Hot Vegetable Salad

Well, I made it through all 21 days (23 days, actually) of the vegan kickstart.  I was pretty pleased with that, since I was really only trying to see how long I could last without cheese.  And now I know.

Now that I'm back to being a regular old vegetarian, I decided to attempt a knockoff of California Dreaming's Hot Vegetable Salad.  Mind you, I've never tried it; I was planning to order it at my office's holiday luncheon in 2009 but ended up spending that day at home sick.  Anyhoo, we've had a bunch of produce in the fridge for the past week and I was starting to fret about what to do with all of it when, somehow, I was reminded of this salad.  Mine's not exactly the same (I didn't have any green beans or hearts of palm on hand), but that's all right because the recipe lends itself well to adaptations.

Hot Vegetable Salad:
(Serves two)
1 tbsp Earth Balance
4 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 yellow squash, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 orange bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and halved
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
6-7 ounces fresh spinach leaves
1 vine-ripened tomato, diced
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp shredded Asiago cheese
1 tbsp shredded Parmesan cheese

Heat Earth Balance and 1 tbsp olive oil in nonstick pan over medium heat.  Add squash, peppers and garlic and saute until peppers begin to soften, about 5 minutes.  Add artichokes, salt, pepper and thyme and continue to cook until peppers and squash are tender but not mushy, another 3-5 minutes.  Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, combine salt, pepper, lemon juice and remaining olive oil in a bowl.  Add the dressing to the spinach leaves and tomato and toss well.  Place the spinach and tomato on two 9-inch plates, cover each bed of spinach with half of the cooked vegetables and top each salad with equal amounts of Parmesan and Asiago.
***
Did I mention that it's equally tasty and easy to put together?  This is easily one of my shortest blog posts that actually contained a recipe!

Give this a try whenever you have a bunch of veggies you don't have any ideas for.  Maybe even use some of your veggies in the salad and some in a soup recipe on a soup-and-salad night!  If you happen to have veggies (hot or cold) left over from the salad, maybe use them in a wrap the next day with a little more cheese (and/or some drained and rinsed chickpeas or cannellini beans).  So many possibilities!

Have a great week, and hopefully I'll see some you (in the Columbia area) at the Ray Tanner Home Run next week!

Cleaning out the fridge two meals in a row

When I woke up yesterday morning and poured my customary glass of orange juice, I couldn't help but notice the accumulation in the produce drawer:

Luckily, yesterday was a day off (my typical work "week" now being mostly long weekends), so I decided to cook for both lunch and dinner.

For lunch, the zucchini "moussaka" dish from the July 2004 issue of Food and Wine.  They don't seem to have the recipe on their website anymore, so here's a link to one of the times I made it last summer.

Ingredients from the backyard: three yellow squash (instead of zucchini), one green pepper (instead of the onion I didn't have), parsley and mint.

From the store: two tomatoes, a can of chickpeas, a can of tomato sauce (instead of tomato paste), 3/4 cup dry couscous and the rest of the seasonings (garlic, etc.).

The nice thing about this recipe is that it's so easy: I got started around 12:30, including chopping, and it was done and ready to eat by 1:00.  Steve had some as well, and I got to enjoy the leftovers today for lunch.

Later, after a few pages of the book I'm reading and a nice, long nap, dinner time was suddenly around the corner.  No problem - I've got this!

Dinner was spinach risotto-stuffed red peppers and an Al Amir-style salad on the side.

From the store: two large red bell peppers (99 cents each at Bi-Lo), spinach, arborio rice, parmesan...pretty much everything for the peppers.  For the salad: tomato, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

From the backyard: cucumbers, parsley and mint for the salad.

For those who don't live in the Columbia area, Al Amir is a Mediterranean restaurant that serves a salad that's pretty much like tabbouleh minus the bulghur wheat.  It's a very cool, refreshing summer salad that's easy to make and delicious - especially if you're using fresh, sweet cucumbers from the backyard or fresh from a local farm.

And here's what we ended up with!

So, while I did make a sizeable dent in the produce selection pictured above, I still have one zucchini, one yellow squash and some of the spinach in the fridge, plus the head of broccoli that Steve picked up when he went grocery shopping at the end of the day.  So, in the next day or two I'll figure out what I'm going to do with them...

