Simple Vegetable Lasagna

**If you would prefer this recipe be vegan, then substitute vegan cheese for the cheese, and substitute a smashed firm tofu, salted with nutritional yeast, basil, olive oil, and a smidge of sugar in place of the ricotta. I have decided I much prefer real, organic, dairy to processed vegan "dairy" but the vegan route of this recipe is delicious too!

What you will need:
Two+ cups of marinara sauce (see my homemade recipe, previous to this one)
Olive oil
1/2 an onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 eggplant, peeled and diced
1 cup of spinach, washed
1 10 ounce package of gluten free lasagna noodles
1 1/2 cups of ricotta (I prefer full fat, organic ricotta-- I think being satisfied with my meals what keeps me lean, personally)
1 handful of fresh basil, minced
Black pepper
Salt
1/4 cup of shredded parmesan
1 cup of shredded asiago, romano, mozzarella, and parmesan (use whatever combination makes you happy)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and begin your lasagna making ritual by having your sauce ready-- in my case I prepare mine right before making this recipe.
Then, boil ten quart pot of water for your lasagna noodles.
This is the kind I buy when I don't feel like making pasta from scratch:

While the water is boiling, saute the onion, in a pan on medium high in a scant amount of olive oil, until it becomes translucent. Add garlic and diced eggplant. Add a bit of broth or water if the eggplant begins to stick. Cook until the eggplant is soft, about 7 minutes.

Once your eggplant is soft, add your spinach, and a pinch of salt for taste. And remove from heat. The spinach will wilt on its own between being with the warm eggplant and once it goes into the oven to bake in the lasagna.

If the water is boiling at this point, add your lasagna noodles and keep a timer-- you want them al dente as they will continue to get soft in the oven once they are baking.

Add your ricotta cheese to a bowl with a pinch of pepper, the minced fresh basil as well as fresh grated parmesan.

Drain your lasgana noodles when they are ready and rinse they gently with cold water to keep them from sticking to one another.

Grate your cheese--- on this occasion I used a mixture of asiago, mozzarella and parmesan. You can use any combination or single cheese that you would like.

Now you can start your lasagna, on this evening I was making two small lasagnas, so I used two 8x8" baking dishes. Normally you can use a 13x9" or so rectangular baking dish.

You don't need to grease it, instead put a layer of marinara sauce down FIRST to keep things from sticking :) then add an even layer of noodles.

Then add a layer of evenly placed ricotta mixture and a sprinkle of cheese.

Add another layer of noodles and then a thin layer of cheese (remember the cheese is what binds this whole recipe together, having a little cheese on every layer will make it more manageable to serve!) vegetables and a smidgen of marinara sauce.

Depending on how much filling you have, repeat until you have enough noodles for a final top layer, then add a generous amount of sauce and finish your grated cheese.

 In this particular case I was able to make two small 8x8 three-layer lasagnas.

Bake, covered with aluminum foil at 350 for 30 minutes.

:) Enjoy xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo

Marinara ala Sacchitella

You know, when you are Italian everything "is aboutta-da-sauce." So, growing up, there were two different sauces; there was the simple, elegant sauce my grandmother made, and...the sauce my dad made.

The sauce my dad made defied my grandmother's traditional recipe, which was my dad's underlying purpose I believe, because he put everything-- I mean everything-- in his sauce. He had sort of a if-one-thing-then-why-not-ten attitude in the kitchen. His marinara included tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, olive oil, barbecue sauce, honey, miso, wine, soy sauce, every spice in our spice cabinet...the list goes on. And once, he even put (I wish I was kidding) corn flake IN his sauce. I repeat, IN the sauce: IN it.

He also rebelled against tradition and didn't always pound his chicken flat when making chicken parmesan, so when he served his chunky breaded and fried chicken with his eclectic-flavored tomato sauce, it was more reminiscent of chicken nuggets with some kind of sweet-sour dipping sauce you get from a fast food joint.

(Rene if you are reading this, I know you are laughing really hard right now-- we used to beg our mom when our dad wasn't home just to make us sauce out of the can, we would DAYDREAM about Ragu because it was so different than what our dad served us so often!)

So now that I am an adult and don't have to force myself to eat things I don't like so that I may get up from the table, I have gone back to honoring my grandmother's way of doing things, which I always liked better, anyway.

My grandmother is a simple, woman from a farming family in Sicily. She makes things simply. This sauce is simple. And delicious.



For this family-inspired marinara you will need:

Olive oil
Half of once large yellow onion, peeled and diced
8 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
Dried marjoram and basil
Two 32 ounce cans of organic** whole, peeled tomatoes (I am a stickler for buying all things organic, but with everything BUT I really, really push for people to make sure that mass-produced things, like canned tomatoes are ESPECIALLY high quality, they are even better if you buy them in the jar, but if I bought jarred tomatoes all of the time I might go bankrupt)
Salt


First, coat your sauce pan lightly with olive oil, turn up to medium high and saute your onions until they are translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Turn the heat down to medium and add your garlic. Saute altogether briefly, about a minute, until the garlic starts to soften.

Next, add 1/2 tablespoon of marjoram and 1 tablespoon of basil. Mix up with the onion-garlic mixture. Then add both of your cans of whole tomatoes and if you feel that you need more volume, 1/2 of a cup of water.

With a potato masher (which I do not have!) or a heavy-duty whisk, mash your chunks of tomato into the sauce, while the pan is still on medium heat. 

Once your sauce is a more even consistency, add salt to your taste liking and cover to let it simmer on low for at least 30 minutes-- you can let it simmer on low all day if you would like, my grandma did.

If you like a really garlicky sauce, add 1/2 of the garlic at the beginning and save 1/2 to put in just for the simmering at the end, this will give the sauce a little more zip.

Enjoy with pasta-- or in my next recipe, in lasagna!

xoxo