Pepper and Squash Parmesan

For a variety of reasons, we decided not to take a vacation away from home this year. So instead, Jeff has taken this week off from work, and we are having our own little "staycation." We have lots of fun, family activities planned! We started the week off by going down to a local water splash park. It was good, free fun.

After a couple of hours at the park, we had planned to eat at a favorite, local pizza joint. Unfortunately, we forgot it is closed on Mondays. So we the kids ate Taco Bell instead. I waited until we got home so I could fix myself something a bit healthier. And then I proceeded to eat my weight in Muddy Buddies. *sigh*

In other news, we went to my brother-in-law's house last weekend. He has a garden, and he very generously shared a bit of his harvest. I was super excited about this spaghetti squash in particular.

I have been wanting to try spaghetti squash forever, and I haven't been able to find them (when I actually remembered to check) at our local grocery stores. Even more exciting was that I had just pinned this recipe from Pinterest last week, so I immediately knew how I was going to prepare it.

Here's the cast.

First, you need to cook your spaghetti squash. I did not follow the directions that were with the recipe for this part. Instead, I followed these instructions from Chelsea Eats Treats.

I weighed my squash by stepping on the scale with and without the squash and doing a little subtraction. The squash was around 4 lbs. First, I stabbed it with a sharp knife quite a few times. Then I put it in a microwaveable dish and cooked it on high for about 16 minutes.

When it was finished cooking, I sliced the squash in half.

Then I scooped out the seeds and the slimier looking strands.

While the squash was cooking, I sliced a couple of bell peppers. I didn't have a green one like the recipe called for, so I just used what I had on hand.

Next, I sauteed the peppers in a tablespoon of olive oil until they started to brown. Then I added the cooked squash and spaghetti sauce to the peppers.

Finally, I added the parmesan cheese and served up a plateful.

This was delicious! I questioned whether it would really be very filling, but it was great! I loved it, and I can't wait to try spaghetti squash again soon.

Fun fact: Spaghetti squash has only 42 calories per cup! AND if you eat spaghetti once each week and replaced traditional noodles with spaghetti squash, you would lose 2.5 lbs. over the course of a year! Without even trying! 

Pepper and Squash Parmesan

• 1 medium spaghetti squash
• 2 bell peppers, sliced
• 3 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup spaghetti sauce
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil

1. Using a sharp knife, stab slits in squash. Place the squash in a microwaveable dish and cook for 4 - 5 minutes per pound. The squash is cooked when you can easily press down on the outside skin. Slice the squash in half and remove the seeds and slimier-looking strands.

2. While spaghetti squash is in microwave, heat skillet on high and saute bell peppers in olive oil until peppers start to brown. 

3. Turn heat down to medium. With a fork, scoop spaghetti squash into pan with peppers. Add Parmesan and sauce. Mix all ingredients together over heat for 3 minutes, or until warm.

Question of the Day:

What's your favorite way to prepare spaghetti squash?

Try Something New Tuesday: Veggie Lasagna

So I recently got it in my head that I wanted to do a veggie lasagna for a Try Something New Tuesday post. I really don't know where the idea came from, but it definitely sounded good to me. I'm not a huge ground meat person, so mixing it up with veggies instead sounded like a win/win.

I looked at a number of recipes for veggie lasagna before ultimately deciding that I already had a pretty darn good recipe for regular lasagna so why couldn't I just add veggies to that and take out the meat?!? And that's exactly what I did. Here's the cast: 

I started with the veggies. I knew if I was going to really sell this to my kids, these babies were going to have to be small...as in practically microscopic. So I pulled out my Cuisinart food processor. 

I have used my food processor for purees and chopping veggies many times, but I had never used it for shredding anything. And being the nerd forward-thinking person that I am, I had watched the introductory video that came with the food processor when I got it a few years back. I distinctly remembered that you could definitely shred vegetables. After a few minutes and a quick review of the owner's manual that I had safely filed under "food processor" in my filing cabinet, I had it all figured out. Because I'm a complete geek awesome like that.

I started with zucchini. Look what the Cuisinart did!!! And it took about 2 milliseconds. No joke. Aren't they beautiful?!?

Next, I decided to shred a bell pepper. Because shredding is super fun. And I wanted more. I went with a red pepper because I figured it's pretty much the same color as the sauce so I could hide it easily. Oh, and the red ones are extra good for you. But it didn't shred as well as the zucchini.

It was really just finely chopped. So I decided to do the next bell pepper (an orange one...my color-matching logic again) with the standard chopping blade. I added about a quarter of a large red onion as well.

A few pulses and these little gems were cut down to kiddie-approved size.

Next I emptied 2 jars of pasta sauce into a large bowl.

Then I added the veggies to the pasta sauce.

Now I'm going to point out right here that you could absolutely chop up your veggies larger than these. However, if you choose to do that, I'm going to recommend roasting them a little or sauteing them in some olive oil before adding them to the lasagna. My vegetables were able to fully cook with the dish because they were so small, but larger veggies would probably need to be pre-cooked.

Back to my microscopic vegetables. My next step was to stir them into the sauce along with a little water. See - they're practically invisible!!!

Next up was the cheese mixture. First I cooked a package of frozen spinach according to the package directions. While it cooled, I mixed together my mozzarella, parmesan, cottage cheese and eggs.

Afterward, I put the spinach into a strainer and squeezed out all the liquid I could.

Then I placed the spinach on paper towels and blotted off more excess liquid.

Finally it was time to add the spinach to my cheese mixture.

At last it was time to assemble the lasagna! I started by spraying a foil pan really well with some Pam.

I then took about 3/4 cup of my sauce mixture and covered the bottom of the pan with it. This is the trick my mom taught me so you don't have to precook your lasagna noodles. You don't even have to buy the no-boil noodles. Any old lasagna noodle will do.

Next, I layered lasagna noodles across the pan. I would typically use 4 noodles for this, but this pan was extra large so I had to use part of a 5th noodle across the top.

Then I layered on about 1/3 of the cheese mixture,

and 1/3 of the remaining sauce mixture.

I repeated the noodle, cheese, sauce layers two more times. 

Then I cooked it at 400 degrees for about an hour and a half. I covered it with foil for the first hour and removed the foil for the last 30 minutes of cooking. Here's the finished product.

The verdict???

The kids ALL loved it. Jeff missed his meat, as I knew he would. I thought it was amazing! I much prefer it to the meaty variety. And for under 400 calories for one-twelfth of the pan, I was SOLD!!! 

Veggie Lasagna

• Any fresh veggies you want! I used 2 medium zucchinis, 2 bell peppers, & 1/4 of a large red onion.
• 1 package frozen spinach
• 2 jars spaghetti sauce
• 1 lg. container cottage cheese
• 1 lb. (4 cups) mozzarella cheese
• 3/4 cup parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• 12 lasagna noodles (any variety)
• 1/3 cup water

~Chop your fresh veggies to desired size. In a large bowl, combine spaghetti sauce, fresh veggies and water. Set aside. Cook spinach according to package directions. Drain spinach well and pat dry with paper towels. In another large bowl, combine mozzarella, parmesan and cottage cheeses with eggs. Stir in spinach. Spray pan well with nonstick spray. Spread 3/4 c. of sauce mixture in bottom of pan. Then layer: 4 noodles, 1/3 cheese mixture, and 1/3 of remaining sauce mixture. Repeat 2 more times. **There is NO need to precook your noodles.** Cover with foil. Bake at 400 degrees for 1-1/2 hours. Remove foil for last 30 minutes of baking. Remove from oven, and let sit 10 minutes.