Just Another Herd Creature

Trying my hand at my first veggie lasagna, the sauce is still cooking.  I chopped an onion, regular mushrooms, portobello stems and zucchini into little pieces and then sauteed a bit before I put tomato sauce, tomato paste, roasted garlic and parsley into the mix.  That's been cooking for a few hours.  I want to make sure the sauce has enough flavor because I usually rely on meat and the fat it brings to the party to do that.  I think it's almost done.  I cut the portobello caps into chunk and then sauteed them in a little oil; they are set aside.  I sliced zucchini into fairly thin rounds.  First I sauteed them a little and now I added water, covered and I'm steaming them.  When I build my lasagna, it will be sauce, noodles, ricotta cheese, portobellos, zucchini and mozzarella.  I stayed away from some of the usual ingredients such as broccoli, spinach, eggplant,  & peppers, because of restrictions/dislikes of the family.  Keeping my fingers crossed that it tastes okay. 

I'm never any good at deciding if what I make is very good because I very rarely eat much of what I cook when I do a big dinner. Does anyone else not feel very hungry for their own food.  I know I taste a little here and there as I cook, but even when it's something I really like, I'm almost never hungry by the time I get everything on the table. 

I sauteed them last night and baked them in won-ton wrappers with goat cheese and either crab or shrimp. I would add more cheese and more green onion and garlic next time, but they were tasty.

We bought a big old package of ground beef at Costco. After making all the hamburgers we wanted, dbubley made meatballs the night before last. Tonight I made a mushroom gravy and some ciabatta bread garlic toast. I sauteed mushrooms, sprinkled them with flour and cooked for a couple of minutes. I love the organic soups in a box, esp. for making quick dinners. I added a box of mushroom soup and some water. Added meatballs to warm and the soup thicken.

Here's an example of small, medium and big meatballs. There was plenty of left overs. Yay!