Hearty Vegetable Lasagna

Wow! Life can sure get hectic! Kind of dropped the ball on my 100th post and celebrating the blog's 1 year! Hope you enjoy post # 99 and stay tuned for 100!

Here is a veggie lasagna which used the Hearty Vegetable Lasagna recipe for inspiration. I added in extra veggies and followed some of the reviews ideas for flavors. This was very filling and straightforward to make. Easy make ahead meal as well. Be cautious when freezing veggie based lasagnas because they produce a lot of liquid and can get soggy. If anyone has any tips for making them freeze better, please let me know!

Previous Vegetable Lasagna using zucchini, squash, eggplant, and spinach.

Veg!

Spread some sauce/veg in the bottom

Layers of noodles, ricotta, veg, and sauce

Continue and top with cheese

Golden bubbly goodness!

Hearty Vegetable Lasagna 
makes 12 slices

 1 (16 ounce) package lasagna noodles

2 tablespoons oil

1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced

¾ cup chopped green bell pepper

½ cup carrots (or whatever is left over in your fridge)

¾ cup chopped onion

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp oregano

Salt and pepper

½ zucchini, sliced

½ bag baby spinach

2 (26 ounce) jars pasta sauce

1 (15 ounce) container part-skim ricotta cheese

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook the lasagna noodles in a large pot of boiling water for 10 minutes, or until al dente. Rinse with cold water, and drain. (OR use no cook lasagna noodles)

In a large saucepan heat oil. Cook and stir mushrooms, green peppers, carrots, onion, garlic, and oregano, season with salt and pepper. Cook until softened. Add in zuchini and Wilt several handfuls of spinach over the warm veggies, stir to combine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spread 1 cup tomato sauce and some of the veggie mix into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Layer on top of that: noodles, veggies, sauce, and ricotta until nothing remains. There will be approx 2-4 layers. 

Top with the mozzarella cheese.

Bake, uncovered, for 40 minutes (but keep an eye on it, if it starts to get too brown cover with foil and let it continue to cook). Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Skillet Pasta

Whilst I was perusing my Martha Stewart Living, April 2012, I found this great pasta basic recipe! The article is titled "Rethink your pasta routine"

So here we go, skillet pasta in under 20 minutes (maybe 30 minutes if you are slower at prepping)!

"1 Create a flavor base.
your pasta water is coming to a boil, heat olive oil or butter in a pan, and cook some onions, leeks or garlic. This is also when you'd introduce cured meat or sausage.

2 Build another layer.
This could mean adding mushrooms, tomatoes, or seafood to the pan or blanching a green vegetable right in the pasta water.

3 Toss in the pasta.
Cook your pasta until just underdone. Then scoop it straight from the pot into the pan. Add a little pasta water to create a silky sauce.

4. Finish with a flourish.
Take the pan off the heat, and add one final layer of flavor: a sprinkle of herbs, cheese, breadcrumbs or even crunchy sea salt."

 So what did I do?

Step 1: Create a flavor base.
While the pan was heating I diced up some onion and a carrot (because I have carrots and always forget to eat them). Once the 1/4-1/2 of sweet onion, 1 small-ish carrot, and 1 tsp garlic powder was in the pan I turned the pasta water on.  Then I added my meat. I used 2 spicy Italian chicken sausages and a chicken breast. I love using sausage because it has all the flavorings already there, you rarely have to add much to the dish. Only spice additions was about a tsp of red pepper flakes because I like my food a little spicy.

Step 2: Build another layer.
I blanched my mushrooms in my salted boiling pasta water (30 seconds) and then tossed them into the pan with the meat. Then I added in 2 cups of dried egg noodles to the boiling water. Cook pasta according to package directions, but be sure to get them out at al dente (probably about 4-6 minutes). They will cook more in the frying pan.

(2a. Here is where timing comes into play, make sure your meat is cooked all the way before you add the pasta in.)

Step 3: Toss in the pasta.
Add pasta to the frying pan. There was quite a bit of liquid from the meat and the mushrooms so I didn't add in any pasta water. In fact I added a tbsp of corn starch to thicken the liquid into more of a sauce. I also added in my ricotta cheese at this point and started to combine until it was the creamy texture I wanted.

Step 4: Finish with a flourish.
Nope, I just didn't do anything here. I added some cracked pepper but that was it.

This made about 2-4 servings. I was hungry so, for me it was dinner and tomorrows lunch. But if you have small kids or are serving it with salad/bread/having dessert etc, you can probably feed more folks.

Enjoy!

