Lasagna Ooh Na Na : the Liquid Form

You read that right. This is no lasagna recipe. This is the garden vegetable soup recipe you end up with when you finished preparing a lasagna and you are left with 2 or 3 pathetic, useless sheets. You could wait until your next batch and combine them to the new package- they pretty much last forever. However, I make lasagnas once in a blue moon and I like finding ways to use absolutely everything in my cupboards. Because why not? So, let your frustrations out on these dry sheets of pasta and break them to pieces: you are making an utterly delicious soup out of them. Also, I said garden vegetable soup, because I threw a carrot in the mix thinking 'butter, pasta, potatoes...ya, add a vegetable'.

Today's dish was invented out of sheer unwillingness to rush to the store for noodles. Actually that's what I wish I could say, but we all know I have an entire pantry dedicated to pasta which will expire around 2070 or later. So no. I created this recipe to see if my idea would work out. And you know what? It tasted divine. So divine, that my friend who came over for lunch that day went home and made the same (and that has to be solid proof, when people crave a recipe you thought out because of a pasta box you wanted to use up). And brace yourselves. Each bite tastes like a lasagna fresh out of the oven.

Before you point it out: in North America, the typical term is 'lasagna', yet everywhere else it is written 'lasagne', and, to add to the confusion, in French we write it 'lasagne' and pronounce it as if the E were silent. So I might write it different ways depending on my mood. I was going to pun 'dill with it' into this but my herb of choice today is rosemary. Oh well.

You will need,

1 carrot (peeled and thinly sliced)

Lasagne strips (5-6 or whatever you have left, broken apart)

Rosemary (5 stems, tied up)

Whole seasoned tomatoes (1 can)

Small potatoes (4, or 2 regular ones- chopped)

Yellow onion (1, thinly sliced)

Beef broth (1 can)

Mozzarella (for garnish, that extra warmth and comfort!)

Olive oil (3 tbsp)

Butter (2 tbsp)

Garlic (4 cloves, at the very least)

Pasta sauce (3 tbsp, or half the bottle- I tend to spill and enjoy the mess, welcome to motherhood!)

A few simple steps,

1. Start out by tossing together the garlic and onions with salt, pepper and butter in a medium-size pot over medium heat- around 5-7 minutes

2. Add the carrot and potatoes with olive oil and stir for about 5-7 minutes before adding the beef broth

3. Reduce heat, and throw in the rosemary stems and whole tomatoes (I empty the entire can and crush them with my bare hands like a savage)- cover and let simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally

4. Retrieve rosemary (you can leave them until the very end but I find this herb so fragrant that 20 minutes does it for me) and discard

5. Add pasta sauce and stir

6. Add the pasta, and the soup will be ready when the lasagna noodles are fully cooked

7. Lastly, throw in the mozzarella (much more than on the photo, you know that was strictly for presentation purposes)

8. Serve to friends or yourself and enjoy feeling all warm and fuzzy inside