Stay cool, everybody.  If you live in Columbia city limits and get any significant rainfall (like on Monday night), do me a favor and send those storm clouds to the northeast after a few minutes.  We could use an inch or three up here!

Lemon balm pesto stuffed shells

As I mentioned last time, my lemon balm plant was getting pretty overgrown before I went out there with a measuring cup and removed all the big leaves until I had two fairly packed cups.  I went back inside as soon as that task was completed, since summer's already here and it's too hot mid-afternoon to spend more time outside than necessary, and promptly washed off the lemon balm and made lemon balm pesto.  This recipe was the inspiration, but I ended up making it more like a traditional pesto by adding a quarter cup of pine nuts and salt and pepper to taste.  A few days later (yesterday, in fact), I picked up some jumbo shells, crushed tomatoes and ricotta at Publix and made stuffed shells using the lemon balm pesto. 

I'm not the world's most enthusiastic baker, especially when it's hot outside, but this was every bit as tasty as my best-ever lasagna (the vegan one) and much easier to make since no layers are involved.  I now also have a favorite brand of crushed tomatoes - Dei Fratelli.  I never would have expected there to be a difference between brands of crushed tomatoes, and I generally buy the store brand or whatever's cheap.  Well, the Dei Fratelli ones were thick enough that I could have used them as the main ingredient in a lasagna sauce without having to cook it down for an hour and make a big mess on the stove, splatter guard or no splatter guard.  But I digress...

Again, the lemon balm stuffed shells recipe at the site above, where the pesto recipe came from, was the basis for last night's dinner, but I used more like one cup of the pesto (one recipe, not a double batch) and a 15-ounce container of ricotta plus another half-cup or so of grated parm.  I skipped the onion because I didn't have any.  And I didn't exactly use an entire box of the shells - maybe 30 out of 36 shells went into the pot, and I still had six left over when I ran out of the stuffing.  Oh, well - 24 stuffed shells filled my 13 x 9 inch baking dish along with the red sauce (half the can of crushed tomatoes, 4 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper to taste and about two teaspoons of dried thyme from the backyard) that I poured over it to keep the shells from drying out.  No foil, just in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes.

Nice and lemony!  Between the lemon balm and the thyme, this turned out to be a very brightly-flavored dish even without using lemon juice or zest.  Plus, since it doesn't take that long to bake and the pesto and even the pesto-ricotta mixture can be prepared ahead of time, it's a relatively easy dish to make after a long day at work.  Just do some prep work ahead of time, come home and cook the shells, stuff 'em, pour some sauce over the top and in the oven they go!  They also make fantastic leftovers.

It's a hot one out there...stay cool everybody!

Look who finally cooked again!

I know it's been a while, but new demands on my time (mainly the new job I started a couple of weeks ago) plus school have made it hard for me to spend time on the computer for recreation - or cook as per usual.  So, updates will probably be scant through the end of April, but I appreciate your patience and look forward to being able to both cook and blog again more often!

Truth be told, the next time I cooked after the last post was a massive fail.  I had this idea that a soybean cassoulet might be a really good idea, and it really wasn't.  The first mistake was putting the soybeans in the slow cooker: that alone, on the low setting, took three days, with onions, carrots and rosemary added on the last day, and it really didn't taste good at all.  Luckily it was vegan, because some of it ended up in the compost bin.  That cured me of my momentary fascination with the dried soybean.  For most of the next week or two, I just ate frozen dinners or made simple spinach salads followed by wine and cheese for dinner. 

When it started warming up again and I realized I had some week-old lemons and an untouched package of celery of indeterminate age in the fridge, it seemed like a good time to try out a new pasta salad recipe.  Twisty egg noodles from Wal-Mart, two chopped tomatoes, a tablespoon of capers, chopped celery and onion sauteed in olive oil (just enough to soften them, but not enough to get rid of all their crunch), a dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice, dried Italian herbs and pepper.  Mix it all together, chill for two hours and add shredded or shaved Parmesan to taste (try 1/2 cup to start).

