"Light" Lasagna

I'd been craving a baked pasta dish and wanted something easy to prepare on Sunday to have Monday night. I found this lasagna recipe in our Favorite Brand Name Light Cooking book.

The recipe seemed easy enough and fairly different from other lasagna recipes. I have to give Nate all the credit for this--he spent about an hour putting it together Sunday night, as I was laying on the couch with back pain. He even took all the pictures!

Here's the recipe:

"Light Lasagna"

-1 teas. olive oil

-2 cloves garlic, minced

-2 cans (14 oz. each) no-salt-added Italian-style tomatoes, undrained (we didn't use the no-salt kind)

-1/2 teas. dried Italian seasoning (we used a mix of oregano and basil)

-8 oz. lean ground beef (we used about 12 oz. ground turkey)

-1 large onion, chopped

-8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced

-2 zucchini, shredded

-8 oz. uncooked lasagna noodles

-1 cup 1% low-fat cottage cheese

-1 cup nonfat ricotta cheese (I used low-fat)

-1 cup (4 oz.) shredded mozzarella

-2 egg whites

-2 tbs. Parmesan cheese

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add garlic. Cook 1 minute. Add tomatoes and seasoning; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, 20 to 25 minutes or until sauce thickens.

Heat large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add beef and onion; cook and stir until beef is browned and onion is tender. Drain. Stir in mushrooms and zucchini; cook and stir 5 to 10 minutes or until tender.

Cook noodles according to package directions, omitting salt. Drain. Rinse under cold water; drain well. Combine cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese and egg whites in medium bowl.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 13x9-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Place layer of noodles in bottom of pan. Spread half of beef mixture over noodles. top with half of cheese mixture and noodles. Repeat layering process, ending with noodles. Pour tomato mixture over noodles. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover; bake 30 minutes. Uncover, bake 10 to 15 minutes or until heated through. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. (Makes 8 servings)

The lasagna was pretty tasty and a nice change from the super heavy and cheesy lasagna I'm used to. It was a bit watery, though--I'm not sure if that was from the zucchini or what. But all in all, it was quite good!

Sloppy Lentils in the Crockpot

I have my foodie friends over at Burp! blog to thank for this recipe. They wrote a blog post about it in early December, and from the moment I read it, I've been thinking about it ever since. Really, I have.

So, last Sunday, the opportunity to make a great crockpot recipe presented itself. We had plans to go to a local bar and watch the Packers game, so we put the recipe together and left it to cook all day (and it's a good thing we did--I ended up throwing my back out at the gym and was unable to be upright for the better part of the day).

It was excellent. The flavors were great, and it had just the right amount of spice. Here is the recipe. Even Nate, who always prefers meaty meals as opposed to these vegetarian meals, said he really liked it.

We followed the recipe exactly, except that I didn't read--until about two hours before we planned eat--that after cooking, I was supposed to let it cool, sit in the fridge overnight and then reheat the next day. Oops! I think it tasted great as it was.

We served the sloppy lentil sandwiches with one of our favorites, baked sweet potato fries. Everything was delicious!

U.P. Pasties

I had been eyeing up some U.P. pasties for a while in Outpost's freezer section. Last Friday, without real dinner plans, I decided to pick some up. I've always loved pasties--my mom used to get the U.P. ones for dinner sometimes when I was growing up. And during the semester I spent in London, I had many Cornish pasties--there was a great little place in Covent Garden. You could even buy tasty frozen ones at the local Safeway.

Of course, I threw away the wrappers before I wrote down the brand. But they were super tasty, and you can find them in the freezers at Outpost! I got the beef and veggie one for Nate, and I got a veggie and cheese one for myself.

All I had to do was bake them for about an hour at 350 degrees. That was it! We had them with the leftover root vegetable hash (well, I did--Nate tried but couldn't finish his!).

Root Vegetable Hash

We had a ton of root veggies to use up from our very last CSA box. I wasn't quite sure what to do with all of them, and they had been sitting in the fridge for quite some time. So, I found a root vegetable hash recipe in my Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health cookbook. I figured I would substitute in the root vegetables we have and just follow the recipe from there.

Here's the recipe and here's what we did

Root Vegetable Hash

Seasoning mixture:

-2 teas. dried marjoram

-2 teas. dried oregano

-2 teas. dried thyme

-1 1/2 teas. salt

-1/2 teas. ground black pepper

Hash

-3 tbs. olive oil

-2 1/2 cups chopped onions

-4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

-2 cups carrots cut into 1/2-inch dice (we didn't use carrots)

-2 cups sweet potatoes peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice (we didn't use sweet potatoes)

-2 cups beets peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice

-2 cups turnips and/or rutabaga peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice (we used one of these--they look similar!)

-3 tbs. water (can use sherry in place of water)

-We also used about 4 parsnips, cut into 1/2-inch dice

Stir together all of the seasoning ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

In a 10-inch skillet on medium-high heat, warm oil. Cook the onions and garlic for about 5 minutes. Add all of the vegetables and stir well. Sprinkle with the seasoning mixture and water and stir well. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and cook, stirring every 10 minutes or so, until the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.

We served the hash with a simple baked chicken, sprinkled with salt, pepper and paprika. We did something a little different, in that we put about 1/4 cup water in the baking dish when baking it. It was good and flavorful.

I liked the hash, but was a bit overwhelmed by how much it made. Nate, on the other hand, didn't like it so much--too much of a beet flavor for him. He says "beets taste like dirt." I think if we made it again, we'd leave out the beets, and throw in some sweet potatoes and carrots--I think the sweetness would produce a really good flavor.

