Meatless Monday: Vegetarian Lasagna and Taco Tuesday

Hey! My parents came in to town for my oldest's First Communion so I have been hanging out with them and neglecting to blog. But not neglecting to cook! I love to cook with my parents and since they were the ones that taught me to cook I hope they like cooking with me.

Monday was Meatless of course, so I made a decadent Veggie Lasagna. I used the oven-ready noodles so they needn't be boiled first and put the first layer in the pan with some sauce according to package directions. However I did not have my ricotta mixture ready to go so the pasta was curling up by the time I got ready to put in the next layer. So that's my tip, have everything ready to go before you start assembling the lasagna layers. I mixed my ricotta cheese with 1 beaten egg, 2 tsp of Italian spices (dried), some defrosted and drained and squeezed chopped spinach, 1 grated carrot, and half a grated onion. I put down noodles, ricotta, tiny sprinkle of mozzarella, sauce and repeat until you lay down the top layer of noodles which are only topped with sauce and mozzarella. I baked it for 30 minutes under foil, then removed the foil and baked for 15 more minutes. I served the lasagna with a crispy green salad, but it also goes well with sauteed green beans tossed with a bit of Italian vinaigrette. If you lack ricotta cheese you can sub in some cottage cheese, simply blend the cottage cheese by itself with an immersion blender and then mix with the other ingredients. I swear no one can tell the difference. You can also do a 50/50 mix of ricotta and cottage cheese if you need to.

Tonight (Tuesday) was taco night! My dad made the BEST homemade salsa, I made black beans and yellow rice. My dad actually made the seasoning blend for the beans for me, chopped onion, cilantro and peppered bacon. The results were deee-lish! We seasoned the taco meat with chopped onion and garlic, cumin, adobo, and a bit of chili powder and just a few tablespoons of plain tomato sauce. We toasted some crunchy taco shells, sliced some romaine lettuce, set out the shredded cheese and sour cream and of course Dad's amazing salsa. We also sliced and ate some deliciously decadent avocado, dressed in only salt and lime juice. Fantastic!

I will post Dad's salsa recipe when he gets back from taking some pictures of the sunset. Adios!