Quickie Veggie Lasagna (with cheese)

Sorry, these pictures are really not that appetizing. Who am I kidding, none of my food pictures are that stellar. But this stuff is really good and easy. The easiest part is using spiral pasta instead of lasagna noodles. I keep trying different lasagna concoctions. This one is the easiest and tastiest (because, cheese). The cheese makes it less healthy but, of course, more yummy.

1 bag spiral pasta, cooked and rinsed
1 1/2 jars marinara sauce
1 tsp freeze dried Italian seasoning
1 16 oz container lowfat cottage cheese
2 small/medium zucchinis
1/4 c Parmesan cheese
2 handfuls chopped, fresh spinach
1 8 oz bag Italian cheese mix or Mozzarella

Mix cottage cheese with chopped spinach (I used a food processor) and Parmesan cheese (yes, I just used the sprinkley kind). Spread on the bottom of a 9x13 glass casserole dish. Peel and slice the zucchini into thin oblong strips and layer on top of cottage cheese mixture. Mix 1 tsp of Italian seasoning in marinara sauce and spread half of it on the zucchini. Spread pasta evenly over the sauce and spread the rest of the sauce over the pasta. Spread the Italian cheese over the sauce. Bake @ 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, until hot and bubbly.

Gluten Free Recipes

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but my daughter, Isabella, has celiac disease, so I cook mostly gluten free. I'm going to start posting my gluten free recipes whenever I come up with one, just because it's handy. I admit they may not be really healthy, it's just that this is an easy place to find them all. First this:

Cheesecake

Crust:
1 cup Pamela’s Gluten Free Baking Mix

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup cold butter (or Smart Balance spread like I use), cut into pieces

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Mix it all together and press into the pan

Cheesecake:
 3-8 oz bars of cream cheese, softened
1-8 oz bar of  neufchatel cheese ('cause it cuts the fat a wee bit)
1 cup of granulated sugar
2 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon gluten free vanilla

Mix it all together well and pour in pan. I don't use a cheesecake pan because, well I don't have one. So I just use an 8x8ish glass dish.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Then, turn off the oven and leave it in there for another 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for a while then refrigerate overnight. Top with whatever you like, I like cherry pie filling or just plain is good too.

*This crust recipe can also be used for layer bars. You know, those bars that have the crust and chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, coconut and sweetened condensed milk poured over the whole thing and baked at 350 degrees for 25 minutes in a 9x13 pan.

And this:

Gluten Free Energy Bars

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 3/4 cup honey
• 3/4 c almond pieces (or other nuts you like)
• 1 cup dried fruit (I used dried cherries and cherry flavored craisins)
• 4 cups GF brown rice crispie cereal
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper

Mix dry ingredients

In a large saucepan melt peanut butter with honey over medium low heat. Stir and watch carefully to prevent scorching. When the mixture is smooth and bubbling cook for about 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add salt and vanilla and stir to combine. Use a large spatula to stir in nuts, dried fruit and cereal. Stir until all ingredients are coated with nut butter mixture. Spread out on parchment paper. Let cool and cut.

I also added mini M&Ms. Next time I might add some ground flax seed to make it healthier. If you wanted to try them and didn't need gluten free you could use regular rice crispy cereal instead of the gf brown rice variety. These were so good! We ate them all up super fast!

Things I Found

This is handy. I am really bad at reigning in the grocery budget. The only problem is I may need new glasses after I read it all (blurry!)

Let's see if I can crack the blurry code:

Vegetarian Foods
Eat more vegetarian foods (done). Meat can be expensive while legumes, beans, rice and veggies are less so and can be a great source of satisfying protein.

Buy In Bulk
Buy in bulk when possible,Items such as rice stay good for a long time (even brown rice, people, just use it regularly) and cost less when bought in bulk. (If you have Winco, it's a great place to buy bulk.)

Eat More Fiber
More fiber, less refined sugars and hydrogenated oils increase our appetite and therefore our spending on food. Fruits, veggies and nuts however are packed with fiber therefore filling us up and ultimately decreasing our spending on more food.

Pack your lunch
Pack your lunch. Always cheaper and healthier than a restaurant. (We always do this.)

Water Bottle
Carry a water bottle with you everywhere. This prevents you from buying water, soda, juice, etc.

How cute would this be at a spring or summer picnic or other get together. Just add some sort of dip. It looks easy and fun for kids to make.

