Vegetarian Lasagna

Total Cost: $10.00 – Serves 8 at $1.25 per serving

I’m picky about my lasagna. I’ll never order it at a restaurant and don’t trust people that claim the frozen stuff is just as good as homemade. Hell, I don’t even like making my own traditional lasagna, because I know for a fact it’s not going to be as good as my Papaw’s lasagna he makes on Christmas day – a beacon of light and hope in the middle of drab, gross winter.

I’m not equipped with the exact recipe nor the budget to recreate the meaty, cheesy deliciousness that I will always consider the best lasagna east of the Mississippi…so today I’m presenting to you lasagna à la 99¢ Cook. I will not make false promises that this is the best lasagna you’ll ever make for reasons already stated, but I can promise you that this recipe for vegetarian lasagna is absolutely delicious, healthy, very cheap to make, and a regular request from the bacon-loving boyfriend. I, too, am a huge fan of meat, fat, sodium, and carbs (like, #1 fan) but I also know that food can be just as delicious and satisfying without them. There are no processed ingredients in this recipe and I’ve bravely substituted white pasta for wheat. In general I’m not a fan of wheat pasta, but since pasta isn’t really the star of the show here, I actually can’t tell the difference. This vegetarian lasagna is a great alternative to those of you who are on a budget and want a little more vegetable and a little less processed gunk in your life (like all of us, right?).

All ingredients except for the cottage cheese and frozen spinach were purchased at the 99 Cents Only Store.

Ingredients:

1 box of white button mushrooms, chopped (99¢)
1 large eggplant, cubed (99¢)
1 large zucchini, diced small (99¢)
1 white onion, diced (20¢)
1 large carrot, grated (25¢)
1 box of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed of all water (99¢)
16 oz. 4% fat cottage cheese ($2.00)
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded ($2.00)
9 whole wheat lasagna noodles (60¢)
1 can of tomato sauce (99¢)
1 egg
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp. dried basil (fresh if you got it!)
1/2 tsp. granulated garlic
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt & Pepper

Directions: Preheat oven to 375°f (190°c). Boil lasagna noodles ’til al dente and set aside with a little oil so they won’t stick together. In a bowl, mix cottage cheese, egg, spinach, basil, and a little pepper to taste. Set aside. Cover bottom of a large non-stick skillet (biggest one you have) with olive oil on medium heat. It will seem like a lot of olive oil but it’s really needed because eggplant and mushrooms are notorious for soaking up and hogging all the oil. Once heated, add red pepper flakes, Italian seasoning, granulated garlic, onion powder, salt, and pepper to the oil. Cook for a minute just to bring out the flavor of the spices. Add all vegetables to the skillet. It will look like way too much at first, but it will shrink by half. Sauté on medium high heat until all the water has left the vegetables and has cooked off. This takes some patience – maybe 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. It’s done when the vegetables completely softened, almost paste-like, and sticking to the pan. See here:

Before

After

Everything is ready to build your lasagna, now. Put some sauce in the bottom of an 11 x 7″ baking dish, then start stacking: noodles, vegetables, cottage cheese mix, sauce, a light sprinkling of mozzarella, repeat. A good tip is to portion your fillings by thirds before you start adding them to the layers (don’t dirty a bunch of dishes doing this, just draw some lines in them). The top layer should be heavier on the mozzarella. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 30 more minutes until cheese is golden brown and sides are crispy. Here’s the important part – let it sit! Don’t touch it for 20 minutes or you’ll end up with a flat mess which is what you’ll see below because I was impatient. Do as I say, not as I do.

Tasty, nonetheless!

Creamy Roasted Garlic and Mushroom Pasta

Total Cost: $2.95 – Serves 2 at $1.45 per serving

I happen to think that mushrooms are literally the best thing ever. In my spare time I fantasize about running a mushroom farm (is that a thing?), growing strange wild mushrooms to eat and cook amazing things with. One day…

This recipe was a bit of an experiment. I had two boxes of mushrooms and wanted to make something profoundly mushroom-y. The 99 Cents Only Store usually carries white button mushrooms, baby portobellos, and large portobellos and on my last trip I opted for some buttons and baby portobellos. If you can find interesting mushrooms (shiitake, oyster, etc.), mix and match that shiz!

I love this recipe for several reasons, but I’ll boil it down to two. The first being that it’s not “creamy” like a rich alfredo sauce. True cream sauces leave me feeling like a lump, a feeling I tend to reserve especially for the holidays. The “creaminess” in this recipe actually comes from blending your mushroom sauce which makes it thick and delicious. You’ll see. I also love it because there’s a million things you could do to experiment with it. It’s vegetarian but it could easily be vegan by omitting the milk and butter and replacing them with vegetable stock and olive oil. You could add peas or spinach if you’re into greenery, or you could easily make it carnivore-friendly with the addition of some kind of salty pork like pancetta. Fresh herbs are never a bad thing, either. My herb garden just happened to be nommed by the neighborhood cats one evening…so I’ll be using dry herbs for a while.

Is this dish healthy? Ehhh, debatable. Is it free of processed foods? Yes. And to me, eating real food is much healthier than the ready-made meals and fast food options out there by miles, even if it’s not made entirely of kale and quinoa. While the addition of butter and cream might raise some eyebrows, in my opinion, if you’re using unsalted butter (real butter, not margarine or spreads), then I actually don’t consider this dish too unhealthy – in moderation of course. But I am in no way a nutritionist and am several years shy of the education and experience it takes to be a doctor, so please take what I say with a grain of salt. Wait, that’s not healthy, either. Don’t just eat salt.  See what I mean?

Ingredients:

1 box of white button mushrooms, chopped ($1.00)
1 box of baby portobello mushrooms, sliced thick ($1.00)
3 cloves of garlic, whole, skin-on
1 shallot, sliced (20¢)
1/2 pack of fettucini pasta (50¢)
~1/4 cup of heavy cream (milk works as well) (~25¢)
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 tblsp. butter
Splash of white wine or stock
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper

Directions: Preheat oven to 375°f (190°c). Boil pasta in a large pot according to package directions. Save a 1/2 cup of pasta water before you drain. For the mushrooms: toss portobellos lightly in olive oil and little salt and place on baking sheet with the unpeeled raw garlic and bake for 25 minutes. In the meantime, heat butter and a little olive oil in a skillet and sauté shallots, red pepper flakes, and thyme on medium heat until shallots are translucent. Add chopped white button mushrooms and cook until soft. The mushrooms will release some water so cook that off before adding a splash (couple tablespoons, maybe?) of white wine (or stock). Let the alcohol cook off then add a 1/4 cup pasta water (I like having extra pasta water in case my sauce gets too thick, hence the other 1/4 cup you saved). Let this come to a boil and reduce slightly. Add cream and salt and pepper to taste. Let come to a boil again, then turn off the heat. Your roasted garlic and mushrooms should be finished. Set roasted ‘shrooms aside. Squeeze out garlic from its skin (they should come out very easily) and into your mushroom sauce. Use a food processor or hand blender to blend the mushroom and garlic mixture. It should be the consistency of sausage gravy you see in biscuits and gravy (shout out to my southern roots). If it’s too thick, add more pasta water. If it’s too thin, cook off some of the water. See here:

Add salt and pepper if needed. Once blended, stir in your roasted mushrooms . Add pasta and cook in sauce for 1-2 minutes. Add some parmesan if you have it. Enjoy!