are located all across the country, but always manage to do a gift exchange through a website that my friend Erin found that picks your Secret Santa for you and emails you who you have. This year we were lucky enough to have 5 out of 6 of us here in town, so we got together for lots of wine, dinner, and gifts. We Skyped with Brett, who was still in Dallas but gets in town tomorrow!

I'm still so bad about getting pictures for the blog, but towards the end of the night I did take a few.

I think Natalie liked her scarf and headband that she got almost as much as her wine!

Chillin in the kitchen (ambition!) - John and Drew cleared out so we could have girl time for a while :-)

John had been at Maggiano's for lunch so brought us his leftover calamari. Serving platter courtesy of the talented Rebecca Anthony, who happens to be the sister of one of my oldest and best friends, Emily Staveley. We also had awesome baked brie made by Jill, and Erin's homemade spiced nuts. YUM!

I made a vegetable lasagna that I have made several times before and it always goes over well. My mom makes this for her Fugee Family kids a lot and she said that they love it and always ask for more of the "burnt part" (which is the spinach and cheese that gets crispy on the top)! Cute.

I originally found this recipe on Kath's site a few years ago (original recipe here). It's super easy - you don't even have to cook the noodles. Since I first made it, it's actually the only lasagna recipe I've made. It's really healthy and packed with lots of vegetables, and you can pretty much choose whatever you want to put in it, so it works for picky eaters.

Here's what you need:

And here's what you do:

1. Chop your veggies

2. Line a casserole dish with uncooked noodles and top with 1 cup marinara sauce.

3. Combine cottage cheese and parmesan cheese in a bowl and put about 3/4 cup of it on top of the marinara sauce.

4. Put about a cup of chopped veggies on next.

5. Top with mozzarella cheese and Italian seasoning.

6. Repeat!

7. Cover and bake at 400 for an hour. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 - 10 minutes. Serves 8.

Vegetable Lasagna

Recipe Source: Kath Eats

Serves 8

Ingredients:

3 cups pasta sauce

16 ounces low fat cottage cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 box lasagna noodles

8 ounces mozzarella cheese

4 cups mixed veggies - I used onions, spinach, carrots, sundried tomatoes, and zucchini

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray.

Place one layer of noodles on casserole dish. Top with 1 cup marinara sauce, then 3/4 cup cottage cheese/parmesan mixture. Layer 1/3 of the veggies, and top with 1/3 of the mozzarella. Repeat twice. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour. Remove from oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes.

Hope you have a good night! I'll be working one more day tomorrow, then off until 2011 - can't wait to host Christmas Eve dinner here and spent lots of time with family!