Lasagna Rolls with Alfredo Sauce

Dinner tonight is going to be, to put it delicately, kinda freakin' fattening. I think it also is going to be delicious enough that I don't really worry about the calories! Instead of a traditional lasagna with red sauce, I'm making lasagna noodles, a filling of ground chicken, spinach, bacon, mushrooms, provolone, and mozzarella. Rolling them up, and covering them with a little Alfredo. Got all of that? Did you have a heart attack just reading about it? Don't worry, I'm serving it with a spinach salad on the side. That counts for something, right?

Step 1: Boil the lasagna noodles according to package directions. I like to toss them with a little olive oil in the strainer, helps them from sticking together while you're assembling everything else!

Step 2: Cook the bacon. I'm using 4 pieces for tonight's dinner. Remove bacon (saving that sweet sweet bacon grease) and crumble. In that bacon grease, cook the ground chicken. Add a tbsp of garlic powder , and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Remove and set aside with cooked bacon.

Step 3: Heat up a little olive oil. Saute one diced onion over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, then toss in about a cup of diced mushrooms. Saute for another 5 minutes, and add one bunch of fresh, chopped spinach. Stir around until it begins to wilt, then season with salt and pepper. Add a tbsp of water, lower heat and cover with a lid. Let spinach wilt completely, another 7-10 minutes, then remove from heat and drain off any remaining liquid. When it's completely cool, add to the cooked ground chicken, and stir in the cheeses and bacon crumbles.

Step 4: This step is either fun, or a giant pain in the butt, depending on your personality type. Take a cooked lasagna noodle, lay it flat, and spread out about 1/4 cup of filling over it. Roll up the noodle from the short ends, and place rolls seam down in a baking dish.

Step 5: Cover lasagna rolls with alfredo sauce. That recipe will be for another post, too. (Maybe one night when we're eating leftovers, I'll do a post all about sauces!) Then, sprinkle a little reserved mozzarella cheese over the top. Mmmm, cheese. It just makes everything better. That's a scientific fact. (It's not.) Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Drink some wine while you wait, that's much more fun than stuff like dishes.

Ingredients:

8 lasagna noodles
4 pieces of bacon
1 lb ground chicken
1 diced onion
1 cup diced mushrooms
2 cups raw, chopped spinach
1/2 cup provolone
1 1/2 cups mozzarella (use 1 cup in mixture and reserve 1/2 cup to sprinkle on top)
2 cups alfredo sauce