Chicken and Veggie Stir Fry

My mom makes the best stir fry. I have no idea how she does it, but it always tastes awesome. Stir fry is a very basic idea with some mixture of veggies, some form of protein, and cooked in one pan. Last night I looked at what I had in the fridge and decided to attempt my own version of a stir fry. I defrosted my chicken breast, chopped up my veggies (broccoli, mushrooms, and carrots), and heated up a frying pan.

Once the pan was hot, I added some olive oil and the spices and stirred that around for about 30 seconds. Then I couldn't decide on cooking times for the veggies and chicken. So I put them all in the pan at the same time. In my mind, all the flavors could cook together. (If you were wondering, the mushrooms didn't need to cook as long as the broccoli and chicken. Next time I would probably throw them in a minute or two after the other ingredients). Once the chicken was mostly cooked I added a tbs or so of soy sauce (a few splashes) and some water and let that cook down.

Now, when my mom makes this type of dish she always manages to make a gravy/sauce using corn starch and water mixed into the frying pan with all things being cooked. I couldn't remember the ratio, but I decided about a 1/4 cup of water and a tbs of corn starch was a good place to start. After all, you can always add more! So into the pan it went. I stirred it around until (approx 2-3 minutes) and you can see the gravy start to thicken up. I wanted a little more so I added some more water and corn starch. Be patient during this step because it does take a few minutes to thicken. Eventually I decided I was hungry and that the amount of gravy was good enough. You can play around and add more until it suits your tastes.

Finally, I topped it with some cracked ground pepper.

And I have to admit, while it didn't exactly taste like my mom's stir fry, it was pretty close. And this is a dish I would feel comfortable making for when I have friends over.

Also, I wish I had onions to put in it. If you have onions on hand, I'd toss in a half of a large onion to the stir fry. Put it in the pan after you heat the spices and let it get a little translucent. Then add the rest of the veg.

Chicken and Veggie Stir Fry
makes 2 servings

Olive Oil
1 tsp Garlic Powder
3/4 tsp Ground Ginger

1 small head Broccoli
2 Carrots
6 Mushrooms
1 Chicken breast- sliced into thin strips or diced into bite size pieces
Splash of water
Soy Sauce
Ground pepper

1/4 c water and 1 tbs corn starch - combined

1. Heat pan over medium high.
2. Once pan is hot, add oil, add spices. Mix approx 30 seconds/fragrant
3. Add veggies* and chicken.
4. Stir occasionally, once chicken (not very pink anymore) and veggies are mostly cooked (stick a fork in veggies to determine if they tender enough for you) add soy sauce and some water
5. Add water/cornstarch mixture a little at a time until desired gravy is there. It will take a little time to thicken so be patient.
6. Serve over rice or pasta or whatever you'd like. You could even put it in a tortilla like a taco, or on top of a flat bread and it it like pizza.

*Depending on the veggies used you may have to adjust the cooking timings.

Enjoy!!

Cabbage Soup

I am part of a farm share program, so each week I get lots of veggies that I try to to use up in a creative manner. However, my go-to creation? Soup.

I just love soup. It is so versatile and you can put almost anything into it and it will be good. So today I  set out to use up some of the lonely veggies that were sitting in my fridge.

Oh, I also received a beautiful Cuisinart food processor for Christmas this year. Any excuse I have to use it, I use it. That said, I put some onion, carrots, celery, and mushrooms through the grater section of the food processor. I am still in awe of how fast it chops things.

Next sauteed the veggies and some seasonings (garlic powder, salt, pepper, and oregano) in some oil in a big soup pot for a few minutes. I also had some potatoes from the past 2 weeks of veggies, so I needed to start using those up, so added in some diced potatoes.

Now for the star (and mystery) ingredient: Cabbage. I have never cooked with cabbage and I don't think my mom has made it for me before. I researched it a little, its in the same family as broccoli and cauliflower, its green and leafy so I figured it would be similar to cooking with kale, chard, or spinach... So I wash it, chop it up into ribbons, and find it has a stem in the middle! So I cut the stem out and into the pot it goes!

Soup does its flavor blending thing on the stove for probably half hour. (And I found about half a cup of rice in the fridge, so that went into the pot too).

As one of my friends the other day said, "Soup is the tea of food." Enjoy!!

Next time, I would include some chopped chicken or a can of beans (white beans or chick pea) for a more filling soup. And maybe some red pepper flakes.

FYI: Generally when I make soup, I just keep adding to it, and have huge vats that I can freeze. BUT potatoes get funky when frozen.


Ingredients:
1/4 (?) Onion
5 Smaller Carrots
3 stalks Celery
4 little Mushrooms
1 tsp Oregano, Garlic Powder
S&P to taste
4 small Potatoes (diced)
1/2 head of Cabbage
8? cups of chicken broth

Saute first 6 items. Add in the rest of the ingredients.

Makes approx 6-8 servings.