Meaty Pesto Lasagna

I am not a huge fan of beef unless it is in its ground form.  I love chicken, will eat turkey, and won't even consider touching fish.  Mr. Boyfriend, however, will eat almost any meat in any form, except for the piggy.  We both grew up not eating it, and as a result, neither of us really have a desire to cook it.

I am a huge fan of basil pesto.  And fresh, delicate spinach.  And lovely flakes of Parmesan cheese.  This recipe combines all three of my favorites, and Mr. Boyfriend's favorite, into a delightful lasagna.

1st, sorry for the crappy phone quality   I need a real camera.  Ended up being gooier than I expected, but still delicious.  I also ended up pouring out some of the liquid that pooled after we finished dinner.  I think cooking the spinach before hand would help with that.   

Forgive the mess in the kitchen.  I am very much the furthest you can be from being a tidy cook.  Example:  

Mess.  And this is organized.  It didn't look this nice for long...

The steps to creating this culinary delight are quite simple.  Boil lasagna noodles, brown your beef, and layer away!  Here's how I layered mine:

After spraying the dish with spray oil, spread some sauce on the bottom of the pan.  Not a lot, just enough to coat it.  Place four noodles down, overlapping a bit to ensure a quality layer of noodles.  

So simple, so elegant.  The base for happy taste buds!

Next, spread some gooey, curdy, cottage cheese.  Only way that I'll eat cottage cheese, folks, is layered in a lasagna. 

Nasty stuff plain.  Delicious covered in sauce, pesto, noodles, and cheese. 

Drop some spoonfuls of pesto down and swirl together with the cottage cheese.  Oh, how pretty the green looks swirled with the white!  

Sauce, pesto, and cottage cheese, oh my. 

Scoop up a handful of spinach and cover that baby up.  All I can see is green now.  Enter a wonderful, classic Kermit song here.  

Add those Vitamins!

Sprinkle that cooked ground-up cow over the spinach and cover that with some fresh shredded mozzarella cheese and flakes of parmesan.  Oooh, cheese.  I'd put more on you if Mr. Boyfriend's brother wasn't lactose intolerant.  Long story short, the three of us share an apartment and he takes lactaid when we have dairy.  Too much dairy though, and the lactaid won't help.  

Cheese cheese cheese cheese

Douse it now with the second type of sauce, if you chose to do the two kinds of sauce route.  If not, just carry on with whatever sauce you chose to use.  Yeah, cover that cheese.  

Mmmm, sauce

And carry on with the layers.  I did three layers of what is above and ended with a noodle layer covered with the rest of the sauce and - you guessed it - lots of cheese.  Well, less cheese than I would've liked, but what can you do.  

Just look at this masterpiece!

Unbaked but still looking marvelous

And from this angle. 

And into the oven we go!

And minus a slice or three.  Ooey gooey deliciousness.

Huge hit with Mr. Boyfriend and Brother.  This picture is before Mr. Boyfriend got to it.  And we have leftovers for later in the week!

Ingredient List (these are the specifics of the ingredients I used.  Calories may vary depending on what you decide to use.)  Warning: not a low calorie dish

Layer in a 9 by 13 pan.

• 1 box Dreamfields Lasagna Noodles  [1140 calories]
• 1 24oz container of 2 cottage cheese  [540 calories]
• 2 jars of tomato sauce  [combined 1030 calories]
• Barilla brand Tomato and Basil
• Classico brand Sun Dried Tomato Alfredo
• 3 cups of raw spinach  [30 calories]
• I used fresh, raw spinach.  You could cook it down to use more spinach and possibly decrease how much liquid fills the bottom of the dish. 
• 1/3 block Mozzarella  [900 calories]
• I buy mine from Costco, so I used between 8 and 10 ounces of cheese.  
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups of flaked parmesan cheese  [480 calories]
• Costco!  I love Costco. 
• 1/2 jar Kirkland Pesto  [1650 calories]
• Hint:  its from Costco
• 1.5 lbs 85% lean ground beef  [1463 calories]
• Costco.  Again. 

Bake at 375 for 40-45 minutes.  I recommend putting a large cookie sheet on the rack under the pan to catch drips. 

Total calories in dish - 7223
15 servings - 482 per serving
10 servings - 723 per serving