Sometimes even the cook needs a night off...and an easy way out!

     Yesterday was a busy day for me... work, errands, and then homework. Yes, in additional to everything else- I am full time enrolled in a hospitality degree online.  Who needs free time? or sleep for that matter. LOL
     After spending a couple of hours working (and not completing, *sad face* ) changes to the appearance of the blog- I looked up and I was an hour after suppertime!  I did some quick internet searching and stumbled across a concept called "Skillet Lasagna".  According to the few recipes I looked at- I could have lasagna in about 40 minutes! and with only one pan!  This I had to try.
    So, as is normal in my kitchen- I didn't follow a recipe.. just kind of winged it on my own. And seriously... 40 mins later I had a reasonable facsimile of real baked lasagna!  The Hubby even had seconds!
     You can do an internet search for recipes- they are all over the place out there.  I will put mine here if you want to try it- Amounts of ingredients are all approximate, I think that most of us can eye ball in our skillets, and adjust for the ingredients that we like better.

Skillet Lasagna by Chris

1 pound or so of sweet Italian sausage
1 (28 oz) can of diced tomatoes
About 6 or 7 lasagna noodles ( the recipes said no boil- I used regular)
1 jar of spaghetti sauce.- I used a mushroom one
Salt and pepper
Small container of ricotta
Shredded mozzarella
A bit of dried basil


1. In a large skillet, over med heat, brown and thoroughly cook the Italian sausage all the way through.
2. Add the can of diced tomatoes and bring to a boil.  Break the lasagna noodles into thirds or so and put them into the skillet- making sure that at least some of the noodle is under the sauce. Cover and high simmer until noodles are almost al dente.  This took about 13 or 14 minutes, and I stirred the skillet a couple of times to make sure the noodles kept under the sauce.
3. I added the spaghetti sauce, and stirred well, brought that to a simmer too.
4. Put spoonful dollops of the ricotta cheese on top of the lasagna, then sprinkled with a fair amount of shredded cheese. Cover and simmer on low for 10 mins or so until the ricotta is warmed thoroughly, and the cheese melted.
5. Next time I will sprinkle with some dried basil.
6. At this point- everything was melted and warm, but the cheese was lacking some color- so I put the broiler on high- and placed the lasagna under it til the cheese got some color.

     Not a great picture ( I really didn't expect it to taste sooo good!), but you get the idea.  It was pretty yummy.... and only required about 10 minutes of actual prep time- the rest was all in the skillet.  I know that this will be in regular rotation for dinners now.  And now I am looking for other ideas of things that I can do in one skillet.. Any ideas out there?
As always- Live peacefully.  Cook fearlessly.
Chris