Meat and Vegetable Lasagna
A healthier lasagna with lots of vegetables. Comfort food while still having some nutrition
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Craving lasagna after my coworker talked about the one her mother-in-law had made, I decided I needed to make one. I wanted to make it healthier than just your usual mostly meat and cheese, so I added a lot of vegetables.  If you are sad and need a distraction, this is a nice time time-consuming project. It is labor-intensive and takes several hours to do all the elements and assemble, and cook.

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:
Red Sauce

• 1 Lb. hot Italian sausage
• 1 Lb cremini mushrooms
• 2 Medium sized onions (I used sweet)
• 2 Medium sized carrots
• 3 stalks celery
• 1 red pepper
• 1 small 4 oz can tomato paste
• 1 large 24 oz can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 cup chardonnay
• 2 Tbs minced garlic
• ½ stick of butter (4 Tbs)
• Italian Seasoning
• Black Garlic Salt
• Pepper

Cheese

• Aged Parmesan Cheese 8 oz
• Whole Milk Mozzarella 14 oz
• Fontina 8 oz
• Pecorino Romano 8 oz
  
  

Cheesy White Sauce

• 4 cups whole milk
• ½ stick of butter (4 Tbs)
• 4 Tbs flour
• Nutmeg
• pepper
• Grated Cheese (about half of the listed cheese above)

Greens

• 4 cups chopped spinach
• 1 cups chopped kale
• Fresh chopped sage (about 4 leaves)
• Fresh chopped basil (about 10 leaves)
• Fresh chopped thyme (about 4 stems)
• Fresh chopped chives (a handful?)

Pasta

• 1 Box of Lasagna pasta (not the oven ready kind)

Instructions
The Red Sauce
Step 1: Brown the MeatIn a large 10 quart braising pan brown your sausage on medium high heat.  Once browned remove to a large bowl leaving as much as the grease in the pan as you can to cook the vegetables.
Step 2: Prep the vegetables. (all but the mushrooms)While the meat is browning, chop the carrots, onions, celery, and red pepper.. doesn’t need to be super fine, that’s a matter of preference.
Once the meat has been browned and removed from the pan add these veggies to the pan and sauté till soft. Season with Italian seasoning, black garlic salt and pepper. … till it feels right… I never measure spices, but be generous with everything but the salt… the salt a little goes a long way.  Once the desired doneness has been achieved (about 5 minutes) add to the bowl with the sausage.
Step 3: Prep the mushrooms and cook.While the other vegetables are cooking chop the mushrooms. I keep these rather large as they will shrink down with cooking and I like to have good chunks in the sauce.
After the Vegetables have been removed from the pan put the mushrooms in it should be mostly dry at this point without much grease… you want to brown the mushrooms, the water will start to seep out and they will start to caramelize/brown. This takes several minutes… maybe 10… Then and only then do you add the butter, stirring till all the mushrooms are nice and coated and the butter is all melted. Add the garlic… stir and cook for a minute or two.
Step 4: Combine it all and simmer.  To the mushrooms in the pan add the other vegetables and sausage. Add the can of tomato paste, can of crushed tomatoes and the chardonnay. Keep on a low simmer while you work on everything else. Taste and adjust seasonings after its been bubbling a bit.
The Cheese
While the mushrooms are simmering shred all your cheeses and mix them into a bowl.  Could you buy a store-bought mix? Yes… but it won’t melt as nicely and the cheese probably won’t be as nice . I used a blend of Mozzarella, Fontina, Pecorino Romano and Parmesan but you can use whatever “Italian” type cheeses you like. If you have a food processor you can make quick work of this. I do not so it’s a time consuming endeavor but worth it.  I used a little less than half the cheese in the cheesy white sauce  and then the remainder in the layers.
The Cheesy White Sauce
Step 1: Make the RouxMelt the butter, add the flour, cook till its slightly golden
Step 2: Add the milk.Add the milk to the roux slowly, stirring to break the flour. This will be much looser than a traditional Bechamel at this point because we are straying slightly away from tradition and making more of a saucy fondue. Simmer the milk and slowly incorporate about half the cheese a handful at a time, making sure it’s all melted before adding the next handful. Once it’s all together it should coat the spoon nicely but not be a cheese pull like fondue… you want it to still be a sauce.    Season with a little nutmeg and pepper.  Simmer on low while you work on the rest.
 The Greens
Meat lasagnas usually don’t have much in the way of vegetables. Many of the vegetable lasagnas I see are a combination of mushroom and spinach… so I’ve opted for a hybrid of the two.  Chop up the spinach, kale, basil, sage, thyme leaves (remove them from the stems), and chives and place in a bowl to the side.
The Pasta
Cook the pasta per the instructions on the box. I like to do it the old fashioned way with pre-cooked pasta as I find it easier to layer and I can control the texture better.  When I drain I keep them in the pot with just a little bit of water so they don’t stick together and then pull out each sheet with some tongs.
The Lasagna
Step 1: Assemble the layers.Start with a layer of the red sauce on the bottom of your pan. We have a casserole that is the perfect length of lasagna I think its about an 8x12 … the lasagna is just a little short for a 9x13.
Next do a layer of the pasta. My pan allowed for four sheets wide.
Add another layer of the red sauce.
Top with half the greens (these are uncooked and will cook while baking)
Top with the cheesy white sauce
Top with about half the remaining cheese.
Add another layer of pasta
Next the red sauce
Remaining Greens
White sauce 
NO CHEESE… skip straight to the pasta
Top with the layer of pasta
Add a little more red sauce
A little more cheese sauce so the pasta is covered
The remaining cheese.
Step 2: Bake.Be smarter than I was… Put your lasagna pan on a sheet pan to protect the oven from spills. Bake in a 375 oven for about 30 -40 minutes.

