Zucchini "Lasagna" Bolognese

I've been slacking, I know. But - good news! Collin is on vacation for the next 12 days or so and this means I will have plenty of time to cook things! To get into the spirit, I decided to go after this lasagna inspired dish as I'm always down to make things no-carb.

Truth be told, I'm a huge sucker for Stouffer's lasagna and could probably (Ok, I can) eat the whole thing by myself and still want more. Because of this, I have never felt the need to create my own lasagna recipe. Thinking on it, I don't believe I've ever made a lasagna from scratch before...Anyway, this was on the menu tonight and after reading the recipe, I started early.

I made the sauce around 2 so dinner would for sure be ready by 5-6 ish. She tells you to simmer it for about an hour to an hour and a half to let it reduce and thicken. OK. I've thought this before, but now I'm convinced that she must have some sort of special celebrity oven that cooks things quicker than us common folk ovens. After 2 hours I still had soupy sauce. It had reduced some, yes, but nowhere near the consistency needed for lasagna. It took me cranking up the heat for another hour or so before it was finally a good consistency. Everything else went pretty smooth and, unsurprisingly, this only made 2 layers for me as opposed to her 3 layers. I'm really not sure how she did it to make it 3 layers, but I don't really think it matters how many layers you have so long as there are at least 2.

I was starving when I pulled this out of the oven:

Looks fairly lasagna-y

But I let it cool down for a few minutes before I decided to cut into it. 

Now. I was very unsure about this because of the layer of grease floating on top and around the edges. I was also very unsure about how to put it in the bowl. Once I figured out that a spoon was the best way I noticed this was no longer a lasagna, but a lasagna-y soup.

You eat it with a spoon.

It was about this time that Collin starts talking about how Dominoes has a special going on right now and it wasn't too late to order pizza. I, however, was determined to try this and like it. I had spent too many hours preparing this freaking dish and we were going to eat this soup, dammit.

The taste was actually not bad. It was very salty - very salty - but I do believe this would be better with actual noodles (duh). What I mean by that is that the sauce and the cheese mixture are pretty good, but the zucchini noodles were a total fail. They basically dissolved into the soup and I couldn't even tell they were there. I did, however, get a "This is good food, mom" from Calvin and I do agree that the taste is not bad. 

But. If you're going to spend half the day in the kitchen preparing lasagna, use this recipe, just substitute the zucchini for actual lasagna noodles (oh, and go easy on the salt). I understand that defeats the purpose, but now I'm stuck with three quarters of a pan full of salty lasagna-y soup that I can assure you will get thrown away. Take it from me: lasagna should always have carbs.