Veggie Spaghetti!

Last night I made this for my dinner, then I decided my husband needed some too. I saved some aside for him, and after I ate my own, I nearly ate his too.

In a medium skillet I tossed together coarsely chopped green bell peppers, red bell peppers, and 2 small zucchini with some coconut oil. I thought about adding onion but I really wanted to let the flavor of the peppers come through. I let the veggies cook on a medium heat just long enough to take the edge off, I wanted the to stay a little bit crunchy. Then I tossed them in marinara and added a dollops of my secret bff, sour cream and some parm. I ate mine without noodles because I like to save my carbs for naughty things like cheesecake or sweetened coffee creamer. Once I took a few bites I knew I had to share some with my hubby so I put his over noodles and had about 3 sample bites before hiding it from myself.

It was very good.

If you want some, then you'll need the following:
a little coconut oil for cooking
1/4 green bell pepper
1/4 red bell pepper
2 small zucchini
2 cups of spaghetti sauce or marinara - with or without meat
noodles for 2 hungry people or 3 slightly hungry people. We use whole wheat. <-- I just said that to brag.

Cheesy Potato Soup

This is vegetarian, but not vegan. Especially good for the cure of skinny husbands.

In a big pot, boil together 10 peeled potatoes and 1 onion. Toss at least half, with about a cup and a half of the onion/potato water, into a blender for a smoothish soup with a few chunks. Blend more or less depending on if you want less or more chunks. If you really like it chunky, then just mash it all up together and forget about the blender, you'll still need the water though, or you'll just have mashed potatoes!

After blending, or mashing, return all potato and onion bits into the pot and dash with a little Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Now then, here's where easy gets easier. Dump into the pot 10, 12, or all 16 oz of a tub of sour cream, at least 1 cup of water, 1&1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese, 1/3 c Parmesan, and stir stir stir. Add more water if you need to, the sour cream can handle it, and more salt if you like.

If you don't have a horizontal peeler, then you need one. I peeled 10 potatoes in like 5 mins flat. I used to be a slave in a German kitchen though, so I have a bit of experience with potatoes.

Ingredients
10 med pots
1 delicious onion - mine was white
2-3 cups reserved water from the boiling
10-16 oz sour cream
1 & 1/2 cups cheddar cheese
1T Italian seasoning
1/2 T garlic - more if you like it, I didn't want to scare you off.
1/3 c Parmesan cheese

If you're extra sneaky, boil a few hundred carrots with your potatoes and blend them allll up and tell your kids the cheese was really orange today. Since we have no suspicious children around, we opted for tossing chopped broccoli florets into our pot, yum yum!

Happy Fall!

Zucchini Lasagna

Let me just start by saying this: yum.

Okay now I'll tell you how I make mine. You really need to go with what you love, but try to branch out a little too.

Here's the deal, you replace lasagna noodles with long thin strips of zucchini. I use a perpendicular vegetable peeler for mine and I like it a lot. So for a 9x13 dish you should use nearly all of three zucchini(s).

3 zucchini, thinly sliced, longways
4 tiny cans tomato paste and enough water to make a very thick sauce
1 c Parmesan cheese
1 tub of cottage cheese
Almost a whole bag of baby spinach - chopped smallish
1lb meat or meatless crumbles
8 oz sliced or coarsely chopped mushrooms
3 c shredded cheese

Assembly:
Mix the tomato paste and the water. Season with the world's best Italian or pizza seasoning and add your cup of Parmesan, give it a stir. You do not want it to be a thin sauce so watch it with the water. The zucchini will release a lot of water and you could have soup instead. It's still good, but ya know...
I put enough sauce on the bottom of the pan to just get it wet, like a thin schmear okay?
Next a layer of "noodles" aka zucchini slices.
Now a little saucy sauce.
Then cottage cheese, I try to do 3 layers of guts so use about 1/3 of the tub. Ofcourse you can use ricotta, its delish and I love it but I love love love cottage cheese, so that's what I use.
After you get that rubbed in a little you need to cover it with a good amount of spinach, like, a lot. As much as you can stand to look at. It's the very best part.
Lightly sprinkle the cooked meat over that (or omit the meat if you prefer). I use half turkey sausage and half lean lean lean beef. As lean as you can get it. You could also use meatless crumbles (by Morning Star Farms I think), that's pretty stinkin' good. We had it on pizza a couple times and it was mistaken for meat by those who didn't make the pizza.
Back to the lasagna, over the meat put your chopped or sliced mushrooms.
Cheese time, use a whole cup, not a spec less, for each of the 3 layers.

Now, do that 3 times. When you get it all into the pan you might have to press it very nicely to get it all into the pan. Don't worry, the spinach will cook down and everything will fit... eventually. Just try it. Try it.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour. If you find that there was to much water you can cook it longer, don't be mad at me if you burn it though. Or if you have a day to spare, then pop it into the fridge until tomorrow and have it then. The water will be all soaked up. If you're out of time and you eat it as lasagna soup like we did once; it'll still be mmmm mmm good.

Did you realize already that this is a great low carb alternative to regular lasagna?