Learning to cook “on the lighter side” has been kind of fun, and I’ve put several new tricks into my tool belt. I’ve been at this for about a month now, and I’m getting in the swing of the new system.

My husband has not been complaining – I’ve been cooking more often than I used to because we can’t just hit a fast food joint or pull out a frozen pizza on a busy night if I am going to stay on track. So he’s been getting a lot of home-cooked love and he has, for the most part, been happy with all the results (he just eats twice as much as I do). But I know deep down in his Mr. Meat and Potatoes heart, he has missed some of our standards. He missed sausage and pasta and cheese.

I had offered to babysit a couple of munchkins besides our own on Friday night, and Mr. Meat and Potatoes was going to have to help! “Hi, honey! Here’s an 18-month-old, a 5-year-old, and our 2-year-old! Have fun!” So in order to keep him happy and on my team, I decided to make lasagna. Except, this time, it wasn’t going to bust the Weight Watchers scale.

In order to control the pasta, I decided to make my own. Making your own pasta is really not that big of a deal, especially if you are doing lasagna noodles that don’t need to be cut into smaller noodles or formed into fancy shapes. You just make your dough, run it through the pasta maker a few times, and voila, beautiful homemade sheets of pasta for Friday night dinner.

I wanted to make my own for a couple of reasons. I had tried whole wheat pasta from the store and found it to be very unsatisfying in both taste and texture. Also, I wanted my sheets of pasta to be thinner than regular lasagna noodles. The thinner the sheets, the fewer the points!

This recipe only needs a small batch of pasta, so you can get it going in no time.

Basic Whole Wheat Pasta Dough
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 egg
2 egg whites
cold water (start with 1/2 cup and go up from there)
pinch of salt

I just dump all of this into my KitchenAid mixer bowl, fix the mixer with the dough hook, and turn it on low. I keep (very slowly) adding cold water until it comes together to form a ball. Do not be tempted to add too much water. You want it fairly dry – not sticky. If you accidentally get the dough too wet, just sprinkle in a bit more flour and mix some more.

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I divided my dough into small sections (if you don’t get the sections small, the noodles will get VERY long and unmanageable). Then I ran it through the pasta maker from level one to level eight. Eight gets it quite thin – if you want more “tooth” to your pasta, stop at seven.

While I mixed up dough, Mr. Meat and Potatoes browned meat. Usually I just throw in two pounds of spicy Italian sausage, but this time I decided to cut the fat content, so we did one pound of sausage and one pound of 93 percent fat-free ground turkey, and mixed them together.

I also lightened up the cheese mixture. I bought low-fat ricotta (I would have gotten fat-free but they didn’t have it at the store) and low-fat cottage cheese. I read the labels on the two cheeses and determined that the cottage cheese had a lower point value than the ricotta, so I used more of it and less of the ricotta.

Cheese filling
3/4 cup low fat ricotta
1 1/4 cup low fat cottage cheese

1/4 cup grated parmesan (I like the stuff in the tub with the large flakes, or grate my own – no green can!)
1 cup chopped mushrooms (I used baby bellas)
1 egg white
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp basil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 1/2 cup low fat part skim mozzarella (for sprinkling over the cheese mixture)

Stir it all (except the mozzarella) together and sprinkle the shredded cheese over the top once it’s been layered on.

You’ll need several cups of your favorite red pasta sauce. I made my own, sans any oil.

Then you are ready to layer. I sprayed the bottom of my pan with cooking spray (my new best friend) and layered on the first sheets of noodles. It took two wide sheets.

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Then I sprinkled on half of the meat mixture, and topped it with sauce.

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Then I covered the sauce in half of the cheese mixture, and sprinkled on about three-quarters cup of low fat mozzarella. Then I repeated the whole thing.

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Now, mind you, this is a “weekend splurge” meal. It’s still not something you probably want to eat every day. It’s still about portion control, but I think I cut about half the calories and more than half the fat out of this bad boy. Still, it tasted flavorful and delicious and I didn’t feel deprived at all.

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I just served it with some steamed asparagus with balsamic on the side and a salad, so no extra points in the side dishes. A nine point dinner, and my pasta-deprived husband was happy. Plus, there were plenty of leftovers, which is always a bonus in my house.

Yields: 12 servings Points Plus Value per serving: 9