Baked Ziti with Ground Turkey

Sundays are for pasta. It is a nice filling dinner and just perfect for starting your diet off on the WRONG foot. I tried to trim down my ziti a little, with ground turkey, 2% milk Mozzarella, and low fat sour cream.

Ingredients:
cooked penne pasta (about 4 cups)
1 large can chopped tomato with basil and oregano
1/2 large can of tomato sauce
2 frozen cubes of Trader Joes basil
1 bay leaf
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium onion chopped, (used in two spots)
1lb ground turkey
1 cup shredded mozzarella
3 heaping large spoonfuls of sour cream
1/2 cup shredded "other" cheese (I used extra sharp white cheddar)
handfuls of grated parm
salt to taste (sauce and ground turkey)
olive oil (for cooking onion)

Directions (in order of how I cooked things)
1. heat olive oil, saute onion (about 3/4 of what you chopped) and garlic
2. I add some pepper flakes (totally optional) and then added the sauce and chopped tomatoes. Drop in the basil and bay leaf, stirring to thaw and mix into sauce. Heat until bubbles start popping, then turn down to simmer.
3. Put water for pasta on the burner. Preheat oven to 375.
4. Once water starts to boil (drop pasta in), heat a small amt. of oil for remaining onion. Saute and then add in ground turkey. Cook and then strain.
5. After pasta is cooked, transfer to casserole dish or large bowl. Mix in sour cream. Mix in cooked meat/onion. Spoon about 3 ladles of tomato sauce into pasta mixture.
6. In large rectangular baking dish, spoon tomato sauce on bottom. Dump pasta mixture on top. Layer shredded cheese (I did just the cheddar here) on top of pasta.
7. Spoon more tomato sauce on top. Then mozzarella, then parmesan.
8. Bake covered about 20 minutes. And then uncovered about 10 minutes.

And now...the pictures!
Before Baking:

Ready for eating: (see that forkfull right there? That was the BEST bite!

Finally, this is what my kitchen looks like when I cook. Is everyone as messy as me? The gnomes that clean up after I cook think I am extra-specially-messy. Am I?? What I love about baking things for dinner...you have that 40 minutes of clean up time, so that AFTER you eat there is little to do.

UPDATE: I clicked on this picture (you can too) and it totally zooms in so you can see EVERYTHING. Including, through the peep-through over my sink, where you can see the outline of the gnome that cleans the kitchen. Okay, actually he is a gnome wearing an Ohio State shirt. Go Bucks!

Ravioli Lasagna

Ravioli Lasagna
serves 4...cook in a LOAF PAN
1 package Trader Joes Cheese Ravioli (cooked per package directions)
1 cup-ish mushroom cream sauce (recipe follows)
2 cups marinara sauce (recipe follows)
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
frozen spinach (1/2 a package)
2/3 lb ground beef, browned with 1/4 onion chopped

Mushroom Cream Sauce:
Brown 1 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms and one large minced garlic clove in 1 t olive oil. Remove from the pan. Place 1 T butter and melt, then add 1/4 cup flour and make a roux. Slowly whisk in 1 cup of skim milk. Salt and pepper to taste, adding some parmesan cheese. Stir BACK in mushroom. Remove from heat. This makes more than you'll need.

Marinara Sauce:
(this is adapted from a Cooking Light magazine recipe...I had to change it a little)
1/4 chopped onion
1 large minced garlic clove
In 1 T olive oil, cook onion with garlic. After softened, add:
1/2 t dry: basil, oregano, salt, and crushed red pepper.
After herbs are combined with the onion, pour in:
1 14 ounce can of chopped tomato (mine was with balsalmic and garlic)
1/2 cup chicken broth
1T balsalmic vinegar
Let simmer so that it thickens, about an hour. I then added about 1 cup tomato sauce, because the recipe was very chunky and it wasn't reducing much. It tasted great! And it went along well with the lasagna.

The assembly of this lasagna went, from bottom up,
Marinara
3 cooked ravioli
cream sauce
spinach
mozzarella
parmesan
3 cooked ravioli
beef
mozzarella
tomato sauce
ravioli
cream sauce
parmesan
strip of tomato down the center of the cream sauce
parmesan

Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes. Let set about 15 minutes, so it hopefully sets up a little.

Oh how I wish I had a camera. It was pretty, but then when served, that first piece looked crazy. I need little individual baking dishes, so that I don't have to use a spatula to get it out!

Note for the dieting: These raviolis from Trader Joes claim to be enough for TWO. So I stretched these raviolis into 4 servings. Also, the beef, 2/3 lb, for 4 people is a smaller sized portion too. I used Skim Milk Mozzarella, skim milk in my cream sauce, and smaller amounts of olive oil, since I have lovely Calphalon cookware. I don't feel too bad about this dish, diet wise.

Asian Ground Chicken with Lettuce Cups

The diet continues and I think I am doing a nice job. I am keeping track of calories on SparkPeople. I was 10 calories OVER for the amount I should be burning a week. I don't think I went over my daily calorie allowance, well Saturday doesn't count. I figure I'll give myself one free day a week.

Last nigth I created this little recipe for myself. I am excited to have leftovers for my lunches, but think I'll keep it as a "dinner meal." One change in my routine is that I am NOT bringing dinner leftovers for lunch. I think that just messes me up. So dinner leftovers will be consumed only at dinner.

Recipe:
Serves 4
1 pkg Swanson Ground Chicken
1/2 green pepper, diced
1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 cup chopped cabbage
1 can waterchestnuts, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
2T teriyaki
1/4 cup Gyoza Dipping Sauce (Trader Joes) or another stirfry sauce
1T cornstarch with 1T water (slurry)
1t vegetable oil

In wok or saute pan, heat oil and then brown the chicken. Add first three vegetables, garlic, and chicken broth, soy, teriyaki, stirfry sauce. Simmer about 10 minutes to soften vegetables. Add waterchestnuts and cabbage. Combine well, adding more soy or broth if needed. Let simmer 10 minutes, then add slurry to thicken the sauce. The longer it simmers, the better the sauce!

Serve over rice or in lettuce cups. According to sparkrecipes.com, this is approximately 330 calories, and 12 grams of fat per serving.