Spinach and Mushroom Ravioli Lasagna Cups

You will need two 12-cup opening muffin tins

Makes 24 Individual Cups

Ingredients:

2lbs.ground Italian sausage
24 cooked large mushroom ravioli(a size just a bit larger than the bottom of the muffin tin.)
3 C tomato and basil pasta sauce(plus more for heating up to ladle onto finished servings if desired.)
24 ounces ricotta cheese
24oz.bag of frozen chopped spinach
3 eggs
3 small cloves of garlic finely chopped
2 1/2 C grated mozzarella cheese, divided
½ t ground nutmeg
1 t kosher salt
About 1/3 C mild oil, like sunflower or canola

Method:

• Bring a large Dutch oven pan, filled with 10 cups of water to boil. For the spinach, if you’re using a frozen version of chopped spinach, make sure it is complete thawed, and then place in a sieve and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until every bit of moisture is gone! I even put the rest inside a paper towel, and squeeze again
• In a large fry pan, cook and crumble the Italian sausage until almost done. Do not overcook because it will finish cooking when you bake the lasagna
• In a large bowl, combine the ricotta, eggs, 1 C grated mozzarella cheese, nutmeg, garlic, kosher salt, and spinach. Mix thoroughly. Set aside. Pour out the pasta sauce. (You can use your own homemade but I used Publix brand Tomato and Basil Marinara sauce.)
• Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Rub a bit of oil inside each muffin cup, about ½ t oil for each one. Have all your ingredients staged as this goes quickly. Now, place a cooked, drained, almost cooled and patted dry ravioli in the bottom of each cup, pillow side up. Add a heaping teaspoon of the pasta sauce over that in the middle. You don’t want the marinara sauce spread all the way to the edges, try to keep in a puddle in the middle. Now, top with a large scoop of the ricotta mixture, about the size of a small drop of cookie cough measuring about 1 ½inches across. Add a serving of the almost cooked sausage, about 2 T. Top with a handful of grated cheese.
• Cook for 18 minutes each pan. To remove, let cool for about 4 minutes. Loosen the edges with a small, skinny rubber spatula, loosening the cheese from the pan and nesting in beside the walls of the lasagna cups and sort of spinning them around so you know everything is loosened. Then place the spatula under the lasagna cup, and lift up and out and onto a waiting serving plate. Serve with a bowl of hot extra marinara sauce if desired.