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Serving
Let Lasagna cool slightly so it sets up a little so you can dish nicely. Wait 15-20 minutes.
Enjoy comfort food while not feeling terribly guilty because there’s lots of vegetables.
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I did have a few left over lasagna sheets and red sauce so I just cut up the pasta into bite size chunks and mixed it with the sauce to have for lunch.

​My Tips for Tricky Element of Dish

• Maintaining a medium – medium low heat on the cheese sauce is vital. Too hot and you’ll get burnt bits on the bottom of you pot.
• Put a sheet pan under your casserole/lasagna pan.
  

My Variations

• I found the black garlic salt at my local Asian market.. obviously regular salt will be fine.. just season nicely. m
• I only used cremini mushrooms this time, but a blend would be nice of cremini, oyster, shitake and portobello
• You can of course leave the greens out or use other vegetables in their place, I’ve seen versions with chopped up broccoli, zucchini etc.

​Beverage Pairing
This recipe uses chardonnay in the red sauce and I think that it would pair nicely if you want a white wine to go with. A better pairing of course would be a Sangiovese or Barbera or a nice Tuscan red blend.

​Personal Reflections
Today is the 10-year anniversary of my dad’s death. I have a lot of feelings about it all. It does in many ways get better with time. I just have an overwhelming sense of sadness today and didn’t really feel like being out in the world. A stranger started talking to me and I couldn’t process her words just experienced extreme panic and had the overwhelming urge to just turn and walk away.  I then ran into a friend at the grocery store and started crying when she hugged me so opted out of going to a bridal shower of an acquaintance. The people pleaser in me struggled with this choice but I am also learning that I need to take care of me and not put myself in situations where I need to be social when I really don’t have the energy. So I cooked instead.  

Dad loved to cook. I think being on stage and cooking were his two favorite things. I got that from him. I don’t get stage time anymore. I have feelings about that too… but I can cook.  Lately the weekends are my cooking therapy time where I can just put on music and focus on the thing in front of me. Its meditative.

This is my first time making lasagna. I’ve of course eaten many over the years. Dad usually got them from Costco. I don’t think he ever made one from scratch… that I remember anyway. After today I rather see why. There are many steps involved. It takes time.
One could of course make it more simply by skipping the vegetables and just browning some meat and using a store-bought sauce… skipping the cheese sauce for ricotta and pre shredded cheese… using the oven ready sheets. That is perfectly acceptable and if you have a time crunch or are overwhelmed by all the steps. Start there.  I wanted a challenge today.  A distraction. This was a good one.

I don’t know what Dad would think of the state of the world today. He was conservative and Christian, but he also was a studier of history and had been to Poland and talked about the horrors of visiting Auschwitz. He played Tevye 4 times and had a great affinity for Judaism and the horrors faced in World War II. He loved to Travel and loved exploring other cultures and connecting with people (I guess I get that from him too).  I’d like to think he’d be horrified by the things happening. That he’d be outspoken and vocal in dissent as he could be. But then again, he did have me write a glorified paper of how wonderful Regan was when I was in high school… and a book titled "Gay is not good" (Which I ripped up after he died) so maybe not.