More recently, I reprised the easy vegetarian cassoulet recipe, only I made it vegan by substituting nutritional yeast (2 tablespoons) for the cheese and used veggie base to make the broth.  This recipe took care of some chopped onion left over from another recipe as well as the remaining celery.  Sometimes I'm afraid to do vegan too often, lest my flirtation with veganism cause me to have a B-12 deficiency, but the yeast takes care of that.  Read here for more on that.

And most recently, an untouched bag of baby spinach from Publix inspired a pasta dish based on my favorite spinach salad: whole wheat linguine cooked al dente, 6 ounces (about 2/3 of a bag) chopped fresh spinach cooked in olive oil, juice from half a lemon, a pinch of nutmeg, and crumbled feta and fresh ground pepper added at the end.  Mix it all together, and voila!  This tasted great, but I was chagrined to see the spinach turn brown when I added the lemon juice to the hot pan before it was done cooking.  It also brought back memories of the childhood invisible ink trick - write something in lemon juice, let it dry, then run a hot iron over the piece of paper and watch it turn brown.  Oh, well - next time I'll just drizzle it on at the end like I would with the salad. 

Another reason I haven't knocked myself out to cook as often is that - aside from Steve easing up on the produce purchases and the fact that I never shop if I can help it - they actually have decent food where I work now, and it's easy to think to myself, Self, a bowl of veggie soup is just two bucks downstairs.  But as long as I have raw materials, I'll be doing my best to use them rather than make lunch from cash. 

Until next time...

Steve's pistachio asparagus pesto

Wednesday's surprise dinner.  All I could think about from 3:00 on was how hungry I was, and after hoping all the way home that I'd have the patience to make something and not just plop down on the sofa with some cashews and beer, I walked in the door and discovered that Steve had just finished making this!  What a treat!

(Loosely based on this recipe.)

1 lb asparagus
3/4 cup pistachio nuts
1 tbsp garlic
3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
10 oz whole wheat rotini pasta

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add asparagus and cook for 4 minutes submerged. Remove from the water and shock in a bowl of ice water. Drain and then place on a cutting board.

Slice off the asparagus tips at about 3/4 inch and set aside. Toss the bottom 1/5 of the stalks.  Finely chop the rest.

2. Add the garlic to a food processor along with 4 tablespoons of the pistachios, olive oil, lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Blend until the pistachios are crushed and the asparagus is coarsely chopped.

3. Add the pasta to a pot of boiling water. Cook for 10-12 Min.. Drain and cool.

4. Add the pesto and stir well. 

5. Chop up the remaining pistachios add with the remaining chopped asparagus

6. Add the grated Parmesan and mix lightly.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot or cold.

I had mine hot last night and again for lunch today, and it was delish!  Steve had his as a pasta salad today and added chopped tomato and a dash of cayenne pepper.  Think I'll do the same tomorrow!
Steve hardly ever cooks unless I'm out of town - not because he can't or doesn't want to, but because I usually beat him to the kitchen in the early evening.  And maybe because, I don't know, I'm a little territorial in the kitchen?  He's always asking if he can help with anything, and I always tell him no unless my hands are full and something needs to be stirred.  But he picked a great night for a nice surprise and a nice dinner.  As far as I'm concerned, I got a two-for!

Leek and fennel pie with gazpacho

Last night I had a lot of stuff to get rid of (story of my life), so I made this pie to dispense with the last of the green leeks as well as the fennel bulb that I didn't use in the pigeon pea soup.  I made the gazpacho first so that it would have time to chill, and then I got started on the pie.  This recipe was the basis for the gazpacho that I made, but I did change it up a little.  Steve said he didn't care for a gazpacho that wasn't completely smooth.  I nearly left some chopped veggies out of the blender for myself but then decided that putting all of it in the blender would at least keep me from taking a bite and thinking, "Holy onion, Batman!"  So in the blender it all went and then chilled for two hours.

