"Shortcut" Lasagna

So tonight I tried something that I have never tried before. I made lasagna using those no-boil, oven-ready noodles. I have no problem with boiling the noodles, as I usually do, but these noodles were on sale recently, so I thought they'd be worth a try. Up for something new, today was the day I chose to try them.

Little miss was excited for two reasons. The first is that she could help me actually build the lasagna tonight, a task that, for obvious reasons, I don't usually let her help me accomplish - I don't want her burning herself on just boiled noodles! The second was that I had promised her that the next time I needed to grate cheese, I would let her try the "circle" (ie: rotary) grater. It was a little tricky for her little hands to get the knack of holding and turning all at the same time, but she did a great job. And while she grated, I mixed an egg into the ricotta and mixed up our sauce.

I did the first layer myself, to get a hang of how it would go, and then little miss helped me add each new layer of noodles. The toughest part, to me, was spreading the ricotta onto the dry noodles, as the noodles wanted to shift all over the place, but other than that, this went together exactly like I expected it to.

I found it interesting that the cooking time and temperature for this lasagna, according to the package directions, were identical to those of a standard, pre-cooked-noodle lasagna - I had expected it to need a little bit of extra time covered in the oven, but I followed the directions, and the noodles seemed to cook all the way through.

The lasagna tasted delicious - neither daddy nor little miss could taste a difference between this and my regular lasagna. Honestly, though, I wouldn't go out of my way to look for these noodles again. I am sure some people like the fact that you save a pot by not boiling the noodles first, but considering the amount of dishes generated by making this dish anyway, one more pot isn't really a big deal. And I found that, despite the fact that this lasagna had exactly the same amount of layers as my regular one, it just felt thinner... flatter... But I am glad I tried them, and it made a yummy dinner tonight.