Vegetarian lasagna

So yeah.  Another vegetarian lasagna.  This time made with farm-fresh ingredients.  Literally, as the eggs and zucchini came from my sister Evil’s farm. Happily, I wasn’t required to harvest the eggs myself since I’m still recovering from the emotional and physical scars incurred during The W>eek of the Rooster

We shall not discuss it except to tell you the following.  When a 5 year old tells you "It's okay with me if you kill it," in reference to their Satan-spawned rooster?  You know that the fowl is indeed foul.  But I digress.

I always grew up thinking that lasagna was a buttload of work.  Given how the Mom-unit always had frozen, browned ground beef in the freezer I'm not sure if I buy that.  It's far more likely that she refused on principle to attempt to make it since she never learned to cook and hated to do so; condemning us kids to a childhood of burnt fish sticks that scraped our palates raw (literally), ham boiled until it was grey* and vegetables that had the consistency of, but less color or flavor than, than those found in Gerber's finest baby foods. Now I know better.  Though, as she would be the first to mention "none of you died of starvation, did you?"

Anyway anyway… the lasagna.  This is much more kick ass than the broccoli one I posted earlier. That one was good, but I like this one a lot more.  Unless you're a big fan of the flavor of meat in your lasagna, you probably won't miss it in here. The mushrooms have much the same texture.

Zucchini & red pepper lasagna

Ingredients
1 tub low-fat ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups low-fat mozzarella cheese
2 eggs
3 Tbs pesto
2 cups sliced zucchini (about 1 large or 2-3 small)
2 cups sliced baby Portabella mushrooms
3 cloves minced garlic
2 Tbs olive oil
2 jars marinara sauce (40 oz total) I like Bertolli
9 no boil lasagna noodles
1 jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped or
3 red peppers peppers roasted at home

Instructions
Combine ricotta, eggs, pesto and 1/2 cup cheese and set aside.  Heat the oil over high heat in a big-ass skillet.  Reduce heat to med-low and saute the succhini and ‘shrooms until some of zucchini is browned and the ‘shrooms have given off some of their liquid.  Add the garlic and saute another 2 minutes or so. Take off heat and set aside.

Spread a cup of marinara on the bottom of a rectangular baking dish. Put three noddles on top and cover with another cup or so of sauce. Spread half the zucchini/mushroom mixture onto the sauce and top with half of the roasted peppers and half of the ricotta cheese mixture.  Cover with three more noodles and repeat the layers.  Top with remaining three noodles and remaining sauce.

Cover and bake for 45-50 minutes at 375 degrees. Uncover. Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese and bake for another 10 minutes or until cheese is melted. Let stand 15 minutes before serving**.

zucchini lasagna

* To be fair, the gray ham was Pop’s doing.  He refused to eat any meat that had a pinkish cast. In his mind that meant that he and the fam would die of Trichinosis or Salmonella poisoning. Indeed, any meat product had to be cooked well past the overdone stage.  I’ll leave you to contemplate the full horror of what burgers or steak on the grill tasted like.

** I can’t stress this enough!  There’s a ton of liquid in the marinara, zucchini and mushrooms.  If you don’t wait for it to be reabsorbed, you’ll have lasagna soup. 

Posted by Mike on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 07:29 AM
Filed in: Casseroles • Ethnic • ◊ Permalink
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