Gazpacho:

3 ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced

2 small cucumbers, seeded and diced

2 red-and-green bell peppers, seeded and diced

1 red onion, chopped

1/3 cup parsley, chopped

2 tbsp lime juice

2 cups tomato juice

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

While that was in the fridge I made the pie.  I don't usually do savory pies, so I really didn't know what I was getting into, but I figured that my limited experience with casseroles and fruit pies would get me through.  Plus I knew what I wanted the result to be, so I did my best to pull it off:

Leek and fennel pie:

1 store-bought deep-dish pie crust

3/4 cup parmesan cheese

3 tbsp Smart Balance

3 tbsp flour

2 cups milk

pinch of nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp Smart Balance

1 fennel bulb (about 1.5 cups), diced

1-2 leeks (dark green parts only), halved lengthwise and chopped 1/4 inch

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt 3 tbsp of Smart Balance in a small, non-stick saucepan over medium-low heat.  Add flour and stir well to avoid clumping.  Gradually stir in milk, stirring well to avoid clumping of the sauce.  Stir often once the sauce begins to bubble.  A few minutes after the milk has all been added, add 1/4 cup parmesan.  Continue to stir often (skim the bottom well to avoid burning) until the sauce is thick enough to start coming away from the non-stick surface when stirred (could be 20-30 minutes). 

Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp Smart Balance in a separate pan over medium heat.  Add fennel, salt and pepper and saute until fennel has softened, about 10 minutes.  Add diced leeks and continue to cook until all vegetables are tender, another 5-7 minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.

Once the sauce is ready for the fennel and leeks to be mixed in, remove the pie crust from the refrigerator and sprinkle 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese over the bottom.  Add the filling to the pie crust, sprinkle the remaining parmesan cheese over the top.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes.  If the crust is browning too fast, brush with water after about 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 45 minutes.

I actually didn't do the last part; I only let it cool for 15, which made the cutting somewhat messy.  I had a feeling that might happen, which is why I snapped the picture before cutting.  It seemed to thicken up on our plates, though, and still tasted pretty good.  Steve pointed out that eggs (listed in some of the leek tart recipes I looked at) might have shortened the cooking time, but, well, some of us can't do eggs.  So I guess the lesson learned here is patience - and maybe also that some recipes should be started 3+ hours ahead of time?

In any case, the gazpacho provided a nice, cool, zippy counterbalance to the pie.  There's still plenty of both leftover, so I may take the night off before cooking again...

Five Recipes, One Busy Week

As much as I hate doing this - it's been a busier week than usual for cooking, but also in other areas of my life - here's a summary of the five or six things I've made since I picked up my last Pinckney's stash for the summer:

Top left: I made this chunky garden pasta recipe with about five tomatoes (one big one from Pinckney's and four small ones from the backyard!), two green bell peppers, the last three banana peppers (I've been chopping these small and pretending they're onions; I still don't know what people even want these for besides pickling), one largish zucchini from the backyard, herbs (fresh thyme and dried oregano), chopped garlic, salt and pepper.  Basically, saute everything but the tomatoes for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes (after dunking in boiling water and peeling) and simmer until you have a sauce.  Then I ladled it over wheat linguini and topped it with shredded parm.

Friday was a day at home doing chores, but I did find time to throw this salad together using a couple of small tomatoes and a generous helping of the green leaf salad that Steve bought on Thursday.  Friday night he went out and bought a whole roasted chicken from Piggly Wiggly, so that's what we ended up having for dinner, plus a similar salad on the side.

For lunch on Saturday, we still had half the roasted chicken in the fridge, so I warmed that up, pulled back the skin and sprinkled on some Cavender's Greek seasoning.  For sides, I made Greek-style vegetable sides: zucchini and tomatoes (zucchini from the garden plus about half a cup of tomato juice; the latter saved me some peeling and chopping) and carrots with ground cloves, fresh parsley and thyme.



Sunday I made a couple of things I haven't photographed yet because when I was done cooking, neither of us wanted to eat hot food.  (We went out for lunch on Sunday and ran a couple of errands while it was hot as blazes, and my car has a black interior and no a/c.)  Of the two items that were packed up as leftovers, one was Thiaka, a recipe from my Haitian cookbook that basically calls for frying up a small quantity of finely chopped pickled veggies and cubed salt pork (I made it vegetarian but would have used pancetta had I been so inspired) and then mixing in polenta and kidney beans.  The other was Fassolia Plaki, which is basically a Greek bean casserole (I used the butter beans that came in my stash) plus a chopped carrot, a peeled tomato, chopped parsley and fresh thyme, plus salt, pepper and oregano.  Both are pretty simple, although the polenta part took a while because I used the fresh corn to make the polenta and, once again, had to add water to my three ears' worth in the blender and then cook it on the stove until most of the water evaporated out.  Next time I guess I'll just buy a fourth ear or corn to make life easier.

