Lasagna for scallywags

Aaaaarrhh… Your company will think you slaved all day in the galley to make this amazing pasta dish, but grating cheese is about as close to work as this recipe comes — if you forget to buy pre-shredded cheese, that is.

Typical lasagna involves a number of time-consuming tasks, such as boiling up those fat noodles, then layering them along with a laundry list of ingredients to create the masterpiece.

Pirate’s Lasagna skips many of the formalities. It calls for using store-bought, cheese-filled ravioli, which takes the place of lasagna noodles and some of the cheese.

It matters not at all if you use square or round ravioli, but get the largest size you can find.

 

Pirate’s Lasagna

• 1 lb. Italian sausage
• 1 jar (24-26 ounces) pasta sauce
• 2 bags (18-24 ounces each) frozen large or jumbo cheese ravioli, partially thawed
• 1 package (16 ounces) frozen leaf spinach, thawed and squeezed dry.
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese or blended cheese
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• Cook the Italian sausage in a skillet. Drain and crumble.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
• Spread about one-third of the pasta sauce into a 13-by-9-inch baking dish
• Place half the ravioli in a single layer over the sauce.
• Over that, sprinkle the crumbled sausage, spinach and half the shredded mozzarella.
• Layer on the remaining ravioli. Top with the remaining sauce, remaining cheese and the Parmesan.
• Cover with foil, the underside sprayed with vegetable oil.
• Bake for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake till it bubbles, 5-10 minutes longer.
• Remove from oven. Let it stand at least 10 minutes so it slices easier.

You can serve with a tossed salad, maybe some garlic bread, and you will be praised from pulpit to crow’s nest.

Options include using fresh chopped spinach instread of frozen, adding fresh sliced mushrooms, swapping hamburger for Italian sausage and replacing some of the shredded mozzarella with crumbled feta.