Vegetarian Lasagna

I love lasagna. It's a bit labor intensive, what with the three parts: 1. cook the noodles (I have yet to try it without cooking), 2. cheese layer, 3. red sauce layer. And 4. shred cheese. Usually, my spouse is the lasagna maker.

But on my Friday off, I decided to make it because it really does last forever. We had this Friday night, Sunday for lunch, Monday for lunch and dinner, and we'll probably finish it off tonight for dinner.

I thought it was pretty tasty. I think I needed to add more herbs/spices to the red sauce. I used a jarred sauce this time, which would be fine with meat but with veggies, I think I need more oregano and basil.

To make this cheaper, you'd want to substitute the most expensive ingredient (mushrooms), for perhaps a slightly cheaper vegetable - maybe some broccoli and carrots, or eggplant. Or more zucchini, or peppers. Also making the sauce yourself from canned tomatoes would be cheaper. I learned also to occasionally put carrots and broccoli in the cheese layer (from my mother in law), so that's why the spinach in that layer.

Vegetarian Lasagna
6 lasagna noodles: 0.60
2 c. cottage cheese: 1.75
1 lb frozen chopped spinach, thawed ands squeezed dry: 1.09
2 oz grated parmesan: 0.69
3 small zucchini, diced: 1.15
1 large onion, diced: 0.33
20 oz mushrooms, chopped: 4.58
1 T. canola oil: 0.03
5 oz shredded mozzarella: 1.40
1 24-oz jar puttanesca sauce: 2.99
1 egg, beaten: 0.13
1 Tbsp dried parsley: 0.05
2 cloves pressed garlic: 0.10

Total: $14.92 for 15 pieces, or $0.97 per piece

Make the sauce: saute the onions, mushrooms, and zucchini in oil until they give up most of their liquid. I usually try to brown a bit at the beginning, reduce heat and cover. Then remove the lid after 10 mins and it will be a big soupy mess. Let the water boil off. Then add the garlic and jarred sauce.

Make the cheese layer: Put the cottage cheese in the food processor and puree until smooth. Cottage cheese is cheaper and lower in fat than ricotta, and it's how I grew up eating lasagna. In a medium bowl, mix the egg, cottage cheese, half the parmesan, and the dried basil. Add in the thoroughly squeezed dry spinach and mix well.

Boil the noodles according to the package directions.

In a 13x9 pan, layer a small bit of the sauce to avoid sticking. Then put 3 lasagna noodles. Top with half the cheese, then half the remaining sauce. Add half the mozzarella.

Repeat layers of noodles, cheese, and sauce. Top with remaining mozzarella and the rest of the parmesan.

At this point I put it in the fridge. Then I baked for 30 mins at 375F, covered with foil. Remove foil and bake 20 more min. If you bake it right away, you won't have to bake it for as long.

Barley "Risotto"

This recipe was something I made earlier in the week and was inspired by a recipe in Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for Health. I used chard, because it was the only veggie I had left in the house. And lemon and peas.

Chard Barley Risotto
1 T. olive oil: 0.11
1/2 large onion, chopped: 0.17
2 cloves garlic, pressed: 0.10
1 bunch chard: 1.50
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh thyme: 0.10
1/4 tsp dried rosemary: 0.05
1 T soy sauce: 0.08
1/2 tsp black pepper: 0.01
1 cup pearled barley: 0.50
3.5 cups water
1/2 cup frozen peas: 0.30
juice and zest of one lemon: free
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese: 0.34
1/4 cup grated sharp white cheddar: 0.31
three chopped sun-dried tomatoes: 0.35

Total: $3.92 for about 6 cups, or $0.65 per cup.

This was pretty tasty and filling, but it definitely needed the salt (I tasted it before I added the salt).

First, wash chard. Then remove the leaves from the chard stems. Slice the chard stems. Saute the onions, garlic, and chard stems in the olive oil, covered, for about 5 min or until they soften. Remove the lid and heat until they start to turn brown.

In the meantime, chop the chard leaves into small pieces.

Add the herbs, soy sauce, barley, and water. Cover and bring to a boil. Remove cover, reduce heat, and simmer, stirring every 20 mins or so, until water is absorbed. This will depend on your barley. Mine took 50 mins, mostly unattended. I did need to add about 1/2 cup more water.