I wasn't quite sure where to go with the blog once my Pinckney's subscription ran out for the summer, since the fall season doesn't start until September.  As it turns out, the peppers in the backyard are doing nicely, as are the zucchini and all the herbs.  To supplement what I already have, I might see what City Roots has to offer and, to the extent possible, buy more in between Steve's trips to the store.

Hope the summer's treating you well and that you're enjoying good food and weather (by which I mean the first sort-of rainy summer in South Carolina in over a decade) and all the other things that make it special!

Lima Beans and Turkey Smoked Sausage with Fresh Corn Polenta

This is about as country as my cooking gets.  I still had a bunch of veggies left from Thursday, and I'll get getting more in a couple of days.  I had no idea what I'd do with the lima beans at first; succotash came to mind, but for some reason I only ever want that in winter.  So, I hunted for a recipe and found this one, which called for chicken.  Since I just made chicken the other night, I figured I'd slightly alter the recipe to something just as flavorful (turkey smoked sausage) that wouldn't require so much effort.  Because of all the veggies I still had on hand, I almost made this without the smoked sausage so as to sneak in another veggie or two, but hey - make what you're in the mood for, right?

Lima beans with turkey smoked sausage:
2 cups fresh lima beans, rinsed and sorted
3 cups vegetable broth
2 tbsp canola oil
8 oz. turkey smoked sausage, cut in half lengthwise and sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 tbsp canola oil
3 mild banana peppers, finely chopped
2 tbsp flour
pepper to taste

Bring 3 cups of vegetable broth to a boil.  Add lima beans, cover and simmer on medium for 20 minutes.

In a wide, shallow pan, heat 2 tbsp canola oil over medium heat.  Add turkey smoked sausage and saute until warmed, about 3-5 minutes.  Add green bell pepper and continue cooking until smoked sausage begins to brown, another 5 minutes.  Transfer smoked sausage and bell pepper mixture to a plate, keeping as much of the pan drippings in the pan as possible, and set aside.

Add another tbsp canola oil to the pan.  Once heated, add banana peppers and saute on medium heat until they begin to brown, about 5 minutes.  Stir in 2 tbsp flour and continue cooking until flour-oil mixture begins to brown (stir often to keep it from burning).  Pour in cooked lima beans and all remaining broth and stir well.  Stir in reserved smoked sausage and bell peppers.  Continue to cook, uncovered, until sauce has thickened to desired consistency.  Check seasoning and add pepper to taste.

Fresh corn polenta:
3 ears fresh corn, baked with husks on
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Remove all husks and threads from corn after baking.  Cut corn off the cob using a serrated knife.  Place corn kernels in a blender with water and puree until smooth.  Pour polenta into a saucepan and heat to medium.  Stir constantly when it starts to bubble, and continue cooking, stirring often, until desired thickness is reached.  Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan cheese.

The end result was okay, although my original plan had been to make the polenta thick enough to form wells on the plate and spoon the smoked sausage and lima beans into that, making it a somewhat more sophisticated take on Southern cooking.  Turns out that if you want to put corn in a blender, you need at least four ears' worth if you don't want to have to add liquid.  Oh, well.  On the bright side, I learned as we were finishing up that Steve was still pretty full from the chicken l'orange he had for lunch!

Barcelona Chicken and Spinach Risotto

Friday's dinner. This recipe didn't use up any of my Pinckney's stash from Thursday, but it did take care of a bag of spinach that wasn't long for this world. I also had about half a can of stuffed olives that I had bought for this recipe a while back, plus a small amount of very dry sherry (also bought for this recipe in the winter) and some chicken breast tenders in the freezer.

The Barcelona chicken is a variation on a recipe from the "Espagne" chapter of La cuisine autour de la mediterranee*, and I still don't remember about the spinach risotto (Giada or Emeril?). When I have peppers, the risotto is one of my favorite stuffings for them, but it also makes a great side dish all by itself.