Boston Eats

Last week, I spent about three days in Boston and the surrounding area while visiting my friend Ann. We saw lots of great famous and historical sights, but, maybe most importantly, we had lots of good food and drinks! Here's a recap of the food and beer from my trip:

My first day in Massachusetts, we stopped for lunch at Tanner Tavern in Woburn. I had the slider trio, which came with a beef slider, a crab cake slider and a lobster slide (and lots of thick-cut fries, too). It was really good--the crab cake and lobster were especially good.

That night for dinner, we went to a place in Burlington: Ginger Pad. They serve lots of different Asian foods: sushi, stir frys, Thai-inspired dishes and more. We started with a bowl of edamame, and then Ann had spicy tuna rolls and avocado rolls, I had the massamum curry with tofu. My curry was good, although not the best I've had. Unfortunately, the service was really pretty bad--took forever for the hostess to get to us, forever to be served and the appetizer came out within seconds of the rest of our meal.

The next day, we went on the Sam Adams Brewery tour, which was lots of fun, and the tasting room was a great experience. At the end of the tour, we heard about a "party trolley" that takes brewery tourists to a local Irish pub, where there is good food and plenty of Sam Adams on tap. So, of course, we elected to do that.

It's good we did! The beer was great (plus we got to keep our glasses!) and the food was excellent--Ann ordered a reuben, and said it was one of the best she's ever had. I ordered something I've never ordered before: corned beef sandwich on rye. It was fantastic. The meat was thinly sliced and incredibly tender. We both got the sweet potato fries, too. It was a great meal!

The next day, we met up with my friend Margaret, whom I went to college with and studied abroad with, and had lunch in Cambridge at Border Cafe, a Tex-Mex place. The margaritas were good, the chips and salsa tasty, and my meal was fantastic: black bean and corn empanadas (four of them!) with a roasted red pepper sauce and a side of jambalaya.

Later that night, for New Year's Eve, we made a tasty quiche for dinner. It included spinach, mushrooms, onions and gruyere. We had it with a side salad and I had a tasty local beer: Winter Ale from Wachusett Brewery. Before all that, we had a good chunk of brie with crackers. :)

Then, lastly, not long before Ann took me to the airport, we stopped for one meal I wanted to be sure I had: clam chowder. So we stopped at the Legal Sea Foods in Burlington. Legal Sea Foods is a pretty well-known East Coast restaurant chain that started in the Boston area. We each had a bowl of the clam chowder (it was awesome!) and we split the coconut shrimp with marmalade sauce.

All in all, it was a great trip and included lots of great food and drinks!

Baked Egg Rolls for a Potluck

As I've mentioned before, a group of girlfriends and I do monthly ethnic dining nights. It's been a tradition these last few years to, instead of going out for dinner, have a potluck at someone's home. So, for this December, we gathered at Leah's and had a tasty potluck.

I decided to make some homemade, baked egg rolls. I chose a different recipe than the one we used last time, just to change things up a bit. This is the recipe I used from the For the Love of Cooking Blog. I followed the recipe exactly, except that I don't think I had savoy cabbage (pretty sure it was Napa cabbage I had leftover from our last CSA box) and I didn't measure out the bean sprouts, so there could have been quite a bit more or less. The egg rolls turned out really well, and we tasty and nice and crispy. I got some sweet chili sauce to dip them in.

In addition to the egg rolls, we had:

Vegetable pate and Italian bread, and red wine.

Rice noodles, vegetables and a non-peanut, but peanuty sauce from Wildtree.

Brownie sundaes made with almond milk ice cream and peppermint bark bits.

As always, it was a delicious meal!

Restaurant Review: The National

I've been wanting to go to the southside's The National for a while now. I've heard only good things about it, and I know they pay close attention to fresh, local ingredients. I figured I would love it.

And I was right. Nate and I both had off work last Tuesday, so we headed there for lunch. The cafe--in a sort of unexpected spot--is super cozy and cute inside. It's not too big of a place, which is nice, so the tables are a bit spread out from one another. The menu isn't too extensive, but it's got everything you need: sandwiches, soups and salads, plus breakfast items if you make it in early enough. Plus, there's coffee drinks, beer, wine and other beverages.

We each started with a bowl of soup. It looks like they have two soup specials per day. Nate had the tomato basil soup. It was fantastic. I'd love to make the tomato basil soup sometime--it seems easy enough to do and you could even use a can of chunky tomato soup and some pre-made basil.

I had the curry sweet potato soup, which was just as good. I thought it would have chunks of sweet potatoes in it, but the soup had been blended, giving it a smooth, silky texture and wonderful taste.

Then we each had a sandwich, and, lucky for me, Nate agreed to do halfsies with me! So we each got a good taste of each sandwich. Nate ordered the ultimate ham and cheese (on the left, below), which was made with mango jalapeno cheese. It was supposed to come with mango ketchup for dipping, but it didn't and we were too busy eating to get up and ask about it.

I ordered one of the sandwich specials of the day: a turkey, roasted red pepper and provolone panino. It was very good, but would have been better with some kind of spread or sauce on it--sometime even like mayo, pesto, garlic aioli ... It was a little dry, but would have been perfect with a bit of spread/sauce.

Both sandwiches came with blue tortilla chips and a dipping sauce, too. Nate had the salsa and I had the black bean dip.

All in all, we had a great experience, and I know we'll go back. In retrospect, I should have ordered the half soup, half sandwich combo. It was A LOT of food doing it the way we did it! I'd like to try it for breakfast/brunch sometime. The breakfast burrito is calling my name!