Low Fat Veggie Lasagna

I love making homemade pasta sauce. If you don't have the time, you can use your own premade sauce of choice, and add in the extra ingredients from my sauce (such as artichoke hearts and kalamata olives) directly to the lasagna.

Mama Garrett's Favorite Pasta Sauce

2 cans stewed tomatoes
olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 cup of artichoke hearts
1/4 cup of chopped kalamata olives, or other olive of choice

Saute the onion and bell pepper until soft, about five minutes. Add the garlic and seasoning, and continue to cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Then add the stewed tomatoes, artichoke hearts and olives. Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.


Lasagna

1 box "no boil" lasagna noodles
1 16. oz container of non-fat ricotta cheese
2 large balls of low-fat mozzarella cheese in water
1 cup of zucchini, thinly sliced into rounds
2 small tomatoes, thinly sliced
parmesan and parsley, to garnish

Coat the bottom of a large casserole dish with sauce and top this with your first layer of noodles. From here  the layering goes like this:

noodles
sauce
ricotta, smooshed in with fork
zucchini slices
sparingly top with mozzarella slices
Repeat.

I got about 3 layers or so. When you've filled your dish, top with noodles, sauce and sliced fresh tomato. Lastly, top with mozzarella and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes, or until bubbly. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Apple Fauxsages, Roasted Veggies and Herbed Kale with Grilled Onion and Shrooms

As usually happens, I go through several ideas before settling on what to make for dinner every night. If I'm lucky I have an idea to start with. Today I was going  to make enchiladas, but lo and behold: no tortillas! But in the process of looking for a recipe for those doomed enchiladas, I stumbled across a recipe for apple faux-sausage and just so happened to have everything on hand! I've made wheat-meat before, but never sausages. It turns out this was fairly simple, quite yummy and cheaper than the store bought versions!

The recipe itself is pretty simple but do give yourself an hour or so, as they take some time to cook!

Apple Fauxsages

1/2 cup pinto beans
1 cup cold broth
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 small apple, diced finely
1.5 cups wheat gluten
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp steak seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
2 cloves crushed garlic
2 tbsp soy sauce

Mash the beans in a large bowl and add all of the other ingredients. Mix well. Then divide the dough into 6 parts and place on a square of foil, molding into little sausage shapes. Wrap the log up in foil, twisting at the ends. Steam for 45 minutes, or until firm. Then unwrap and grill or brown the sausages in a pan.

The sides: Roasted Beets and Acorn Squash

My husband has never had cooked beets before, so I decided to roast up a few and see how the natives liked it. The results: 3 out of 5 thought it was "YUM!" The other 2 are decidedly not fans of this deep red root vegetable. Me? I'm definately a die hard beet lover!

3 beets
1 acorn squash
olive oil
salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Trim the tops of of your beets and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook for 20 minutes. Meanwhile:

 Slice the acorn squash in half and brush with olive oil. Salt and pepper the inside of the acorn squash. After the beets have cooked for 20 minutes, place the acorn squash face down on the cookie sheet and cook them all (beets and acorn squash) for about 35 minutes. (So about an hour for the beets total, while the acorn squash only cook for 1/2 that.)

Next: The Kale

My husand is slowly becoming a kale-aholic. Neither of us were raised eating cooked greens and maybe this has helped in some way, since we never developed an aversion to them as children.

1/2 onion, diced
about 6 mushrooms
1 clove of garlic, chopped
3 cups kale
1 handful of fresh herbs

Saute the onion and mushrooms until browned, then toss in the kale, garlic and herbs and continue to cook until desired done-ness (We like our greens slightly less-cooked than traditional, but preference is key here!)

And the plate: