Lasagna Roll Ups

These are really fun to make and fun to serve to guest. They also freeze wonderfully making it a great meal to make ahead of time and keep in your deep freeze. This stuffing can be used for traditional lasagna, stuffed shells, or manicotti as well. I've used it for stuff shells for years and will eventually post those on here as well. It takes about 30-45 min. to make this so a little more time is needed than my other recipes. They also need to bake for 45-60 minutes as well.

So, here we go....

1 box of whole wheat blend lasagna noodles
1 32 oz container of ricotta cheese
4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs (although, for these roll ups, I recommend 3 eggs)
extra Parmesan for on top
1 jar of pasta sauce
spinach or parsley (optional)

Mix together in your electric mixer the ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan, eggs, spinach and/or parsley. (In the pictures I used about a cup of frozen chopped spinach defrosted.) Boil noodles about 6 at a time for 7 minutes in boiling water. Remove them onto a cookie sheet covered with a piece of wax paper. This prevents the noodles from sticking together or to anything else. While you are stuffing these first six, the next six can be cooking in the pot but be sure to set your timer for 7 minutes because if you over cook them they'll start to split and break apart.

Add a scoop of filling to each noodle close to the end but leaving about 3 inches at the end to roll it. You can do this right on the cookie sheet they were placed on so that you don't have to transfer them around anywhere. Roll each one and place them into a pan that has been sprayed with olive oil and a little sauce has been spread into.

Place the loose end up against the side of the pan so that it doesn't unravel. Continue filling and rolling until they are all done and then get your next 6 out of the boiling pot. Continue with this process until all the noodles have been used and the filling is gone. You should come out close to even when using one box of noodles.

Next, spoon a little more sauce over the tops and sprinkle with remaining Parmesan cheese. I like to make two pans and freeze one. The pan that didn't have as many in it is the one we ate for dinner that night.

If you are going to freeze one, I recommend always covering with cling wrap first and then foil to give it a tight seal and preventing freezer burn.

Bake covered with foil at 350 for 45-60 minutes.

You can just as well, lay the rolls on their sides if it is too difficult to stand them up. I didn't have trouble getting them to stand up but some of the filling did leak out the bottoms of them. Next time I'll probably lay a few flat noodles on the bottom to help seal the bottoms off. They are a really cool presentation standing on end though.

Variations:
-You can certainly use ground Italian sausage or Italian ground turkey sausage in your stuffing and sauce.
-You can omit the spinach and have it turn out just as well.
-You can use white flour noodles just as well.

I just have to tell you that this was the most difficult meal I've made and tried to photograph at the same time. =0)