Meatless Mondays: Polenta Lasagna

Mondays are sometimes the hardest days to figure out dinner. I am not a big fan of Shabbat leftovers, and there are never enough to serve the whole family come Monday. I am tired and not wanting to really prepare anything, but it’s too early in the week to justify getting takeout.

A big trend in the food blog world lately is Meatless Mondays. I like this idea. Of course in my house, almost every day is a meatless day. Still, I like the ideas behind it, and am more than happy to spread the word.

I decided on polenta lasagna. I always have cornmeal lying around, but as luck would have it – I had one of those handy dandy tubes of prepared polenta from Trader Joes sitting in my cabinet. I had my doubts about this dinner. I knew that my husband would love the lasagna, but I was nervous that the kids would be begging for some sort of dinner alternative. I lucked out. The kids loved it. They ate it all up. They didn’t even bat an eye at the spinach! Score! To top off the good luck – they devoured the steamed broccoli I served with it. Ten points for me!

Polenta Lasagna
Ingredients:

1.5 cups of good tomato sauce
1 tube of polenta, sliced into 12-15 slices
1.5 cups of ricotta cheese
3/4 box of frozen spinach
1 tbsp. italian seasoning
5 cloves smashed garlic
salt
pepper
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 egg
1.5 cups of shredded mozarella
a few leaves of basil, chopped
shredded parmesean

Preheat oven to 375.

In a mixing bowl, mix the ricotta cheese, the spinach, half of the mozarella, the egg, and the herbs.

In an 8×8 pan, spread a thin layer of tomato sauce. Place half of the polenta rounds over the sauce. Top with half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Spread a thin layer of sauce and repeat the polenta/cheese layers. Spread another thin layer of sauce. Top with mozarella cheese and sprinkle with the parmesean.

Bake in the preheated oven for about a half hour. Garnish with the chopped basil. Serve with some steamed veggies and/or salad.

Enjoy!