My relationship with my dad was difficult. The more time I spend in therapy and in reflection I logically can understand sometimes why he acted the way he did… in some areas anyway. In other ways he remains a mystery, and I struggle, especially with how he treated me. Maybe I’ll get clarity one day, maybe not. Generational trauma is real, and I’m trying to break the cycle and heal. It ends with me. there’s no more of my family branch and there never will be.  One of my best friends said she doesn’t remember the dates of the people that passed… I don’t for everyone… that list is too long.. but my stepdad, my dad, My paternal grandfather, my paternal grandmother… these dates I feel and cannot forget.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ying and Yang lately, The good in the bad and the bad in the good. Darkness and light are in everything. It is hard for me not to be caught up in the bad lately, and I’m struggling. But the act of cooking. Watching a bumblebee bumbling about the thyme in the yard, my cats snoring, the light on the mountains in the evening. These things are beautiful. Grief is the price of love and this is beautiful too. Abusive relationships aren’t just abuse, that’s why people stay in them so long and have a hard time leaving, there is love and affection too and happy times. It doesn’t excuse the abuse or make it right. When you understand this blend perhaps, we can have more understanding and empathy of the struggle.
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I’m determined to write more. I know I’ve said that before. But changing tactic. the blog will be a blog… a journal of thoughts and recipes.  No arguments and quoting sources and entertaining photos that are not my own. Just thoughts and recipes.
In my healing work I’ve been going through old family recipes and things that were saved. I’ll post those too.

Mardi Gras might be over a month away. But I was craving some Gumbo... also I had most of the ingredients in my pantry already. 
Is Gumbo a soup? I mean maybe its debatable since its served over rice some might call it a sauce... One could very easily eat it without rice though and then it would for sure be a soup.  I'm counting it as one. 
You can put many things in Gumbo.. I like andouille sausage, chicken and shrimp in mine and lots of okra. 

​Recipe below: 

Ingredients:

1 cup olive oil
1 cup all purpose flour
1 sweet onion diced
1 bunch celery (about 6 stalks) diced
1 red pepper diced
3 Roma tomatoes diced
2 Tbs minced garlic
4 chicken thighs chopped
4 andouille sausages sliced into coin shape
3 cups frozen sliced okra
6 large cooked prawns peeled and deveined with tails removed diced.
1 Tbs Cajun seasoning
1 Tbs Smoked Paprika
1 Tbs Tarragon
3 Tbs better than bullion chicken
1 Tbs better than bullion vegetable
2 Tbs tomato paste
5 cups water   

Make the dark roux. Cook oil and flour until the color of a penny or chocolate milk. About 30 minutes on medium heat .

Add the onion, celery and pepper (green is traditional but I like red better) cook till starting to soften

Add the garlic and raw chicken stir in and let cook a few more minutes. Add in the sausage and okra, spices, tomato paste and better than bullion. Mix thoroughly.

Add in the water. Cover and simmer a minimum of two hours. Stirring occasionally. A few minutes before serving add the cooked shrimp.

Adjust seasonings to your liking.

Serve with rice.
​Enjoy! 

Is it slightly similar to soup 5... In that it has a type of squash, coconut milk and curry... yes... but this one is actually much fancier and nuanced in flavor. It has a combination of squash Butternut and what I think was acorn...or some weird hybrid (it came from my garden). The apples add a lovely sweetness and instead of the thai red curry a japanese curry is used here.  

​Recipe below: 

Soup is such a comfort food. This one was especially comforting, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to do a loaded baked potato soup or a potato leek soup and so I created this hybrid of both. 
​I was sad when it was gone. 

Recipe below

There is a restaurant in seattle called Paseo. It has a sandwich that when I first tried it made me cry it was so incredibly good. This is going to be a longer post because it is a food of love and requires patience. It is worth it.  Over the years I've fiddled and fooled around trying to come close to the original and made it my own. 

I made this because one of my best friends had surgery just before christmas and I wanted to make her food to feed her (and her family) for a few meals so she didn't have to worry about it. Food is 100% my love language. I don't feel like I'm particularly good at giving gifts, Food, Music, Words of Affirmation and Acts of Service are my main love languages. My friends son (who is also my friend of course) said it was "the best sandwich he ever had"

You can serve this meat on a sandwich, or over rice or even make tacos. If you don't like garlic and onions just stop reading now. This had obscene sexy quantities of both.  Also I would put the sauce on everything. 

