It's Not Always Going To Be Good

If you've been around my blog for a while, you know I used to post a lot of recipes. (They can all still be found here.) That's become a less frequent thing. Mostly because we went an extended period of time where we made the same dozen+ things over and over. But, thanks to Pinterest, I have entire boards devoted to recipes. 

This week, I picked one. 

Skillet Lasagna.

This dish is a healthier alternative to a regular lasagna. It looked so good in the pictures so I decided to give it a try.

Here is the recipe:

Easy Peasy Skillet Lasagna

Serves 4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: >10 minutes (*Note: I don't know where she got this. From start to finish, it took us about 35 minutes. Still quick, but not that quick.)

Recipe adapted from Weight Watchers One Pot cookbook.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 cup mushrooms, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 (14.5 oz) cans Italian diced tomatoes, drained
• 1/4 cup tomato sauce
• 3 basil leaves, chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 cup skim ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup part skim mozzarella cheese
• 3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
• About 6 ounces lasagna noodles, broken into thirds & fully cooked
• 2 tablespoons parsley (dried or fresh)

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and mushrooms and cook until garlic is fragrant, about one minute. Add in diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, basil, salt and pepper. Cook mixture until it thickens up a bit, around 5 minutes.
2. Add noodles to skillet and stir into the mixture well. Add scoops of ricotta cheese over the noodles; add in mozzarella and Parmesan. Stir in parsley.  Cook about 2 more minutes, or until mixture is thick.
3. Serve immediately with additional basil or parsley.

I got the water boiling for the pasta and started prepping the other ingredients. Ryan was my sous chef. Since he has years of chef-ing experience under his belt, I like to assign any chopping to him. He is just so good at it. ;)

Cooking together is so much more fun! 

Once the onion, garlic and basil started to fill the kitchen, I was encouraged. It smelled so good! I followed the recipe exactly, but added an extra few leaves of basil and added some oregano and Italian seasonings.

As the cooking process continued, I made a fatal and very out of character error. I didn't taste it at any point. The blogger said it was savory! Creamy! Decadent! DELICIOUS! I believed her. And as I took the first bite I soon knew...she was wrong.

It looked better than it tasted.

Ryan and I quietly ate small servings. It isn't the worst thing either of us as cooked...but after several bites, we both just kind of gave up. It was just so bland. Even adding extra basil and seasonings, it tasted like canned tomatoes and noodles.

I haven't completely given up on this dish though. I still feel it has some potential. For only 275 calories per serving, it deserves some effort. So as I've done with others before it, I plan to take it under my wing and tweak the heck out of it until it's as yummy as I know it could be.

Lesson learned. I could cook three meals a day, everyday, but - it's not always going to be good. :)