Foam Roller

I got this foam roller for Christmas, I told Brent I wanted it. It is so great! I wanted it for my lower back issues and it is good for that and so many other areas too. It helps stretch your arms, legs, back, even feet and you can position it to put pressure on sore spots. It came with a poster that shows a bunch of different stretches. I'm loving it so far!

My Anti-inflammatory Smoothie

I think I have arthritis in my knees. I've decided it's okay to self diagnose yourself with ailments and find natural remedies because all doctors ever do is throw ibuprofen and omeprazole at stuff. Maybe that's just my doctor. But I have these knees that creak every time I bend them. I think that is called crepitus. It is a little bothersome and seems to be getting progressively worse. Anyway, the smoothie is healthy so it can't hurt to try.


-1/2 scoop protein powder (this has whey so it makes it vegetarian but if you use hemp or soy protein it would be vegan)
-1 small orange
-kale or spinach
-about a teaspoon of chia seeds
-frozen berries (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries)
-1 tsp freeze dried ginger (or fresh)

 You could also add  ground flax seed (omega 3s are helpful), turmeric (which would possibly taste gross), a teaspoon of olive oil, cantaloupe or whatever else you come up with that might fit into the anti-inflammatory category.

Tarragon Pasta Salad

Recipe for this:
A box of pasta, cooked
1 cup grapes, cut into quarters
1/2 small red onion
2 celery ribs, cut into small pieces
About 1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt
Mix into yogurt:
1-2 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
a dash of red wine vinegar
1 tbs fresh tarragon, finely chopped
a dash of pepper
Stir the yogurt mixture into the other ingredients
Chill and eat!

Vegan Hawaiian Haystacks

This dish is nothing short of phenomenal! I found the recipe from this woman on facebook who lost 100 lbs eating plant strong. It's Hawaiian haystacks. Usually this has cream of chicken soup (I've mixed mine with sour cream), chicken and those crunchy noodles on top. This version is much healthier. It does have some soy sauce, so sodium, but not that much.

Vegan Hawaiian Haystacks
brown rice
mushrooms
canned pineapple
sliced olives
chickpeas
green peas
red onion
celery, diced small
thinly sliced carrots
unsweetened, shredded coconut
soy sauce

Cook your rice and top as you like with toppings cold or at room temp. You can add other things like tomatoes or green bell peppers or cashews or whatever you think would be good. Just drizzle a little soy sauce on top, you could use low sodium soy sauce.  I found my unsweetened coconut at Winco in the bulk section, it was shredded very fine. Brent loved it and the kids liked it. I thought it was pretty great, and so easy too. I'm all about easy, if you haven't noticed.

Bagel Sandwich

Look at this! I swear if I had to live my life eating only one kind of food, it would be deli food. I'm a simple girl. This delicious bagel sandwich has hummus, romaine lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, olives, red onion and mustard. It would be vegan if I could find a bagel without honey, but I couldn't.

Lo Mein Noodles

I haven't posted anything in a while. I didn't realize it had been so long.

Here we have some nice lo mein noodles. It's just brown rice spaghetti with veggies, cashews and black beans. Cook the veggies in sesame oil and mix some sugar, ginger, corn starch and soy sauce together to make the sauce. Easy peasy.

This is how it is

I went to Arizona to see family. I ate roast and hamburgers. I came back and ate beef stew for Zoe's birthday, because that is what she wanted. So we've decide we are mostly vegetarian. I am not ready to be vegan. That is too much right now. I think I could do all vegetarian but I'm not going to do that yet either. This is what we've agreed upon: We eat vegetarian and vegan at home. When we are with family for dinner we are going to eat what is offered. I still want turkey for Thanksgiving, I still want my chicken salad sandwiches for Christmas. Maybe I will have the pork enchilada at Cost Vida once in a while. We eat a little cheese, eggs and milk. Not as much as before though. Having meat once in a while is certainly better than every day. Call me weak and mean to animals and all that, I don't care. I still enjoy cooking vegetarian and vegan. But I'm not ready for 100%.

"Meat"

A while back I ran into this pin on pinterest for black bean burgers. Here is the recipe:

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup quick oats
1 egg
2 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp pepper

Mix it all up in a food processor. Make into burgers and fry or grill (I use an indoor grill) or however you want to cook a burger.

