Cheesy Eggplant and Butternut Squash bake

It has been a while!  Life always seems to take over no matter how hard I try to keep this blog updated every week.  The good news is that Nathan is working on an exciting new addition to the blog...but I will let him tell you about that.  While I haven't been posting new and fun recipes I have still been creating them!  I have several on reserve for future blogs BUT the one that I made tonight was just so delicious I had to post ASAP.  Initially I was going to make my regular ol eggplant lasagna and just tweak it a bit, but then I saw a lonely old butternut squash sitting on my counter and I decided to incorporate it into my lasagna, and I am so glad I did.  While this recipe is grain free it is definitely  Not dairy free (sorry all of you lactose intolerant peeps).  I am lactose intolerant, but cheeses like parmesan, ricotta, cottage, and small amounts of mozzarella don't seem to bother me much, plus I just try to keep my serving size to a minimum, with this recipe that was super hard!

Normally when I make eggplant lasagna I cut the eggplant into discs and throw it in the dish, this time I decided to brush each side with egg, sprinkle a little coconut flour, parmesan cheese, and Italian herbs over it and bake at 350 for roughly 15 minutes (more eggplant parmesan-ish style).

While that was baking I cut a butternut squash in half covered loosely with plastic wrap and microwaved for about 7 minutes, just until tender.  I cubed the squash and spread it out on a lightly sprayed baking sheet, sprinkled a little pepper on it and threw that in the oven for 20 minutes after I removed the eggplant.

 While the squash was in the oven I began sautéing onion, fresh spinach and added red pepper pasta sauce (or any pasta sauce you like).

You can see the baked eggplant in this picture, yum.  Golden brown.

Next comes the cheesy goodness, I mixed roughly 1.5 cups of cottage cheese with 2 eggs a fourth a cup of parmesan and more Italian seasoning.

I pulled the squash out of the oven after they had a nice roasted taste and began layering.  Pasta sauce, Eggplant, Squash, Cottage cheese, Pasta Sauce, Eggplant, 1.5 cups of Ricotta cheese, Pasta sauce, grated Mozzarella cheese.

I baked covered with foil for roughly 15 minutes, and then until the cheese on top was golden brown (about 20 more minutes) uncovered.

I must say this is one of my favorite accidental recipes yet!

Enjoy

Recipe List

2  Medium eggplants
1 Butternut squash
3-4 Eggs
1.5 C Ricotta cheese
1.5 C Cottage cheese
1/4 C grated Mozzarella
1/2 C Parmesan
1/2 onion
2 C Pasta sauce of your liking
Sprinkling of Coconut Flour
Large handful of fresh spinach
Italian Seasoning
Pepper