Lasagna for Cheaters

It's 8am on a Sunday morning, and your 4 year old is bored, because she's been up since 5.55am. Naturally, the 2 year old is still asleep, because that will guarantee that she will not nap, and that you will be on duty for a full 15 hour day, as contractually required by the Children's Union. On such a day, I decided that maybe we should prep dinner and stick it in the fridge to just pop in the oven later. To my delight, my four year old was able to actually make this very uncomplicated recipe herself, and then ate it for dinner with enthusiasm, even though it had red sauce. (She only eats plain pasta). I can prove this with the photos of her little hands demonstrating the "techniques". VICTORY! VICTORY! VICTORY!

This is adapted from a Real Simple recipe.

Ingredients:

24 fresh extra large cheese and spinach ravioli (my local store makes delicious ones- if yours doesn't, just use a 30 oz bag of frozen, and you don't even have to thaw it)
1 26 oz jar of marinara sauce- or knock yourself out and make some
1 8 oz bag shredded mozzarella cheese
10 oz bag frozen chopped spinach, thawed and the water squeezed out (this is messy. You can skip but then it's sort of blah).
1/2 cup grated parmesan
a few leaves of fresh basil, chopped (if you have some)

Variations - You can use a meat sauce, or meat ravioli, or spinach ravioli. But not pumpkin ravioli.

Directions
Pre-heat oven at 350° F. Mix the fresh basil into the jarred sauce.Spray a 13-by-9-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Add about 1/3 the sauce to the bottom of the pan. Arrange half of the ravioli over the sauce and sprinkle the spinach over them. Sprinkle 4 oz mozzarella and 1/4 cup parmesan on top. Add another layer of ravioli and the remaining sauce and cheese. Cover with foil and bake 25 minutes. Uncover and bake 5 to 10 minutes more or until bubbly.


(note about the photos- we were making a half recipe. And we didn't put the sauce in the bottom the time I took the photos. That was a refinement developed later. Also, the fresh parsley is merely there for looks. We didn't use it.)

Hooray!