So I made the burgers and they were good! I think I took a picture but I can't find it. But I was thinking, what else can I do with this recipe?  So I decided to make spaghetti and "meatballs". To do that I followed the recipe and threw in a little onion and Italian seasoning. Instead of "balls" I made bite size pieces and baked them @ 350 for ten minutes, turning them over after 5 minutes. Tasty!

Then I decided to make tacos with them. The same baking process and base recipe except I left out the garlic cloves and pepper, threw in a little minced onion, a dash of garlic powder and some taco seasoning. Also good! I love tacos so this was a pleasant surprise. I used to make chicken tacos a lot. I didn't mind ground beef that much but I never liked to eat it because e coli, of course and it's kind of full of saturated fat. So it was nice to have a taco with something actually, sort of meaty instead of just throwing beans in and calling it good. And all of these recipes are pretty healthy if you don't count the little bit of cholesterol from the one egg. Oh, and spray the pan before you bake them too.

Taco "meat". It looks kind of like no bake cookies, haha.

Potatoes and Eggs

What we have here is a simple meal. I mixed regular potatoes with sweet potatoes (5:1 ratio, about) to make mashed potatoes. I mixed in some garlic powder, milk, spread, and salt. The rest is black beans, spinach and watermelon. Healthy!

I used to make eggs with stuff mixed in for an easy dinner. I'd use about ten eggs and add ham, cheddar and some veggies. This is the healthier version I've come up with: I only used 4 eggs and about five potatoes, half a sweet potato, peppers, olives and mushrooms. To make the potatoes I cut them and boiled them for about 15 minutes. Let them cool and cut into bite size pieces. Mix with a little oil, salt pepper and basil. Bake @ 350 for 30-40 minutes. Flip them halfway through. Much easier than trying to fry in a pan. Scramble the eggs and saute all the veggies and mix it all together.

Creamy Vegetable Chowder

I love making soup! I don't know why. There was a time a few years ago when I had never made homemade soup. I remember being on the committee for Super Saturday, this craft-a-palooza thing for the women at church. I wasn't really even supposed to be there because I was the compassionate service person but somehow that was sort of part of the enrichment committee so the relief society counselor asked me to come, saying I could just help out a little, I didn't really need to do much. Okay, so I came. The woman in charge was young and super high strung. They discussed everyone's responsibilities and then got to the plans for the lunch that would be served. She looked at me and said, Do you want to be in charge of the lunch? It's a really big job! Nothing was more convincing to me, a person who did not relish being in charge of anything for a large group of people, than being asked by this perpetually manic woman if I wanted the job, immediately being followed by it's a big job. There's also this thing at church where every woman is sort of expected to know how to be an event planner. As I wasn't raised in the church I never quite caught on to this concept. Another woman saw the look of terror in my eyes and took mercy on me by volunteering to do the job. I was going to be her helper. I would have had the good sense to be humiliated by the whole situation but as I was just so relieved, it didn't occur to me. I don't know where this is going exactly but the lunch was all about soup. I helped out with any responsibilities the woman in charge would pass my way but I didn't bring a crock pot full of soup because, a) I don't have a crock pot and b) I didn't make homemade soup. But now I do! I love making homemade soup now, especially on a cold autumn day like today.
I'm in the middle of making this and I'm not sure it's going to turn out good or not. I've made this recipe before, actually I did a cooking class with my daughter and her friends a few years back and we made this soup. It was really good but I want to make it healthier so I replaced the chicken broth with veggie broth (I don't know if that is really healthier but it keeps it vegetarian). Then I added white beans for protein and a sweet potato for more nutrition. Okay, I just sampled it. It's pretty good.

Creamy Vegetable Soup
1 1/2 cups dry white beans, sorted, rinsed, cooked
1 small clove garlic, chopped (or use garlic powder of a commensurate amount)
1 yellow onion, diced
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups chopped carrots
2 tbs smart balance spread ( or oil of your choice, or leave it all out if you want)
5 small- medium potatoes, cut into small pieces
1 small sweet potato, shredded (I used the kind that looks more white not orange, the orange kind may be a yam, I'll never get that straight)
1 cup frozen corn
3 cups skim milk
4 cups vegetable broth (again, I used the Rapunzel granules, 1 heaping tbs mixed with 4 cups water)
2 tbs cornstarch, mixed in part of the cold milk
3 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Saute the garlic, onion, carrots and celery in Smart Balance spread. Add everything else, bring to a boil and turn down to simmer for about 1 hour or until you think it's done.

