Cooking with Kelly: Roasted Vegetable Lasagna Recipe

Last night I hosted the most recent meeting of the Ladies Book Club, where we discussed the heartbreakingly adorable "The Art of Racing in the Rain," with dinner and drinks. It was great seeing the ladies and chatting over an eclectic mix of treats and bites.

It's also been an embarrasingly long time since Red Gold sent me a lasagna kit, so this seemed to be the perfect time to bust it out and wow the book club with a killer dinner. I decided to go with a roasted vegetable lasagna to keep it kind of healthy and vegetarian. I made the lasagna in a few stages so it was pretty easy. It started with roasting the vegetables earlier in the week when I had the oven on.

And then the day before book club, I boiled the noodles, mixed the ricotta with the cheese, combined the Red Gold crushed tomatoes and diced Italian tomatoes and layered the casserole together.

Then, on book club day, all I had to do was bake it for an hour, remove the foil and add the cheese on top. It was perfectly easy and delicious. No complaints from the ladies book club, so I'm deeming it a success!

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna Recipe from Red Gold
2 sliced zucchini
1 green bell pepper cut into large chunks
1 onion cut into wedges
1 package of sliced mushrooms
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 crushed garlic clove
1 box lasagna noodles
1 large can of crushed Red Gold tomatoes

1 can Italian diced tomatoes
1 16-ounce container of low-fat ricotta cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the vegetables and toss with the olive oil, seasoning and garlic. Roast for 15 minutes, then stir and roast for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool, and either store in an airtight container or set aside for assembly.

Cook the noodles according to the package. While it cooks, combine the ricotta and Parmesan. In a separate bowl, mix together the tomatoes.

To assemble, start with a thin layer of tomato sauce in a 9x13 dish. Top with a layer of noodles, then cheese, vegetables and sauce. Repeat until you have three layers. End with topping the last layer with sauce and covering the dish with foil.

The final stop is baking at 350 for an hour. Remove foil in the last 10 minutes and top with the mozzarella until melted. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then slice.