Food for Thought Friday

I love the crockpot, it is my best friend. I love the convenience of throwing everything together, turning it on and then forgetting it until dinner, or when the wonderful aroma fills the house with a deliciously cooked meal, and for the most part, it's pretty hard to mess up a crockpot recipe.

SLOW COOKER LASAGNA (use a 5 qt slow cooker....or about 2/3 of everything if you just have a 2 1/2 quart...I remedied that recently and love my new 5 qt crockpot!)

8 lasagna noodles, uncooked
1/3 cup water
1 lb ground beef
4 oz can mushrooms
1 tsp Italian Seasoning
24 oz cottage cheese (or 16 oz ricotta cheese)
28 oz jar spaghetti sauce
2 cups shredded mozzarella


1. Break noodles. Place half in bottom of greased slow cooker
2. Brown ground beef. Drain. Stir in Italian Seasoning. Spread half over noodles in slow cooker.
3. Layer half of sauce and water, half of mushrooms, half of cottage cheese and half of mozzarella cheese over beef. Repeat layers.
4. Cover. Cook on low for 5 hours.

*You can also double ingredients to make 3 layers.

It was delicious, and even better for leftovers the next day I thought. We didn't add mushrooms because I didn't have any on hand, and we're not huge mushroom fans, except on pizza.