Simple Microwave Lasagna

This is the recipe that lead to a chain events resulting in the removal of my gallbladder.  Wasn't directly the fault of the recipe, more the fault of my completely non-functional gallbladder freaking out.

Anyay, I've made a few variations of this recipe of the years. It's quick and easy, serves as a great base for building on with variations.  Generally I make it without any kind of meat addition but I bet it would the bomb with browned ground turkey or chicken.

Serves: 4

Equipment Required

• A kitchen scale that displays in metric units
• I usually cook this recipe by weights
• Chef's knife
• For the chopping of the spinach
• Mixing bowl
• For blending in fixings together
• Microwave safe dish
• 8-inch square, for actually baking the lasagna
• Soup spoon
• To ladle out and spread the pasta sauce
• Parchment paper
• To cover the lasagna while it's cooking
• Full size dinner plate
• To hold down down the parchment paper and trap in steamy goodness.

• We're not filthy animals this time and we're cooking by weight.

Ingredients

• 425g container of ricotta cheese
• I usually rock part-skim.
• 70g baby spinach, chopped
• The original recipe calls for 113g but...
• 45g grated Parmesan cheese
• 226g grated mozzarella cheese
• 723g jar of your past sauce of choice
• I tend to go for stuff with lower sodium, like a nice butternut squash sauce
• 6 no-boil/oven ready lasagna noodles
• 1g salt
• 2g black pepper

Preparation

1. Chop the baby spinach and hold it off to the side.
2. In a mixing blow, add 425g Ricotta, 30g Parmesan cheese, 168g mozzarella cheese, 70g baby spinach, 1g salt, and 2g black pepper. With your hand or a silicone spatula fold the ingredients over until well combined.
3. Spread 120g of the pasta sauce into the bottom of the 8-inch square pan, place two oven-ready lasagna noodles on top of the pasta sauce, then spread another 120g of pasta sauce on top of the noodles, then spread half of the cheese and spinach mix on top of the layered pasta sauce and noodles.
   
   
   
4. Spread 120g of pasta sauce onto the cheese and spinach layer, place two oven-ready lasagna noodles on top of the pasta sauce, then spread another 120g of pasta sauce on top of the noodles..  Then spread the rest of the cheese and spinach mix on top to of the layer of pasta sauce and noodles.
5. Spread 120g of pasta sauce on top of the second cheese and spinach layer, then place two oven-ready noodles on top of the pasta sauce.  Spread the remaining pasta sauce on top of the noodles, then evenly distribute the remainder of the mozzarella cheeses (~58g) and Parmesan cheese (~15g) on top of the top layer of pasta sauce.
   
   
   
6. Cover the baking dish with a sheet of parchment paper and the dinner plate (inverted), and carefully place in a microwave oven.  Cook on high for ~20 minutes.
   
   
   
7. When done cooking, it will be as hot as the sun and nearly impossible to serve.  Let it cool for 20-30 minutes before even thinking about serving it.

Inspired by: https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/microwave-lasagna