I know it has been a while since I have posted, but I got a nasty cold that made me so exhausted that I could do was flop onto the couch facedown and sigh about how unfair life is, blow my nose, and use my Vicks inhaler so heavily that I’m ready to go to rehab.
I know I was going to start on my vintage cookbook recipes, but I am going to have to sit on that for a few days, because right now I have some vegetables I need to use up. Normally I would make plain veggie pasta like I have shown on this blog before, but I was feeling a little ambitious. So today, I decided to attempt a veggie lasagna.
I have no recipe. In fact, I came up with the whole concept while sitting at my desk at work blowing my nose and gazing out the window. And yes, I know that sounds appetizing. Right now my sauce is bubbling and I am live-blogging while I wait for it to cook down a little. To start, I chopped up all of my veggies and threw them in the pan.
I am using baby bellas, red onion, yellow squash, zucchini, green pepper, black olives, and Red Gold tomatoes—the diced tomatoes with roasted garlic and onion variety. To this mixture, I added a jar of Ragu organic sauce – the garden vegetable variety. I really like this sauce as far as jarred sauces go, I think it has a nice fresh flavor and I love the hint of celery in the sauce. It cuts the sweetness.
I just got up to stir the sauce, and here is where I am going to share a reality check with you. I have never cooked lasagna in my life. Not veggie lasagna, not meat lasagna, in fact, the only kind of lasagna I have ever made in my life is Stouffer’s lasagna. Whatever, I am still doing this. My lasagna noodles are boiling and this is going to be the bomb. I know this!
Another spoiler alert, I know that ricotta cheese is a key component in lasagna, and in some horrible cases, cottage cheese. However, I am severely anti-curd. So I am using strictly mozzarella. Some people would say that omitting curdy junk would in fact make this recipe not lasagna, but I am not some people. So hate on, haters. This is my recipe. If you make it, you could put it in if you like it. It will probably make your lasagna more authentic or fluffy or whatever.
You could easily add some spicy Italian sausage to this as well, or some cooked browned hamburger meat, if you like things meatier. I tend to eat a lot of vegetables and less meat, so I am not going to do that this time. OK, time to put this lasagna together.
I’m back, and I would like to report that 5:42 PM was the time that I lost the plot. I know there was layering and I think I forgot some stuff. BRB. BTW, I poured a half cup of the sauce onto the stove top and said some very bad things.
What I forgot to add was the last layer of black olives. I opened the oven door and threw them on top. It is what it is. I’m hot. Eff this stupid thing anyways. My face has settled into a permanent snarl. I’m sure you are dying for the recipe by this point, so here goes.
Veggie Lasagna Surprise
A small splash of olive oil
1 package lasagna noodles
1 jar Organic Ragu Garden Vegetable variety
1 can Red Gold and Red Gold tomatoes with onion and garlic
1 large can black olives sliced
1 zucchini
1 yellow squash
1 green pepper diced in large chunks
1 packaged sliced baby Portobello mushrooms
1 large package of shredded mozzarella
1 crushed soul
Directions: Slice and dice your fresh veggies and sauté them in the olive oil. After they have cooked down a little, add that can of tomatoes and the jar of Ragu sauce. Cook some of the moisture out of it. At the same time, cook your lasagna noodles in boiling water, following the package directions. Drain noodles and get ready to rock.
Take your 9X13 pan and put a little sauce in the bottom to start the party, layer noodles, olives, sauce and then mozzarella, and repeat this until your pan is full. At the end, do not try to get slick and dump the last of the sauce onto the top. You will fail, and pour sauce onto your stove burners and have a meltdown.
Preheat oven to 350, clean up the stupid stove, and go sit in front of your computer. Sit there staring into space wondering what you forgot, walk back into the kitchen, and notice one fourth of a can of black olives sitting on the counter. Mutter to yourself, open the oven door, and toss them on top of everything. Bake until bubbly and slightly browned on top.
It’s almost done — I’ll be back later to tell you what it tasted like.
***EDITED TO ADD THE VERDICT***
I know, weird angle. Was trying to hide the mess on my stove/counter area. I guess it doesn’t look that cute.
It was pretty tasty but probably not something I would make again and not worth the tears. If you want to eat something good, take all of the above ingredients, boil rotini instead of lasagna noodles, toss it with sauce and top it with the cheese and bake it at 350 until brown and bubbly. Eat it with garlic bread until you feel like you might explode.