Soup and Sandwiches!

Saturday we had soup and sandwiches.We have so many tomatoes in our garden so I've been trying to come up with ways to use them. I decided to make some tomato soup. I found a recipe and then adapted it to what I had on hand, adding some lentils for protein. It was a success. I will make this again soon.

Tomato Lentil Soup

3 cups peeled and chopped tomatoes

2 cups hot water

1 tbs vegetable broth granules (I use Rapunzel brand)

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp Litehouse Freeze-Dried Italian Herb Blend

2/3 c lentils, sorted and rinsed

1 tsp cornstarch mixed in 1/4 c cold water

Put it all in a pot, bring to a boil and reduce to low heat. Cover and cook for about 1/2 hour, stir occasionally. Lentils should be soft.

We also had broiled veggie sandwiches. I love these. We used to have them with provolone cheese but I didn't even miss it. You just broil the mushrooms and green bell peppers and stick the rolls in there until they get toasty. Add some lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and Italian dressing. Messy and delicious!

Lasagna II

I made lasagna again. This stuff is insane! Different ingredients this time around. It turned out great! Now it's not as yummy as traditional lasagna. Cheese guys! Cheese is an amazing thing. But it will kill you if you eat too much. So it doesn't have that stringy, gooey thing going on that cheese brings to lasagna and other things, but it's still good. I'm not going to use any of that fake soy cheese stuff. First, it sounds gross. Maybe it's not, but it sounds nasty. And hello? Processed like crazy. That's not good folks. Now, I'm no stranger to processed food, but that's not what we were going for here. Although, I do use jarred pasta sauce and pre-made polenta (don't tell anyone.)

So here are some nice pics and then the recipe for my Vegan Polenta Lasagna.

Vegan Polenta Lasagna

1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed

Litehouse freeze-dried Italian Herb Blend

garlic powder

2 small or 1 med. zucchini (cubed)

2 large handfuls of fresh spinach

1 large kale leaf

1 large tomato, peeled and chopped

1 24 ounce jar pasta sauce

1 18 ounce package organic polenta, sliced

1 medium sweet potato, boiled and mashed

1 large tomato, thinly sliced

1 small eggplant, peeled and sliced (I didn't peel it but I would next time, it's kind of tough)

2-3 tbs almond meal

1 tbs nutritional yeast

salt

First layer: rinse the garbanzo beans and mash them in a food processor, mix in about 1/2-1 tsp of freeze-dried Italian herbs, 1/2 tsp garlic powder and 2-3 tbs water. Spread until smooth in a lightly sprayed (Pam) 9x13 glass casserole dish.

Second layer: mix the zucchini, spinach, kale and tomatoes together with a pinch or two of the freeze dried herbs, spread on top of the garbanzo beans. spread 1/3 to 1/2 of the jar of pasta sauce on top of the veggies.

Third layer: slice the polenta so it is about 1/4 inch thick or a little less. Place polenta slices on top of the sauce in a single, even layer (like in the picture). 

Fourth layer: cube the sweet potato into 1/2-1 inch cubes, boil for about thirty minutes in lightly salted water. Mash with a splash of soy milk (or whatever plain milk you want) and a sprinkle or two of garlic powder. Spread sweet potatoes on top of polenta.

Fifth layer: spread the rest of the pasta sauce (pour in a few tbs of water in the bottom and shake with lid on to get the bit at the bottom) on top of the sweet potatoes. Thinly slice a tomato and place slices on top of the sauce, sprinkle with a little more herbs.

Sixth layer: peel and slice an eggplant and place in rows on top of the tomatoes and sauce.

Mix together the almond meal, nutritional yeast, a couple of sprinkles of salt and 2-3 pinches of garlic powder. Sprinkle on top of the eggplant.

Baked, covered with foil @ 350 degrees for 30 minutes then uncover and bake about 15 more minutes, until hot and bubbly.

*Prep time was about 40 minutes with my 13 year old daughter helping.

Vegan Lasagna

I finally made vegan lasagna. The Engine 2 guy has a recipe that looked kind of good but it had a bunch of veggies I wasn't interested in so I made up my own recipe, being inspired by his recipe.

