Eggplant Lasagna Part II

So here I am - back with the pseudo recipe for Eggplant Lasagna, ha! For those of you who enjoy that sort of thing, lol. 

I'll begin with the recipes I started with. These are the two I got most of my "inspiration" from. 

This is the main one Here. Of course, as I go along, I'll tell the things I changed.

And Here is the one I got about using eggplant. I basically only used the part of cooking the eggplant ahead of time from this one. 

So first thing - the meat sauce. Here's a picture of it. Doesn't it look Ah-May-Zing?! I started with the recipe, but this is what I did.

Sauteed onions and green peppers, added the ground beef. I used more ground beef than the recipe called for (with an eye toward freezing any leftovers to make spaghetti out of later). I also added fresh parsley and basil from the garden, of course! Some oregano and ground pepper. Once it all seemed cooked, I added one big can of diced tomatoes (plain, not the flavored ones the recipe calls for), and one big can of tomato sauce (again, plain).

Let's stop for just a moment. You may have noticed it by now, but if you haven't, let me point it out to you. There is NO garlic in my recipe. *sigh* Alas, I love, love, love garlic, but it hates, hates, hates me. I'll put this as delicately as I can... if I eat even a little garlic, it is um... rejected by my stomach a few minutes later. So no garlic, which totally sucks. But that is just a fact of my life...

So to continue, lol. I peeled and sliced the eggplant, sprayed a baking sheet with cooking oil, salted and peppered the eggplant, and put it in the oven. Cooked it at 450 for five minutes a side. Here it is ready to go in.

Once all that was ready to go, I made the ricotta cheese mixture just as the recipe said to, though I did make half again as much. I'm a pretty cheesy person, what can I say? Lol. Just wanted to be sure there was a little extra, and figured if too much, I'd put it in the fridge and use it on macaroni or something, too.

Cooking spray in the dish. Then it was time to layer... 

Hit "Read More" to see the rest!

A layer of meat sauce. Layer of eggplant. Layer of ricotta cheese stuff. Layer of mozzarella slices. Repeat. Here it is after the first layer of eggplant.

And here it is ready to go in the oven. 

From the side. Doesn't that look Amazing?

Then it had to bake. 55 minutes at 350, covered in foil. Then 15 minutes uncovered, and sit for ten before eating. 

Let me tell you - this was some of the best lasagna I'd ever had, if I do say so myself. And I can eat a decent sized piece and it doesn't upset my stomach or feel too heavy. Lots to cut up and freeze, too! So yeah, had some for lunch today, maybe again tomorrow, then we'll see how it holds up in the freezer. But given how well "regular" lasagna does, this should be great, don't you think? I sure hope so!

And I hope you enjoyed my saga/process, ha! I have no idea what I might do to top it, but hey, it'll come to me, lol. 

:)