Without more jabbering click read more to see the recipe and steps: 

Ingredients: 

1 9 lb Pork Shoulder Butt Roast Bone In (I mean you can use boneless but you wont get the collagen and we like that) also don’t trim the fat ( again, you can… but the fat keeps it moist and delicious)
5 Sweet onions (yeah you read that right all in all I used 5 whole onions) sliced into little strips
3 Bulbs (yes Bulbs… not cloves) of garlic.
Orange Juice… uhhhh I didn’t measure maybe 3 -5 cups? I think it depends on the size of your pork. In your slow cooker, or dutch oven you want it to go just about half way up the pork.
4 limes (and zest of 2)
6-7 sprigs of fresh oregano
2 bunches of Cilantro (If you don’t like cilantro… again this recipe may not be for you I cant really imagine it without.)
Lime Pepper (I recently discovered this and its pretty fantastic)
Garlic Powder (because 3 whole bulbs of garlic isn’t nearly enough)
Cumin
Mayonnaise (for the Magic Sauce)… 2 cups maybe? I made a lot of sauce
Romaine Lettuce
Dark Rum ( 1 – 2 oz)
Olive Oil.
pickled jalapenos (I get mild because I'm a wimp... but you do you)

French Bread, Small Baguettes or decent hoagie rolls ( I think traditionally they are on a French bread roll but my grocery didn’t have that so I opted for the bakeries hoagie rolls) For sandwiches 
Rice if you don’t eat bread (or if you want a variety because you will have a lot of pork)
Tortillas if you want to do tacos (I made some pickled red onions to additionally go on the tacos)

let me weigh in on the debate of cooking pork shoulder butt in a slow cooker. 1. Get the pork with the bone in and a nice layer of fat and don’t you dare cut any of it off. Collagen is a good thing, and fat keeps things moist. 2. Use fresh herbs when you can. These still have the oils in them that will add more flavor I think in a slow cook. 3. Place all your aromatics on the bottom so that flavor heats up and is in the steaming part of the slow cooker. 4. Make sure you have some moisture about half way up your pork. I’m using a combo of orange juice and lime juice here. Other recipes will use stock, I’ve seen ones with soda depending on what style of pulled pork you are doing…. But give it enough of a bath to keep it juicy. 5. There is great debate on this point. In my opinion once that lid is on… don’t touch it for like 8 hours. (Depending on the size of your meat of course) . Some recipes say to flip every hour but every time you open that lid you let heat and steam out which can make things dry and tough. If you have the fat on top when you put the pork in, and just let it do its thing on low, it will be delicious. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Of course the particular shoulder butt I got was ever so slightly too big for my slow cooker so I ended up needing to turn it a couple times because it didn't seal properly... If I had been remotely clever I would have dumped this into my really large roasting pan I used for the turkey and covered it in foil and cooked it in the oven... I was not clever.  It still turned out amazing. Usually I do about half this recipe with a much smaller roast but since I was feeding several people ... well I just misjudged. 

​Directions:
Put one of the onions, sliced and 1 bulb of garlic, all skins removed and chopped finely in the bottom of the crock pot. (or roasting pan if you bought a massive roast that doesn't fit in you slow cooker) 

Then I put the juice and zest of 1 lime in the crock pot… and threw in the little lime bodies. To the crockpot as well.

I rubbed the lime pepper (which has salt, pepper, garlic and lime zest) all over the pork and put it in the crock pot.

I chopped up the leaves of about 5 of the oregano stems, and also 1/3 of one bunch of cilantro and put them in too.

I then poured the Orange juice (I used no pulp but you do what suits you)

Put the lid on and cook… this, for me took about 12 hours.. partly I think because the pork was so big the lid didn’t close all the way I discovered (oops) I don’t usually turn it but because of this it wasn’t cooking evenly so I did turn it once about 6 hours in. Cook it till its easy to shred and bone slides right out. After its shredded let it simmer some more in the juices about another hour. 
​

I ate this sandwich multiple times over the course of the week and never tired of it. Id alternate it with rice bowls and tacos. and did the happy food dance each time. 

Tacos were not pictured... but essentially similar to the sandwich. Toast your tortilla, smear some of the magic sauce add meat, caramelized onions. Top with pickled onions, jalapenos and cilantro. Or alternatively take some of the magi sauce and mix it with a little cabbage to make a coleslaw and place on top. 

You could also do this with a romaine lettuce leaf or butter lettuce leaf and make a lettuce wrap.

​ENJOY!

