Sausage and Mushroom Lazy Lasagna

So on The Rachael Ray Show this week (well really I think it was a show from last week that I still had on my DVR) I found a new recipe that I wanted to try out: Lazy Florentine Lasagna. Now there was no way I was going to sneak that much spinach into Hubby's diet, so I made several alterations to this recipe and this is what I came up with:

Sausage and Mushroom Lazy Lasagna

Serves 8

1 lb lasagna noodles broken into pieces

1 lb mushrooms, sliced

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

3 Italian sausages (about 3/4 lb)

2 tsp dried thyme

15 oz can of stewed tomatoes, undrained

4 Tbsp butter

3 Tbsp flour

2 cups milk

8 oz Fontina cheese, shredded

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Nutmeg, to taste

8 oz Parmesan cheese shredded

1. Preheat oven to 350 and bring a large pot of water up to a boil.
2. Break the lasagna noodles in smaller pieces and cook until al dente, reserving a little of the cooking liquid before draining.
3. In a large skillet, brown the sausage with the onion, garlic, and mushrooms.
4. Add in the dried thyme and can of stewed tomatoes, you can break up the tomatoes a bit with your spoon (or whatever) if you want smaller chunks.
5. While that is cooking, melt the butter and then add the flour. Stir and cook for about a minute.
6. Pour in the milk and whisk together with the butter/flour mixture until it comes up to a bubble and starts to thicken.
7. Once thickened, continue whisking and add in the Fontina cheese until melted.
8. In the pasta pot, mix the cooked, drained lasagna pieces together with the sausage mixture and pour into a large casserole dish.
9. Cover with the melted cheese and then top with the Parmesan.
10. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is melted, bubbly and you just can't stand it any longer!

Delicious. I had some plain tomato sauce on the side which I found to be a good addition although Hubby didn't feel like it was necessary. He did make the suggestion to add in prosciutto next time (this is what kept him from giving it the elusive 5 star rating, he was content with the amount of sausage, just wanted another meat product in the mix.) Hubby loves his pork products!

(But shhh, don't tell him it was CHICKEN Italian sausage!)