Lazy Lasagne (no pre-cooking the noodles!)

This is one of my go-to dinner recipes, it's ridiculously easy and delicious. The only catch is it takes about an hour to bake. I also made it somewhat healthier by replacing the traditional ricotta cheese with lowfat cottage cheese. And since I'm sure that made a bunch of Italian grandmothers clutch their hearts, I might as well confess that I use any shredded cheese that I have on hand--light cheddar, Mexican blend, anything tasty that melts.  The best part of this recipe? No cooking the lasagna noodles before it goes into the pan! Interested?

You need:

- a 26-28 oz. jar of spaghetti sauce
- 6 uncooked lasagna noodles
- 2 cups of shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
- 2 cups (one of those 16 oz containers) of lowfat cottage cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Pour about a half cup of sauce on the bottom of a small baking pan:

Kind of spread it around the bottom of the pan.  Obviously the pan needs to be big enough for 3 lasagna noodles to lay in but not too big, or else it flattens out a lot as the filling melts out:

Then lay the 3 uncooked lasagna noodles on top of the spread sauce.  Hmpf.  This pan is a bit too big:

Spread all the cottage cheese on top of these noodles:

Then top with one cup of the shredded mozzarella cheese:

And top with a cup of sauce:

And spread it evenly on top of the cheese:

Top with the last 3 uncooked lasagna noodles:

And empty the remaining sauce on top:

Cover tightly with foil.  This traps in the moisture that will cook the noodles.  Bake for 50 minutes:

Remove foil and be amazed that you didn't have to cook those noodles beforehand:

Top with remaining cup of shredded cheese and bake for 10 minutes:

Remove from oven and ideally let it sit for about 10 minutes to set:

That was easy, right? Pretty cheap, right? And when you sub in cottage cheese and low fat cheese, it's definitely a healthier version than those frozen entrees. Try it--I would love to hear what you think.