Barcelona chicken (Pollo al Jerez):
2 tbsp olive oil
1 package chicken breast tenders (8 or 9)
2 tbsp flour
1 cup very dry sherry
12-15 pimiento-stuffed green olives
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a wide, shallow saucepan. Salt and pepper the chicken on both sides and add to the pan (work in batches if needed) and cook for 5-7 minutes, until chicken is most of the way cooked. Remove and set aside.
Add flour to the pan and stir carefully to keep lumps from forming. Add sherry and stir well. Bring to a boil for one minute, then reduce to a simmer. Add the chicken back to the pan, along with the olives. Cover and simmer until chicken is cooked, about 8-10 minutes. Remove lid and cook until sauce has thickened, about 3-5 more minutes. When serving, drizzle the sauce over the chicken and olives.

Spinach risotto:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup uncooked arborio rice
3 cups chicken broth (2 cups broth diluted by 1 cup water)
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan
8 oz. fresh spinach, chopped small and steamed in microwave
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add arborio rice and stir to coat.

Meanwhile, bring 3 cups of broth and water to a boil. Lower heat and begin adding, half to 3/4 cup at a time, to the pan containing the rice. Stir often, adding more broth as it is absorbed by the rice. Continue until all broth has been added to the rice. Add Parmesan and pepper and stir well. Check seasoning and add salt if needed. Add steamed spinach and stir until blended.

One word about the diluted broth: I haven't always diluted the broth, but I have found in the past that if you don't do this, or use low-sodium broth, the addition of Parmesan at the end can make the end result a little too salty.

Since it nearly reached 100 degrees on Friday, we weren't exactly starving by the time I started cooking. Any type of chicken will do, but I prefer the boneless, skinless kind for quick meals (and to be sure that it cooked through) and for smaller pieces that you can serve a lot of or just a couple, depending on how hungry you are. All in all, this one turned out really well, and I'm really looking forward to the leftovers!

Zucchini and Yellow Squash Lasagna

I actually skipped yoga Tuesday night so that I could come home and make this - not to eat right away, just to use up all the zucchini and yellow squash before the next Pinckney's produce pickup. (How alliterative.) I also had a green bell pepper, ricotta and a couple of boxes of lasagna noodles; otherwise, this might have been a zucchini moussaka.

I just cut into it today (Friday) for lunch and was instantly reminded that my removal of portions from baking pans leaves a little to be desired. (This really was in layers when I baked it.) Oh, well - what can you really tell about food by looking at it, anyway?

Ingredients:
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp dry Italian herbs (oregano, margoram, etc.)
salt and pepper
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
3 medium zucchini, sliced 1/2 inch thick crosswise
4 medium yellow squash, sliced 1/2 inch thick crosswise
1 cup plus 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 16 oz. container of ricotta cheese
2 tsp dry Italian herbs
salt and pepper
5 wheat lasagna noodles

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in the saucepan to be used for the sauce. Add the bell pepper, garlic, herbs, salt and pepper and saute until the pepper has softened, about 5 minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes, stir well and simmer uncovered until sauce has thickened significantly (you may need a splatter guard), about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the sliced zucchini and squash on plates (1 slice high), salt liberally and store in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, rinse and pat dry with paper towels. If water continues to come out, pat them with a dry paper towel as needed.

When the sauce has about 10 minutes of cooking time left, boil enough water in another saucepan to cover the lasagna noodles. Add lasagna noodles and cook until tender, about 10 minutes or according to directions on box.

While lasagna noodles are cooking, combine 1 cup parmesan cheese with ricotta cheese, 2 tsp Italian herbs, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

When sauce is ready, spoon just enough to cover the bottom of a non-stick bread-loaf-sized baking pan and spread evenly. Place two cooked lasagna noodles side by side on top of the sauce, carefully trim and slack and set aside. Add 1/3 of the ricotta cheese mix, 1/3 of the zucchini and squash (filling any gaps with the smaller pieces from the neck of the squash) and 1/3 of the remaining sauce. Repeat the layering two more times. The final layer of pasta should be made up of reserved pieces from the first two layers of lasagna noodles plus one intact lasagna noodle. Once the last of the lasagna noodles and sauce have been added to the baking pan, sprinkle the remaining parmesan cheese on top.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until cheese is golden brown and juices are bubbling. Let cool for about 15 minutes. Serve or store in refrigerator.