Lasagna No Noodles Please

What a fun Saturday.  After I had finished posting this mornings blog, I made a wonderful breakfast of Eggbeaters, broccoli, grape tomatoes, a couple of hot cherry pepper slices and feta cheese.  I put all that on top of one slice of toasted brown rice bread and added 2 TBS salsa. That terrific omelet was washed down with about 16 oz of oh so fine…Timothy’s Breakfast Blend coffee.  But before that…

I was enjoying a soak in the tub after my run and heard Shane barking. I ignored it because dogs bark at anything that moves.  It was probably a squirrel or a crow (he hates crows!).   When I came downstairs there was Ted playing with Shane. I said “WHAT are you doing home?”.  Ted has breakfast with the boys every Saturday and usually isn’t home until after 10 AM.  It was only 9 AM.  He said everyone had stuff to do so he came home. 

I love my hubby but I also love my quiet Saturday breakfast time. Oh well…not today.  Ted decided he was going to do the vacuuming and floor washing for me. Yay Ted!  Welcome home, honey!   But that didn’t go so well because as I sat there eating my breakfast and Ted was working away, guilt set in.  I quickly downed my meal and set to helping by washing the back door window and doing laundry. 

At 10:10, I said “Sayonara!” and went to have a deep tissue massage.  Did I feel even more guilt? Not a chance. I LOVE my massages and it was SO needed.

Grocery shopping, putting the curtains that we washed back up, baking banana loaf cake (that post to come soon), and assembling the following meal made for a busy but fun day.

What did you do for fun today?

A pure 100% vegetable lasagna.

If taken literally this is not lasagna at all but maybe a vegetable lamination?  You see, lasagna is first and foremost a noodle, not a dish (according to the “Cook’s Canon” by Raymond Sokolov).  Taking the literal translation a little further, in classical Latin, laganum is something made of flour and oil which eventually rose to early southern Italy as laganum or flat noodle.  So maybe we should re-define this dish to a better literal description:   Tiered Vegetables or would you prefer Lamination of Vegetable and Cheese?  Personally, I like vegetable lasagna.

• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 15 oz cans Organic Vegetarian Salad Beans (this is simply a mixture of kidney, chickpea, and pinto beans) – drained and rinsed
• 1 4.5 oz jar of mushrooms – drained
• 15 oz Part Skimmed Ricotta Cheese
• 2 cups Italian cheese mix, shredded (a blend of Asiago, Provolone, and Romano)
• 2 TBS Italian seasoning
• 2 medium eggplants:  slice length wise. Discard the ends with the most skin

• 1 medium yellow squash: slice length wise. Discard ends with skin
• 1 cup Parmesan cheese
• Olive oil – as needed *You will be drizzling this on the vegetable slices
• 1 15 oz jar of Bertolli Arrabbiata Spicy Tomato and Red Pepper sauce *It won’t seem like you have enough sauce – but your vegetables will render some liquid so resist temptation to add more sauce.

Preheat oven to 400 deg. F.   Pour just enough BERTOLLI Arrabbiata sauce over the bottom of a lasagna pan to barely cover it.

In a bowl, mix together the onion, garlic, beans, mushrooms.

In another bowl, mix together the ricotta, the Italian cheese mix and the Italian seasoning.  *This will be thick and in order to add it, you will have to put it on in globs, pictured below.

On top of the sauce in the lasagna pan, place the strips of eggplant and squash – alternating side by side.

On top of eggplant and squash, drizzle olive oil then add 1/2 of the ricotta mix. 

Now add 1/2 of the bean mix.

Top with 1/3 of the sauce and add another layer of eggplant/squash, then the olive oil, then the cheese, then the beans and then the sauce.  Add one more layer of eggplant/squash and the rest of the sauce.  Now top with the Parmesan cheese.

Cover very loosely with foil – tent foil so it doesn’t touch Parmesan cheese.  Bake for 1 hour at 400 F.  Remove foil and let bake 10 more minutes.  NOTE:  It will be bubbling.  Remove from oven and let cool 10  to 20 minutes. Enjoy!

The melted cheese is the best!  I didn’t find this to be spicy at all. In fact, I think maybe additional flavor could be added.

Joanne