I'm going to be honest... I kind of failed on this one. I usually take copious notes while I'm inventing things so I can remake it again... this time I failed I was just sort of tired and on autopilot which is a shame because it turned out very tasty. (Though maybe not altogether pretty) 

Turkey Tortellini. This is one of those kitchen sink soups. Big key notes are:
About 5 cups of the turkey bone broth,
maybe 2 cups of turkey,
a package of dried tortellini,
a couple TBS of tomato paste,
1/2 Sweet onion onion,
1 leek,
1/3 fennel,
2 stics celery,
2 carrot,
1 red pepper,
paprika, cumin, bay leaves, red wine, better than bullion vegetable,Worcestershire-sauce, and salt and pepper (all these are to taste) 

My work gives us a Turkey every year for Thanksgiving. I still had my Turkey from last year and figured before crowding our little freezer with another Turkey I should cook the old one. I had a little friendsgiving with some of my friends. I used to get together with my college friends for Thanksgiving and it was always a better time than the ones I had growing up. As a result it Friendsgiving has become a favorite holiday. 

Having lived in and around Indigenous reservations the actual holiday has become to be somewhat problematic in my mind, but thoughts on that another time. Problems in origin aside, it is a time to be thankful for what we have and the people in our lives. 

Having made a big feast and roasted the bird ( a little dry alas). I then proceeded to do the thing I always do when I roast a turkey, chicken or duck... I make stock. I froze about half of it and about half the remaining meat. There was a lot (3 people didn't make much of a dent in a 16 pound bird. ) I saved the other half and made two other soups with it. This was the first.  A creamy turkey noodle soup. 

Recipe below:

Needing all the comfort next up was a creamy tomato basil soup with is mandatory to serve with a grilled cheese. I don't make the rules. This is a good tradition and should not be broken. I like a combination of fresh, canned and paste tomatoes, and a surprise red pepper for texture and flavor. I also use both half & half and cream cheese to make it creamy. 

It's really good. If I wasn't on a mission to make new soups each week I might just circle back to this one now that its February and I made it in November.  My back was not so happy the week that I did this soup so it too is a relatively easy effort . A little vegetable chopping but mostly just simmering.

Recipes below:  

Ingredients for the Soup:
2 Fresh tomatoes (I used hot house tomatoes on the vine)
1 14.5 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
1 14.5 oz basil, oregano, and garlic tomatoes
1 large sweet onion
1 Red Pepper
2 carrots
3 small stalks celery
2 Tbs minced garlic
2 Tbs better than bullion vegetable base
2 Tbs tomato paste
1 Tbs dried basil
1 Tbs sugar
1 cup Half and Half
4oz Cream cheese
Fresh basil to taste & for finishing
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups water
Grated fresh Parmesan

Directions for the Soup;
Wash and prep vegetables (nothing has to be pretty, it’s all going to be blended later)
Chop the sweet onion
Peel and chop the carrots
Chop the celery
Chop the red pepper
Chop the fresh tomatoes

Place a 5 qt pot on a med high burner once the pot is hot pour a generous drizzle of olive oil and put the onions in the pot and cook a few minutes till they start to turn translucent.
Add the chopped carrots, celery and pepper. Sauté several minutes
Add the dried basil, garlic, tomato paste, better than bullion. Stir till well mixed.
Add the two chopped tomatoes and the two cans of tomatoes
Add two cups of water
Add about 6 leaves chopped fresh basil.
Let it simmer for about an hour on medium low
Use and immersion blender or put in a regular blender and blend the soup so that it’s not completely smooth, you still want a few chunks for texture
Add the cream cheese and half and half blend again
Finish with fresh basil and some grated Parmesan

For the Sandwich:
I used Brioche Bread - 2 Slices
A mix of gruyere, fontina, emmentaler and white cheddar I grated myself as much as you can safely excessively smoosh in between the two pieces of bread.  (use whatever cheese you like) 
A fun trick I learned, instead of spreading your bread with butter (which you can of course), spread the sandwich pieces touching the grill with mayonnaise. It doesn't burn like butter but will nicely toast evenly. 
Cook on medium heat... don't make it too hot. I have no exact science for when to flip... its just when the cheese gods tell me to. 

Despite my injury and pain, having been through all this in 2009 I'm rather accustomed to just chipping away at things and taking many breaks. In montana the week and after of Halloween is the first big cold spell and often first snow. I wanted something hardy and Lamb stew is about as hardy as it gets.  Again, I add a bit more vegetables than many recipes call for.  The addition of Brandy makes it a bit more grown up. Some folk like beer .. guiness especially but I find I'm just not much of a beer person. The Brandy makes it a little elevated.  This made a huge pot and I ended up freezing several portions that I've been able to take out randomly and heat up quickly this winter for a tasty quick dinner . 

Recipe Below: