Vegetarian Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I wish I could report this recipe was a resounding success, but no. I subbed mushrooms for all the meat, and it was pretty good, but my husband’s verdict was that it was just not savory enough to replace the meat. The less is more philosophy of this lasagne just didn’t work here. We wanted tomato sauce, or more sauce in general. It was too dry and too much pasta. Also, I am not that crazy about the eggy flavor of homemade lasagne noodles.

Another complaint: really, really hard work making the noodles. This recipe took me two days! Never again! My arm so much from rolling out the noodles, I was tossing and turning that night, thinking I had pulled a tendon or something.

 

Vegetable Frittata with Salsa

I was paging through the cookbook Cuisine of California, by Diane Rossen Worthington and I came across this vegetable frittata recipe. I suggested it for dinner, but my husband was leery of trying something new.

“I just want comfort food,” he objected. “Comfort food,” I have found, is my husband’s favorite euphmism for “food I don’t have to pretend to like.”

“I think you will like it,”  I said.

“Mmph,” my husband replied. “I just want a plain omelet with cheese and zucchini.”

“OK. Fine”

Pumpkin Bisque with Curry and Pear

After a very trying culinary experience yesterday (a recipe that took 2 days to make and my husband didn’t even like it!), I made a recipe that has it all: easy, exotic, sophisticated, delicious, easily made with pantry ingredients, and, oh, did I mention super easy?

Pumpkin Bisque with Curry and Pear comes from Hip Kosher by Ronnie Fein.

Vegetarian Mexican, Again

“Another home run,” my husband said. “Straight to the blog!”

Okay. So he liked what I made for dinner. The problem is that I’m not sure what to call what I made. I was going to  use vegetarian “ground beef” to make a veggie version of the Pasta alla Malboro Man from Pioneer Woman, and then I was going to make veggie sloppy Joes. In the end, I kind of made something in between  and served it with brown rice, guacamole, salsa, and tortilla chips. It was good, whatever it should be called.

Eating Up My Pantry: Curried Coconut Noodles and Tofu Stir-Fry

Have you heard about the eGullet challenge to skip your weekly grocery shopping and just live off the bounty already in your pantry/freezer/fridge? I’m so there!

Part of the challenge involves posting your meals under this week-long experiment. So far, I have finished off the pizza dough in the fridge, made veggie tacos, and prepared curried coconut noodles (Curried Noodles with Cashews in Coconut Sauce from Simple Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin, pp.245-6). Tonight, I turned leftover curried coconut noodles into another meal by combining them with a tofu stir-fry.

Tasty Lentil Tacos: “Taste of Home” Run

I made a modified version of Tasty Lentil Tacos (The Taste of Home Cookbook) (recipe also on Taste of Home website). My husband really, really loved this dinner. I know this because I heard him muttering under his breath, as he contemplated taking another serving, “I don’t want this meal to ever end.”

I took some extra effort with the taco shells, frying them myself from fresh corn tortillas. But, I took some shortcuts with the filling. Even so, it was off the charts good.