My nutritionist shared her belief that pasta should only be eaten by those looking to gain weight and that if I were ever in the position of needing to bulk up/put weight on, to have some pasta. That gave me a lot to think about.

Raised on pasta I was. Though in my family it was noodles. And you had it with red sauce.

My husband was raised by a first generation Italian and pasta for his family has a breadth and width I did not know to be possible on any topic outside of the universe at large.

Removing pasta from our pantry, our fridge, our lives...it wasn't going to be easy. But then we started talking about what we loved about pasta and realized very quickly....it wasn't the pasta. It was the sauce. The meat. The (for me) clams. The spinach. The cheese. The ooey, gooey goodness. But when we waxed poetic about the pasta dishes...pasta really wasn't mentioned. So that gave me amazing hope and ideas!

I don't really have recipes. I have always cooked with some of this, some of that, and when someone asks me how I made a certain dish I usually talk in esoteric terms of 'until the dough is just past gooey' and so as I deconstructed these pasta dishes, I paid closer attention to the ingredients and what really made them sing at the table.

One new favorite is Mockzanya and it took my 18 year old three mealtimes to figure out there was no pasta in it. I think so often, the reality of what we expect often fills in the void of what isn't there. Like all my 'recipes' there is a lot of flexibility to make it a bit more this, a bit less that...so please just use this as a guide and feel free to find your own expression of YUM with the things that you enjoy most in lasagna...less the pasta!

8 oz fresh ricotta
2 fresh eggs OR 5-6 tablespoons egg substitute
1 tablespoon dry Italian seasoning
1 Vidalia onion, chopped and cooked until at least translucent, but I prefer them caramelized with some pink Himalayan salt
1 cup cooked, drained ground meat. I use a mix of fresh ground pork and lean ground beef from my stash.
Sauce of your choice--I mix it up between Alfredo, Marinara and Clam
1 cup of shredded cheese--I like 6 cheese Italian blend, but any good melting cheese will work fine

Beat the ricotta, egg and seasoning together. spread into an 8x8 casserole dish OR portion out into individual 1 cup casseroles (should make 6)/ Mix the ground beef and onion, layer it on the ricotta mixture and then layer the sauce and cheese. Freeze, keep in fridge up to 2 days or bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Some variations I like are...
Sauteed spinach
Chopped garlic
Crumbled bacon
Shredded chicken
Sauteed red, orange and yellow peppers
Shredded zucchini
Diced, sauteed eggplant in lieu of meat

So tell me...what have you tried and loved in this dish? Do you prefer a full casserole or individual dishes? I tend to think the individual dishes are just fun...and an easy way to have portion control!