Low-Cal Pasta Dish? Yes, Please!

My kids love Try Something New Tuesday. Seriously. They get so excited about tasting new foods and helping me make the dishes. As such, my 8-year-old got it in her head a couple of weeks ago that I needed to make spaghetti with vegetables. I think this stemmed from the veggie lasagna I made a couple of months ago (that she LOVED).

As luck would have it, my sister pinned this recipe on Pinterest last week. As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be a good option for my girl's vision. I showed it to her, and we decided it was going to be this week's TSNT post. 

Without further ado, here's the ensemble.

First, you're going to cook your ziti according to the package directions.

Next (or while the ziti is cooking), you need to chop some yellow squash, zucchini and onion. I did this in my food processor. My veggies were somewhere between minced and chopped. Smaller veggies are usually a little easier to persuade my children to eat.

The girl with the chopped/minced veggies.

Next, chop up a couple of tomatoes.

Then you're going to heat some oil in a large skillet. Add the squash, zucchini and onion, and saute for 5 minutes. 

Then add the tomato and some garlic and saute another 3 minutes.

Remove the skillet from the heat and add your pasta, some mozzarella, herbs, salt and pepper. I failed to get a photo of this. It was pretty though. Take my word for it.

In a small bowl, combine the ricotta, some salt and an egg.

Stir the ricotta mixture into the pasta/veggie mix.

Pour into a greased baking dish, and sprinkle with some more mozzarella.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or so.

I'm not sure I can adequately convey how much I loved this dish. The herbs make it. The kids loved it too. They asked if I was going to take photos of them eating it. But since I'm their mother, and even I am sick of photos of them eating and giving a thumbs up, I decided to restrain myself. 

And, although I didn't calculate the nutrition myself, the website said it was 301 calories and 16.5 grams of protein for A QUARTER OF THE PAN!!! I could totally eat a quarter of it. And I did some quick calculations in my head, and that sounds about right.

 Make this. Make it now. With all your summer veggies. You'll thank me later.

Baked Ziti and Summer Veggies

• 4 ounces uncooked ziti (this is about 1/4 of a 16 oz. box)
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 cups chopped yellow squash (I used 1-1/2 very large squash)
• 1 cup chopped zucchini (I used 1 large zucchini)
• 1/2 cup chopped onion (I used 1/2 of an onion)
• 2 cups chopped tomatoes (I used 2 tomatoes)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
• 2 Tbsp. basil
• 2 tsp. oregano (I used Italian seasoning)
• 3/4 tsp. salt, divided
• 1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper
• 1/4 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• cooking spray

1. Cook pasta according to package directions and drain. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan. Add squash, zucchini, and onion; saute 5 minutes. Add tomato and garlic; saute 3 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in pasta, 1/2 cup mozzarella, herbs, 1/2 tsp. salt and pepper.

3. In a small bowl, combine ricotta, remaining salt and egg. Stir into pasta mixture. Spoon into a greased baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until bubbly and brown.

Question of the Day:

What's your favorite summer vegetable?

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.

Zucchini Fries and a Giveaway!

My girl is finally better and back at school. Yea! I celebrated early this morning with Asylum 2's Back & 6-Pack. After the workout, I had my favorite breakfast.

Did you know I'm giving away a sample of Shakeology to one lucky winner?!? All you have to do is go to my facebook page, like it (if you haven't already), then share my page on your timeline. Make sure to comment and let me know that you shared the page so I can enter your name in the drawing. I will choose a winner when I get to 100 likes!

Monday all the stars aligned for Jeff's favorite dinner. Bi-Lo had London Broil and carrots buy one, get one. It seemed as though though the good Lord knew my man needed his meat and potatoes, and I was happy to oblige.

I was looking for something to pair with my roast and settled on zucchini fries. I've been a fan of zucchini since I was a little girl. My mom used to cook it in a can of tomato sauce and top it with some mozzarella cheese. It was my very favorite vegetable as a kid...and I was a pretty picky eater. 

So when I saw the recipe for zucchini fries, I knew I wanted to try them. You'll need about a pound of zucchini, Panko breadcrumbs (I used Italian style), grated parmesan cheese, a couple of eggs, and a splash of milk.

First, cut up your zucchini. When I first made these, I would cut the zucchini up in little slices so that they actually looked like fries. After doing that a few times, I realized it was kind of a pain. It was a pain to chop them, and an even bigger pain to coat them in the breadcrumb mix. So I decided to take a shortcut and just slice them in circles. I have 4 children. I am all about shortcuts.

The thinner you slice them, the more quickly they'll cook and the less they'll taste like zucchini. I am kind of partial to the flavor of zucchini, so mine are a little thicker.

Next mix the breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese in a small bowl.

Take two egg whites and beat them with just a splash of milk. I like to use a pie tin because it makes it easy to dip my zucchini.

Now you want to dip several zucchini slices in the egg mixture. You just want to leave them there long enough to get them nice and wet so the breadcrumbs will stick.

Next it's time to coat them in the breadcrumb mix. WARNING: Do not use all of the breadcrumbs at once!!! If you do, the breadcrumbs will start to get soggy after the first few pieces of zucchini contact them, and they won't stick to the rest of your squash. Instead, just use a little of the breadcrumb mix at a time. I also like to do this in a pie tin.

Place the coated zucchini slices on a foil-lined pan and bake at 425 for 20 - 25 minutes, flipping halfway.

These are delicious alone, but my kids and I especially love to eat them dipped in a little pizza sauce. Even my super-picky 5-year-old will eat these!!! That's nothing short of a miracle around here.

Zucchini Fries

• Approx. 1 lb. zucchini
• 1/2 cup Italian Panko breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 2 egg whites
• splash of milk

~Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with non-stick foil. Cut zucchini into fries. Whisk egg whites and milk in pie tin. Combine crumbs and parmesan. Dip zucchini in egg mixture and then into coating (using only a small amount of coating at a time or breadcrumbs won't stick). Bake 20 - 25 minutes, flipping halfway.

Do you have a favorite simple side dish?