Saturday Night's Grilled Zucchini Lasagna...

Today was a beautiful day out, although it clouded up and began raining later this evening.  Hubby and I ran our errands and did our Costco run and then went for a long walk since it was so nice; we walked for over an hour and then came home and took Spike for his walk, too.  Since we've had so much rain recently, the flowers in the yard are particularly beautiful, so I snapped a few photos.  Both boys came for dinner tonight so I made Zucchini Lasagna for dinner.  Hubby grilled the zucchini slices for me -- when possible I prefer to grill them to give them extra flavor.  It was simple to make. I sliced 5 large zucchinis lengthwise into 1/4" thick strips and then brushed with olive oil and seasoned them with salt and pepper and hubby grilled them until fork tender.  I decided to add meat to the lasagna tonight.  I browned 1 pound of ground sirloin with some diced onion and seasoned it generously with salt, lots of black pepper and a dash of cayenne and then added fennel seeds to give it a sausage-like flavor.  I snapped a few photos of our meal along with a few photos of my flowers. The recipe for the lasagna is below -- the amounts of ingredients are according to your own taste; you can add more or less cheese.  I used 1 pound of ground sirloin, 1 pound of ricotta, 1 pound of fresh mozzarella, and 6 large slices of provolone.  I topped the lasagna with about 1/2 cup of Parmigiano Reggiano before baking.

This is the order I layered everything:

• Thin layer of sauce in the bottom of the casserole dish;
• Layer of zucchini
• Layer of sliced provolone cheese
• Layer of browned ground sirloin and onion (seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne and fennel seeds)
• Layer of sauce
• Layer of ricotta cheese
• Layer of sliced fresh mozzarella cheese
• Layer of zucchini
• Layer of sauce
• Topped with shredded Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

I baked it in a 375 degree F oven for about 35 minutes.  I used one of my favorite jarred pasta sauces by DelGrosso and used the entire jar since it was a larger pan of lasagna.  It's important not to make the lasagna too saucy since the zucchini noodles don't absorb sauce the way traditional noodles do, and you don't want it to be too sloppy when you cut it.  You should let it sit for about 30 minutes for the cheeses to cool down a bit so it isn't super hot and it can set so your lasagna doesn't slide all over the place when cut (we only waited about 20 minutes so it didn't cut quite as cleanly as it usually does).

Voila!

Before adding the Parmigiano Reggiano and popping into the oven...

BOOM!

Happy little Spike going for his walk this afternoon...