Side Dish. 4 Vegi Saute.

This is the starter of my semi home-made vegi pasta sauce, used in my Vegi Zucchini Lasagna, however, it makes an awesome side dish, or a topper for baked chicken too.

Simple and wonderful!
1/2 large onion diced
1 yellow squash diced
1 small/medium eggplant diced
6 large mushrooms largely diced
5-6Tbsp Olive oil
garlic salt and pepper to taste (I usually do around 2tbsp garlic salt and about 1/2tbsp pepper but I eyeball it)
A variation would be to add a tablespoon of pesto or a tbsp of chili powder.

Saute all in a large pan until softened but not mushy, we like it to have texture.

Here are some photos to show prep and it finished.

 

What's for dinner? Spinach lasagna

Spinach lasagna is one of my husbands absolute favorite meals, AND one of the few meals he really enjoys without meat involved. One thing he has always liked is creamed spinach and we all love pasta so one day out of pure boredom in the "usual" dinners we have I wanted to try something different and this is what came out. This was probably 2 years ago and he still asks for it rather often. Also took this to a church fellowship at our great little country church and despite my being hesitant to take it (not like spinach is a universal favorite food) my husband told me I should cause it was really good and it was ALL gone. Had many people comment on how much they liked it which made me feel awesome cause I get such enjoyment out of cooking for people and it is the icing on the cake when they really like it. And, this week my husband had a birthday so I was asked to make it again for him and I finally wrote it all down to get a recipe for it. Also, this is a favorite of my kids too, they love anything with cheese, noodles and mushrooms!

Here I'm going to give you a list of all the ingredients then I'll separate it out to the sauce, filler to make it easier when you are making it. It may seem like allot of ingredients but it is really easy to make, trust me, with two little ones I love me some easy meals.

This is for a 9x13 pan

Combined list of ingredients:

About 8-12 lasagna noodles broken to pan size

1 lg onion, largely diced

12 oz (approx 4c) mushrooms roughly chopped

1.5 tbsp + 1tsp garlic salt

2.5 tsp nutmeg

1.5 tsp chili powder

5-6tbsp olive oil

2tbsp minced garlic

2 10oz blocks frozen spinach (or about 5c fresh)

 2.5tbsp butter

2.5tbsp flour

3.5c milk

4tbsp Parmesan + extra for topping

1/2tbsp salt

6 1/4c mozzarella

Here are the ingredients separated out and the directions:

Boil Noodles to al-dente, set aside.

 

Sauce:

2.5 tbsp butter

2.5 tbsp flour

3.5c milk

4 tbsp Parmesan

1/2 tbsp salt

1 tsp garlic salt

1/2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp nutmeg

Melt butter in sauce pan until bubbly then add the flour whisking quickly keeping it on the heat. Once it starts to thicken (which will happen quickly) and turns a light brown color add the milk and quickly whisk so there are no lumps. Stir in salt, garlic salt, chili powder, nutmeg and cheese and continue to cook over medium high heat. Stir frequently. The sauce will act similar to gravy and will thicken while cooking until removed from heat so once it reaches a smooth consistency and the thickness of an Alfredo type sauce remove from heat.

 

 

Filler:

1 large onion, largely diced

12oz mushrooms (about 4c)

1.5tbsp garlic salt

1.5tsp nutmeg

1tsp chili powder

5tbsp olive oil

2tbsp minced garlic

2 10oz blocks frozen spinach thawed or about 5c fresh

In a large saucepan saute the onions and mushrooms with the olive oil until onions are translucent and mushrooms start shrinking and are tender. Add spinach, garlic salt, chili powder, nutmeg, minced garlic and cook together about 5-10 minutes. Stirring frequently. 

 

Now for the fun part, putting it together. :) 

This is the order of layering:

-2/3c sauce to cover bottom of 9x13 glass pan

-Noodles

-2/3c sauce

-1/2 of the filling

-2c mozzarella

-Noodles

-2/3c sauce 

-Second 1/2 of filling

-2c mozzarella

-Noodles

-Remainder sauce

-2c mozzarella

-Sprinkle Parmesan on top.

 

 Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.

(If coming from the fridge like I suggest below, increase cook time about 15 minutes)

Now if you are anything like me, you like things that are easy to make ahead of time and throw in the oven when it is time for dinner. I've been blessed with 2 great nappers, both of my kiddos take about a 3 hour nap in the afternoon, and at the same time too, how awesome is that? It gives me great "chill" time for cleaning, cooking and prepping supper, reading, crochet, crafts, or whatever I decide I want to do. This is one of the meals I love because I can prep it and have it in the fridge ready to go in the oven when my husband gets off AND have the kitchen cleaned and dishes from cooking done for easy cleanup later.

 

 

Ta-DA! A clean kitchen with lasagna prepped!

