Leftover Spaghetti Lasagna

I have a very difficult time cooking for just one or two.  It's tough to make small portions; there are just some ingredients that you can't really half or use a little of and reserve for a later use.  If you forget those ingredients are there, you'll have wasted perfectly good food.  What happens is I usually end up making a meal that could really feed 4-6 instead of two.  That means I often have leftovers. I for one, love leftovers and luckily my husband does too.  Most of the time, it tastes even better the next day (or two) when the flavors have had a chance to really meld and soak in.

Earlier this week, I made a pasta dish.  I like to use what vegetables I have on hand and simmer them with sliced sausage, a can of diced tomatoes and maybe half a jar of bottled Marinara sauce.  I find that just using Marinara sauce from the jar doesn't make my pasta "saucy" enough.  Some jarred sauces are also packed with lots of sugar so I like to use some sauce and add in fresh and/or canned tomatoes. 

This time my pasta was angel hair and the sauce was 1 lb sliced garlic chicken sausage, 1 bag of spinach, half an onion chopped, three cloves of garlic chopped, 1 can diced tomatoes (italian seasoning), 3/4 jar of Classico sauce (which I had left over from the Eggplant recipe last week).  The pasta was good but of course I had a TON of it.  Last night we were going to eat the leftovers when I thought, hmmmm I can spice this up a bit!  Here's what happened:

I know, it looks like  a hot mess... and it was.  But boy was it delicious! It was basically a spaghetti lasagna bake.  Very saucy, very cheesy.  What more could you want?

Leftover Spaghetti Lasagna Bake
Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

Leftover spaghetti dish (about 4-6 cups worth)
1/2 cup ricotta (part skim)
1/4 cup half and half
1 egg
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried Basil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 8 oz can tomato sauce (such as Hunts)
1 tsp dried Italian Seasoning
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray casserole dish with cooking spray.  I actually used a Pyrex loaf pan dish which I find is a good smaller sized dish to use.

Combine ricotta, half and half, egg, oregano, basil and garlic powder in a bowl and blend together with a fork.  In a second bowl combine tomato sauce, italian seasoning and onion powder (you can add whatever other spices to this you want to flavor the sauce).

Layer half your leftover pasta in bottom of dish.  Pour half of ricotta mixture over the pasta, then pour half the marinara mixture over the ricotta.  Repeat these three layers and top with Parmesan cheese.  Bake in oven about 40 minutes or until heated all the way through and bubbling.  Eat with garlic bread!

Side view of cheesy, saucy concoction

 
Who said leftovers aren't any good??? :-)