Zucchini Lasagna

Directions

• Brown meat along with one half of the chopped onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Drain when the meat is cooked all the way through and set to the side. Add olive oil to a large saucepan and sauté the other half of the onion for about 2 minutes or until brown. Return the meat to the pan, add crushed tomatoes. Simmer on low for at least 30 minutes covered.
• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. While the sauce is simmering, slice the zucchini into 1/8″ thick slices, add light salt (to take out the natural moisture from the vegetable) and after 10 minutes blot excess moisture with a paper towel. The original recipe called for a mixture of ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese and egg. I mistakenly bought cottage cheese in place of the ricotta so I skipped this step. The recipe was absolutely delicious without the ricotta mixture but I will attempt to recreate it with ALL the ingredients next time around.
• Spread 1/2 cup of the sauce mixture on the bottom of a casserole dish (about 9×12) and layer the zucchini on top and cover. Spread about 1/2 mozzarella cheese and sprinkle (or go crazy) Parmigiano Reggiano on top. Repeat.
• Top the last layer with remaining zucchini and sauce, cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover the foil and bake for 20 minutes (until the sauce is dry on the top layer) then place the remaining (about 1 cup) mozzarella and bake until melted.
• I turned on the broiler for about 2 minutes after the cheese melted to get a crispy, crunchy crust. This recipe is definitely one of my top five low carbohydrate meals.