You could make this a day or two ahead of time and have in the fridge, if you do I'd suggest increasing the cook time about 15 minutes to make sure it heats thoroughly.

  

ENJOY!

Whats for dinner? ... Side item!

Well we had a great dinner last night, roasted chicken, loaded mashed pot. (for the husband since I'm dieting) and green beans and mushrooms.

Since this has been a busy week and I am really behind on doing any posts lately I thought I'd share a simple idea you may enjoy.

1 8oz pckg. fresh mushrooms

2 cans cut green beans

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp minced garlic

salt to taste

Shredded parm. cheese to top

 

Saute mushrooms in olive oil and garlic. Heat green beans with salt and when the mushrooms are done drain off extra oil and add to beans. Heat together for about 5 minutes. Serve topped with parm cheese.

Enjoy!

What's for dinner? Pizza night!

The other night we tried something I found on Pinterest (yes, I'm addicted to pinterest). It was a great concept but for some reason the amounts did not turn out just right for us. My husband tried it and I tried it also, both came up with about the same thing but still more flour than the recipe I found had. SO, this time around I measured it out and here is our recipe we used for Pizza dough, SUPER SIMPLE 2 ingredient pizza dough that is!

1c plain greek yogurt

2c self rising flour (a little extra for dusting your hands and surface also)

Yep, that is all!

(roll out to about 1/4 inch)

Now you can top it with whatever you like, it being our daughters favorite we used mushrooms and pepperoni and cheese!

 

And as it goes most times when we are cooking, here is our little helper who found her way to the counter!

 

 

Brush on some garlic butter at the end and you are done!

 

ENJOY! 

Whats for dinner?... Stuffed portobello, Easy glazed carrots & rice with gravy!

So, what's for dinner? Last night we had one of my husbands (and my daughters) favorites, stuffed portobello mushrooms! Now keep in mind, this is one of my own recipe/creation so there is no exact science to my cooking. I don't generally measure things but I am going to put down what is in it and the amount I try to stay around I trust you can use your judgement if it needs a little more or less. I LOVE to cook, and so these post's will be ideas and things we came up with or recipes we use to create the meals we enjoy. If you have any questions on anything you can surely ask!

Teriyaki Stuffed Portobello

4 large portobello mushrooms

1lb hamburger

1bag mozzarella shredded cheese

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt

Garlic salt

1 medium onion

1/2c teriyaki (see bellow for brand but any will probably do)

1/4 c soy sauce

4tbsp minced garlic

1tomato diced

First off, I washed the mushroom and pulled the stems out (save them for the gavy) then in an 11x13 pan I drizzled some olive oil and used a pastry brush to coat the bottom of the pan. Put the mushrooms in the pan stem side up.

 

Next, in a large sauce pan, saute 1 onion and the 1lb hamburger meat together with 2 tbsp minced garlic and 1 tbsp garlic salt. (Portobello mushrooms are great as the "meat" of a meal, but, husband is quite the fan of meat so most meals will include necessary or not lol... oh, and we are ALL lovers of garlic so you can expect to see that in most every meal)

Once the meat is browned and the onions translucent add in approx. 1/8c Soy and 1/4c Teriyaki sauce (this kind pictured has a GREAT flavor and we use it quite often but if you have one you like I'm sure it'll do the trick). Then let simmer for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Add salt to taste.

 

While the meat, onion mixture simmer top all of the mushrooms with about 1/8c chz per mushroom

Once the meat mixture is thru simmering spoon mixture onto mushrooms. (it's ok if a little of the mixture is left in the pan, you'll use the same pan to make your gravy)

Let the mushrooms sit aside for a few minutes. In the same pan as the meat mixture add approx. 4c water and 2 bullion cubes.

Cut up the stems that were pulled from the mushrooms and add them to the pan as well. Add approx 1tbsp salt, 2tsp garlic salt and 2 tbsp minced garlic. Once the bullion is dissolved good add 1/4c teriyaki sauce and 1/8c soy sauce then mix 1c cold water with 2tbsp corn starch and add to the mixture, bring to boil and cook until thicken slightly. Add more to your preference of "thickness" for gravy.

Once the gravy is to your preference (you may need to add a little salt, I tend to under-guess my salt allot due to I need more salt then most people so I dont want to tell you too much and it be too salty). At this point, spoon a small amount of gravy on each mushroom and top again with cheese.

Top the mushrooms and cheese with the diced tomato.

Bake at 350 for approx 15minutes or until you can see the mushroom side soften and start to fall a little.

We served with rice and extra gravy and some easy glazed carrots.

2 cans sliced carrots (mostly drained)

1/8c brown sugar

1/4 c teriyaki sauce

Cook the carrots approx 5 min and then add teriyaki and brown sugar, cook an additional 5 minutes. Voila!

 

ENJOY!