Layered like so, from bottom to top:

homemade garlic, basil hummus

lasagna noodles (brown rice)

lightly sauteed yellow onion (1/2 med.) and medium zuccini (diced) mixed with some chopped spinach

1 jar marinara sauce

lasagna noodles

mashed sweet potato (1large with a little garlic powder and salt, cooked about 45 minutes)

lasagna noodles

2/3 jar marinara sauce

a couple tbs nutritional yeast (approximately)

slightly ground up unsalted cashews (about 2/3 cup)

*cook at 350 for 45 minutes

More Food!

All plant dinner.

This split pea potato soup was really good. I didn't have very high expectations for it but it was quite tasty. I hope I can remember the changes I made to the recipe (I always do that) next time I make it. What I remember: split peas, carrots, celery, potatoes, vegetable broth granules, garlic powder? basil?

*Edited. I added the recipe after making it a second time.

Split Pea Soup recipe:

3 cups split peas, sorted and rinsed

3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into small pieces

3 celery ribs, chopped

1 medium or large onion, cut into small pieces

3 medium or 4 small potatoes, cut into small cubes, leave unpeeled

1-2 tbs garlic powder (use to your liking)

1 pinch pepper

1 to 1-1/2 tsp salt

3 tbs Rapunzel vegetable broth granules

a dash (or 2) of dried thyme

about 8 cups of water

In a large stock pot, saute the carrots, celery and onions for a few minutes, until slightly soft. Add water split peas, potatoes, seasonings and broth granules. Bring to a boil, then turn to low and simmer for 2-3 hours. Stir occasionally. This tastes even better as leftovers the day after making it.

Our garden

 

We are champion tomato growers! You should taste those cherry tomatoes. But we are terrible at growing almost everything else. Our strawberries are so so and our grape vine and and nectarine tree are showing promise though.

Vacation Blues

We went out of town last week. Vacation! It was fun, we saw some of the California Redwoods-did this trail called the Boy Scout Trail that had a giant tree at the end of it (almost the end and it was actually two trees that grew together to make one giant tree.) We also spent a lot of time on some beautiful beaches in Southern Oregon. I highly recommend Harris Beach.

I had carefully planned what to eat, packed a bunch of healthy snack for the road and spent most of that road trip eating grapes, apple slices and carrots along with a Lara Bar and fruit leather here and there. We weren't gong to eat out much because it's always a pain with a gluten free teenager along for the ride and our new plant strong diet. So I even brought some canned goods and stuff for some yummy veggie bagel sandwiches with hummus. And we did eat some of that stuff but we also ordered pizza from Domino's on night one (they offer gluten free so Isabella talked us into it.) It was just olives and pineapple but there was cheese, I'm not going to lie. Brent did quite well but me...not so much. There was also ice cream at one point. Again, not going to lie. Oh well, you don't have to be perfect all the time. But now I'm having a little trouble getting back on track. I'm not eating horribly but it could be better. I'm definitely not on the plan. Maybe if I post this picture of the last recipe I made before the trip:

 

This, to be honest, doesn't look that good. But it was pretty good. I found a vegan shepherd pie recipe (something I've never even made in its original, hamburgery form) and adapted it to what I had. So I made mashed potatoes with the peels. I did add a little Earth Balance spread to it along with soy milk, salt and garlic powder. They were really good. The rest of it is frozen veggies (corn, carrots, peas and green beans), a can of rinsed kidney beans, about 8 ounces of chopped up mushrooms, herbs and spices (like thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper) and a gravy made with water from the boiled potatoes, Rapunzel dry vegetable broth and a couple tbs. of corn starch. I would make it again. It would be really good in the winter. 

 I actually made it for two nights but the second one didn't turn out as good. I think you have to use potato water instead of plain water to make the gravy good and the mushrooms aren't so good after they sit overnight in the pie. So make it fresh, use potato water in the gravy and eat it all the same night.

 This is why I risked cheating. Worth it.

Happy Fourth!

I wanted to make something festive for Independence Day so I mad this Red, White and Blue Salad. All right, I guess it isn't really red, white and blue unless you count the cucumbers as white. Okay, I guess we can do that. So, it's just a big salad with romaine lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes (red), dried cranberries (more red), blueberries (blue!) garbanzo beans, and pecans. Topped with a vinaigrette.