STUFFED.

Ok, so the last time I posted I thought my next entry would be much closer to the last. HOWEVER, as usual, life got in the way and I hadn't really cooked anything worth talking about until tonight. I've had the recipe and the ingredients in my fridge for about two weeks now, so it was about time that I made these LASAGNA ROLL-UPS. All I have to say is YUM!!!! Oh, and STUFFED. I ate two of these roll-ups and I feel like I will be good for days. :) Now, for even better news......I GOT A NEW CAMERA!!!! My posts will never go picture-less again! Yea!!!! Well, without further ado, here is the recipe, complete with pictures!

Spicy Italian Sausage Lasagna Roll-Ups
(original recipe: Shrimp Lasagna Roll-Ups, Annie's Eats)



Ingredients:
6 lasagna noodles
1/2 package Johnsonville HOT Italian Sausage
salt and pepper
15 oz. ricotta cheese
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 egg, lightly beaten
2-3 tbsp. chopped fresh basil
pinch of nutmeg
1 3/5 cups marinara sauce, divided
shredded mozzarella for topping

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Bring a large pot of water to boil over high heat. Add the lasagna noodles and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain and set aside.

White the water is boiling/noodles are cooking, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the Italian Sausage to the pan and brown. At this point, I did add some garlic because I love it, but the sausage is plenty flavorful on it's own to leave it out. Once the sausage has been browned, remove it from the heat and let cool. Mix the cooled sausage into a bowl with 1 cup of ricotta cheese, 1/4 cup parmesan, the egg, basil, salt, pepper and nutmeg.

In another bowl, combine 1 1/2 ups of marinara sauce with the remaining ricotta, to taste - stirring until smooth. I accidentally used ALL of the leftover ricotta and it was surprisingly good! However, the next time around, I think I will add less so it is more marinara, less ricotta. However, with my little mess up, I ended up with a lot of left over sauce/ricotta mixture that will go great later in the week with my leftover sausage and some pasta!

In a baking dish, spread the remaining 1/4 cup of marinara sauce so the bottom is covered. Lay the noodles flat on a cutting board and spread the sausage/ricotta mixture evenly over the length of each noodle. Once the mixture has been divided evenly over each noodle, roll them up and place seam-side down in the baking dish. Top the roll-ups with the sauce/ricotta mixture and shredded mozzarella.

Bake the roll-ups until they are heated through and the sauce begins to brown, about 25 minutes. I'm not sure if my oven temperature is off or not, but I had to cook the roll-ups longer then 25 minutes even though my oven was more than pre-heated. I think they baked for about 35 minutes in all.

Wait a few minutes to cool and then dig in! Each recipe makes about 3 servings, but if you're serving sides, you can probably get even more servings. I actually think 1 1/2 roll-ups per person would be the perfect serving size. Too bad they get messy when you start cooking into them.... Although, if you're not worried about presentation, you could probably get 4 servings out of one batch, but that all depends on who you're feeding ;)