When barley is cooked and most of the water is absorbed, add chard leaves, peas, sun-dried tomatoes, lemon juice and zest, cheeses, and salt and pepper if you didn't add that already. Stir for a few minutes until chard is wilted.

Sorry no picture. I am about four posts behind...crazy week.

Pasta with Lemon, Broccoli, and Cheese

I swear I already posted this. Or I wrote it out on paper so that I could post it. But darned if I can find it.

Pasta with Lemon, Broccoli, and Cheese
3/4 lb macaroni: 0.75
1 lb broccoli, chopped: 0.99
1/3 8-oz pkg cream cheese: 0.45
2 oz parmesan: 0.75
2 cubes homemade pesto: 0.40
2 T olive oil: 0.22
salt and pepper
1/2 oz shredded Irish cheddar: 0.16
juice and zest of one lemon: free from the boss's tree

Total: $3.72 for about 8 one cup servings (there's a lot of food in there...we've eaten 5 servings, there are probably more than 3 left), or about $0.47 per serving

Boil the pasta according to the package directions. Add broccoli 2 mins before the end. Before draining, save 1/2 to 1 cup cooking water.

Drain pasta and broccoli. Return to pot. Stir in remaining ingredients, and add the pasta water to make it as "saucy" as you like.

This was delicious. And I'm having it for lunch again. My son just mowed through it.

12 miles

Saturday I ran 12 miles. With a cold. And no drugs. And I did it in 10:28/mile, which is exactly my last (and only) half marathon pace. Not bad. It felt pretty good too, until the last 3-mile uphill slog (it was getting hot).

It's only the third time I've run that far (the 2nd one being the half).

Two weeks till the 10-miler and five till the half...

$4.07

You know, sometimes I outdo myself with frugal food. This is one of those times.

You see...at the CSA, times have been a bit light this season. Overall, our yields have gone down. Mostly because the CSA has grown, and I think one of the complaints is that the 1/2 share is "too much food". Which we thought also when we first started. So when Tuesday or Wednesday comes around (Thursday being CSA day), our veggie drawers are empty.

This week, on the way home I was driving past the Mexican grocery store. I haven't been there in awhile because it's not on my normal route. (It's spring break, my son is at his old daycare for the week, it's now on my route). So I stopped in. I forgot how cheap the produce is there.

So I bought some broccoli and cabbage. Broccoli - I bought at Whole Foods last week for $3.50. That's because I made it all the way home before I realized they charged me $2.99/lb for organic broccoli crowns instead of plain old regular broccoli, which was $1.29/lb. I really should pay more attention. Usually do, but I've been tired lately.

At this store, it was $0.99/lb. And the cabbage? $0.39/lb. Major score.

Dinner tonight, which was THIS close to being Dominos (did I mention that I have a cold?) was stir-fried cabbage (from American Wholefoods Cuisine) and tempeh and white bean sausage patties (from Vegan with a Vengeance). Here goes:

Tempeh Sausage Patties: adapted from VWAV, because I didn't have enough tempeh:
8 oz five-grain tempeh (NOT moldy): $1.50
1.5 c. cooked white beans (from dried): 0.25
1 T chopped fresh sage: 0.45
1 T chopped fresh thyme: 0.36
2 cloves chopped garlic: 0.20
1 tsp fennel seeds, chopped: 0.05 (I say 0.05, because we've had these probably for about 10 years, and they are still good. At some point, they are free right?)
1 T tomato paste: 0.03
S&P to taste
3 T olive oil: 0.11
1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp Bragg's liquid aminos: 0.08
1/4 to 1/2 cup bread crumbs: 0
pinch cayenne and nutmeg
Total: $3.05 for 9 patties, or about 0.34 each

Break up the tempeh. Put in a pot with water almost to cover. Cover and cook 5 min or so, until water is absorbed. Drain remaining water, if any. Mix with beans and mash with fork until beans are almost all mashed. Add 1 tsp liquid aminos. Put in a bowl.

Clean out your saucepan. Add 1 Tbsp oil and saute garlic and fennel for 1 min. Add sage, thyme, nutmeg and cayenne and salt and pepper. Saute 30 more secs. Add to tempeh and beans in the bowl and add the rest of the aminos.

