Cooking
Vegetarian Zucchini Lasagna
My love for zucchini is very apparent to those who have spent some time with me. I use it in almost every dish I cook. One my my favorite dishes, which is probably the dish that I make the most often, is Zucchini Lasagna. I recently got a vegetable slicer (I think it’s called a mandoline) which makes slicing the zucchini into long pasta-like strips much easier and less dangerous than risking my thumb and forefinger. And it’s actually really simple and easy to make:
Ingredients
Glass baking dish
4 Small zucchini (or 2 large)
Marinara sauce of your choice (I love using Whole Foods’ Roasted Vegetable sauce because it has chunks of tomatoes and peppers)
Himalayan sea salt
Pepper
Fresh mozzarella
Fresh basil leaves
Directions
Serves 4-6
- Using a mandoline, slice each zucchini, after washing them of course, vertically.
- Lay the slices onto paper towels and sprinkle a little bit of salt on each side to draw the excess liquid out of them. I promise this won’t make them salty. Zucchini has so much water in it that it can end up making the lasagna soupy and not stick together well if this isn’t done. After about 5 minutes, dab the slices with paper towels to soak up the excess water. Repeat as much as you feel is necessary.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In the glass baking dish, start by spreading a very thin layer of marinara on the bottom.
- Lay the zucchini slices side by side evenly in one direction on top of the marinara layer to cover the entire bottom of the dish. Make sure the slices are touching, but try not to make them overlap.
- Sprinkle salt and pepper.
- Spread another very thin layer of the marinara on top of the slices. You want to make sure not to put too much marinara between each layer or the lasagna will end up soupy and that is not the desired effect. Unless you like zucchini soup, then put as much marinara as you want!
- Lay a few very thin slices of the fresh mozzarella on top of the marinara layer. Unless you want it to be crazy cheesy, you don’t have to cover every inch. I like to put about three slices per layer.
- Break up or shred the fresh basil and sprinkle a little bit on top.
- Repeat steps 5-8 until the dish is about 3/4 full. I always alternate the direction in which I layer the zucchini and make the first layer vertical, the next layer is horizontal, and so on.
- Place in the center of the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes or until it makes the whole kitchen smell amazing and the mozzarella starts to brown on top.
- Take it out of the oven, let it cool, and enjoy! Yummmmmmm:)
If you want to add ground beef or turkey to the lasagna, sauté the meat in a pan on the stove beforehand with seasonings of your choice and add a layer of meat on top of each zucchini layer.
Let me know what you think!
XOXO,
Brielle
My Love of Paleo!
Hey everyone, welcome to my very first blog post! I’ve never really blogged before, so I have done a bit of brainstorming over what kinds of things I’d like to share and I have a ton of different ideas that go in all sorts of directions.
One thing that I absolutely love to do is cook. I make predominantly Paleo meals and I love experimenting with how to turn some of my favorite dishes Paleo.
- For everyone who is unfamiliar with what a Paleo diet is:
It eliminates types of food that we would not have been able to eat way back during hunter-gatherering times and is nicknamed the “caveman” diet because of that. It eliminates all dairy, sugar, grains, legumes, and processed meats. All (unprocessed) meats, fruits, veggies, nuts, and oils make up the entire diet. I feel like it is very easy to follow and I love it!
It is Fall in New York City, my absolute favorite season! The temperature is dropping, the leaves are changing colors, and I am finally able to wear jeans, sweaters, boots, and scarves:) Because of how chilly it was this week, I figured that tonight I’d experiment with making a pumpkin chicken curry. It sounds festive and yummy, but also a little weird. I have absolutely no idea how this is going to turn out and I’m feeling a little adventurous, so here goes nothing.
I found a pretty great recipe on pinterest (I get most my meal ideas off of pinterest) and I didn’t need to make any ingredient substitutions because it already was Paleo (save for the rice), but I used coconut oil instead of olive oil and I added an extra tsp of curry powder, just because: http://www.thewickednoodle.com/pumpkin-coconut-curry-chicken/. My uncle grows habanero peppers and he gave a few of them to me, so I diced a half of one up and threw it in for an extra kick:) I lovvvvveeee spicy- the spicier, the better.
It only took around 40 minutes to make and it made my whole apartment smell amazing! I had it with some asian coleslaw I had made the other day, which I admit isn’t the most complimentary of side choices, but it was still pretty good.
Oh! And the curry was ridiculously good. Like, I was surprised at how awesome pumpkin curry is. It’s definitely a recipe I am saving to make again:)
I am most definitely not a photographer, but pictured below is my Pumpkin Chicken Curry:
Love,
Brielle