Veggie Loaded Gluten Free Lasagna

 I love Italian food! Lasagna is a personal favorite. I have a recipe for you that can easily be done vegan or with Goat cheese (if you can tolerate cow milk go for it, goat cheese is much more allergy friendly and about 1/2 the calories of cow milk). Instead of pasta layers I used thinly sliced strips of zucchini. My whole family -even little Ms. Picky eater- and the neighbors who joined us for dinner LOVED this and didn't miss the noodles at all.

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs of ground chicken or turkey - to simplify you can get Italian seasoned turkey sausage
2 large carrots (shredded)
3 medium zucchini (sliced thin, length wise)
1 yellow onion (finely chopped)
3 cloves of garlic (minced)
1 can Hunt's Basil Garlic Oregano canned diced tomatoes
Optional** 6 tbs Chevre (we get ours from a local goat dairy farm but you can buy yours from any grocery store!)
2 tbs Olive oil (or coconut oil)
2- 25 oz jars of spaghetti sauce of your choice ( I use O Organics tomato basil)
Sea Salt
Pepper

Seasoning for Turkey:
1/2 tbs Sea salt
1/4 tbs Pepper
1/4 tbs Onion powder
1/4 tbs Garlic powder
1/2 tbs Rosemary (I used from from the garden but you can also use dried)
1/4 tbs fennel seed (ground)
1/4 tbs cardamom (ground)
2 tbs Balsamic vinegar

Note: If you are preparing Vegan than use the seasonings typically used for turkey and apply to saute fresh spinach and pine nuts instead.

Ready? Here we go!

1st, Zucchini has a lot of water in it and we need to get rid of as much as possible. Slice your zucchini thin length wise and lay out on top of paper towels (or clean kitchen towels), salt lightly and then lay another layer of towel on top. Make sure the top layer is covered with a paper towel or clean kitchen towel and place another cookie sheet on top to help press out the liquid.
Let that sit while you prepare the filling.

Grate two large carrots with the larger hole size set in the sink (on top of a clean plate) in a colander to drain the moisture.

Heat up a 2 tbs of olive oil in a frying pan, brown the ground turkey with all of the dry seasonings (wait to use the balsamic vinegar until the meat is completely cooked) deglaze the pan with the vinegar. Then put your drained/shredded carrots into a big bowl and use the colander to drain the turkey meat use light pressure to help expel extra moisture.

While your turkey is draining add the can of tomatoes (drained) to the carrots, chopped onion, minced garlic, sea salt and pepper to taste, add the turkey and toss in the goat cheese if you are using it.

In a 9x13 pan spoon in a thin layer of spaghetti sauce, then lay down a layer of the zucchini, spoon in a layer of the filling, top with a few spoon fulls of spaghetti sauce and then lay out another layer of zucchini. Repeat. For your final top layer lay out a double layer of zucchini evenly spoon out a thin layer of sauce. If you're using cheese crumble some of the chevre on top, if you're preparing vegan I recommend topping off with some pine nuts. Cover with foil.

Place a cookie sheet on the bottom rack of your oven to catch any over flow from the lasagna while baking.

Bake for 45 min in a preheated oven to 350 degrees
then remove the foil and bake for 15 more minutes.

Remove from the oven and let sit for about
5 minutes before serving

Enjoy!