Heat rest of the olive oil in a skillet. Form bean mixture into patties and fry 3 mins per side.


Stir-fry cabbage (adapated from American Wholefoods Cuisine):
21 oz cabbage (that's the size of our head): 0.51
1 T soy sauce: 0.08
1 T honey: 0.09
2 T rice wine vinegar: 0.32
Total: 1.00 for about six 1/2-cup servings. We ate almost the whole thing for dinner.


So this is the amazing thing. We ate:
6 patties: 2.03
1/3 loaf of french bread: 1.00
2 Tbsp earth balance: 0.21
cabbage : 0.83

$4.07. For all three of us. Pretty good deal.

Now, we could have trimmed that even further. I could have made my own bread. But let's be real. I have a full time job that is getting more stressful by the minute (what did I really think, going to a start-up?) And a kid. I'm not making bread unless it comes out of a bread machine.

Also, if I grew my own herbs, or substituted dried, that would be cheaper. In fact, for these herbs to be this cheap, I have to use the rest or diligently lay them out to dry (the sage and the thyme) so that I can use them again. What I generally do, against any kind of recommended method, is to put them on a plate on the counter until they are bone dry, and figure "that's good!"

Today's question: will I be able to run 12 miles tomorrow with a cold? Will I even try?

Bad Tempeh and King Corn

So, tempeh is a food that I've only eaten a few times. I like it. Last time I was at the foo foo grocery store up the hill, it was on sale. So I bought 3 packages. A new brand (to me, anyway), the tofurky brand.

Well, the soy-based ones were bad. Moldy. I looked it up on their website, and black dots are okay, but I'm thinking the long black streaks are not. Bummer. (At least, the previous brands I've tried didn't look like that, and I'm not willing to risk it for the $3 I paid.) I'd go return it if I weren't sick with a cold and home alone with a child. I'll just take it as a lesson, and buy the stuff that's not in a box (so I can see it before I buy it).

So, tonight's dinner is going to be more of an experiment. I only have half the amount of tempeh that I need, so I'm changing the proportion of tempeh and white beans in the "sausage" patties (Vegan with a Vengeance).

Anybody here have experience with tempeh? Good recipes?


I finished watching King Corn (love Netflix!) last night. My friend Kelly recommended it. I think. My memory is going with my old age. I'm pretty sure it was her. We like to talk food, and she does, in fact, have her very own chickens. It is a movie from 2007 where a couple of guys moved to Iowa and planted an acre of corn and attempted to figure out what happens to the corn. They had their hair tested and found they were made mostly of corn. Very funny and informative. Had Michael Pollan in it when he had hair. Which is a bit disconcerting.

Anyway, yet another reminder of why not to eat factory-farmed meat that come from CAFO's. So today I spent $6 on one pound of grass fed beef. The regular beef was $2, but I got to thinking about the ammonia, the corn, the antibiotics...yuck.

Running, Food, and a Cold

Well, I have today off. And of course, I go to bed last night feeling like a cold, hoping that it's just allergies. Bummer.

So yesterday at work, I ran on my lunch break. 3.15 miles in 28:03 minutes (8:54/mile). Which is really fast for me. And, I've been under a lot of stress at work lately.

Work stress + hard run = cold. Happens a lot to me. ON top of that, I've been hitting the See's candy (with a glass of milk) pretty hard, and I think it's causing me to break out. Ugh.

I haven't been posting many new recipes. I've tried a few, but they've been "meh". The carrot soup was okay, but needed a little bit of oomph. More ginger?

The spinach patties needed parmesan. I forgot to put it in there.

The potatoes were good, but they were just steamed, sliced, fried, and tossed with parsley and garlic and a teeny bit of butter. Interesting note: parsley from the garden is reallly dirty. Needed 4 dunkings to get it clean.

Last night's salad was awesome... clementines, avocado (I love my boss. He brings avocados. This one was HUGE and so buttery...), radishes, carrot, olives, walnuts, blue cheese...

This morning I made a bowl of oatmeal with raisins which was promptly stolen from me by my child. So now I'm trying to figure out what to eat, or just wait until he's done and microwave the rest.