Green-red vegetarian full-corn lasagna

Finally! I came up with a lasagna, that is sooo good (for my taste) and that fully fits to my healthy profile :) The green lasagna I learned from Agne and Daniele, and that is certainly the best lasagna ever. The red part came in for a change, and also because I did not have enough of spinach, but, if you have never tried green one, just use double ingredients and don't mess up with the red. This version also has no bechamel souce. You can add it, but it is also good without. You can also use lasagna noodles from the pack, but it is just not the same!

Ingredients

Green part
125 g low-fat ricotta chease or sweat (not sour) cottage cheese
250 g frozen finely chopped spinach
a spoon of olive oil
one big onion
2 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
a bit of peper
a bit og nutmeg powder
a teaspoon of salt

Red part
1 can of tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
1 carrot
A handful of black olives
a spoon of olive oil
basil
a bit of chilli (optional)
a bit of paprika powder
a teaspoon of salt
80 g of low-fat mozarella (fresh or shredded)

Lasagna noodles
2 eggs
1 glass (or a bit more) of all-purpose wheat flower
3/4 grass of full-corn wheat flower
a teaspoon of salt for boling

Preparation

1. Defreeze the spinach in hte fridge, some 10 hours ahead. You can also use the fresh ones and cut them in tiny pieces, but that will add plently of prep time.

2. Prepare the noodles: add flower to eggs and put it together with hands, until it is uniform and not sticky. If the dough is still too soft, add some more flower, but not too much. Then, roll it out on a kitchen table until it is very thin. When it already seems very thin, make it double more thin. Then, cut in squares and let them dry (honestly, I do not know why it is needed to dry). If you are making only green lasagna, you can add some spinach to the dough. If you are making a green-red lasagna, you can add some spinach to half of the dough.

3. Cut garlic and carrots to small pieces.

4. Prepare the green filling. Cut garlic cloves to halves and fry a bit in olive oil in a sauce pan. Then, add onions and saute until they are transparent. After, add spinach and a bay leaf and saute a bit more. At the end, add salt, spices, turn it off, take out garlic and bay leaf, and mix with ricotta. I used home-made low-fat ricotta, the recipe is on the way - it is extremelly simple.

5. Prepare the red filling. Cut garlic cloves to halves and fry a bit in olive oil in a sauce pan. Then, add onions and saute until onions are transparent. Add tomato, basil, sliced olives, and saute until part of liquid evaporates. At the end, add the rest of the spices and take out garlic.

6. Put everything together. Bring the salted water in a big pot to boil, and add some 5 noodles at a time. Add a bit of red sauce on the bottom of an oven dish, then cover with 1 layer of noodles. Add a bit more of red sauce, cover with a bit of mozarella, and a layer of noodles. When the red sauce and the biggest part of mozarella is finished, continue with the green one. Finish with the green sauce and some mozarella on top.

7. Bake it in pre-heated oven and bake for ~30 min. Take it out and let it settle down for few minutes before cutting.

Experiences

For me, it was great. Fresh and light and tasteful. The noodles were much thicker than I expected, so really roll them out until they are transparent. Full-corn flower did not mess up the taste, but use some white flower as well, otherwise it becomes too bitter. I had some left-over noodles, so you could use a bit more sauce. And, I did not miss bechamel sauce at all. This time I ran out of garlic and did without, but garlic adds lots of flavour.

Possible changes - paprika and mushrooms for the red sauce, no onion for the green sauce.

Tamale Pie

I was inspired to make this dish by Simply Recipes. Then I browsed more for it and found many versions. As I understood, it is an American dish that pretends to be Mexican. Anyway it tastes good :) I changed beef to turkey, added carrots, and removed sweat pepper (simply because I did not have it).

Ingredients

400g minced turkey
2/3 of a can of sweat corn
a small can of olives
One big carrot
A small handful of raisins (optional)
A can of crushed tomato
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
A spoon of olive oil
A small spoon of cumin
A small spoon of paprika
A bit of chili (depends how spicy you want it, I use just a small bit)
Cover:
A cup of corn
A cup of milk
A cup of water
A spoon of olive oil
A teaspoon of salt
A bit of chilli

Procedure

First, prepare the corn batter for the cover. Mix all cover ingredients in a pot and bring to boil. Reduce the fire and boil for some 5-7 min, then leave covered and warm.

Pour a spoon of olive into a pan and when it is hot, add the onion and garlic, cut into small pieces. Fry a bit, add carrots, meat, and spices. Cook until the meat is almost ready (around 10 min), then add tomatoes and cook more until the liquid evaporates. At the end, add corn, sliced olives, and raisins.

Put everything to a baking dish and cover with the corn batter.

Preheat the oven to 200 and bake the pie until the cover ("corn bread") becomes crusty, around 30 min.

Experiences

I have no idea what the outcome should be, so I was happy with mine. Just make sure you leave no liquid in the filling, otherwise the corn bread will hardly get crusty and you will have the sauce dripping out of the dish, just like it happened to me :) There are many versions of the corn bread, it could also be with egg and more oil, or just water and corn. I liked mine, milk adds nice taste to it.

French Omlet

This was my dish in the salsa party - an easy thing to do for many people, and has plenty of variations. The basics is egg, and for the rest - you can add almost anything. This is a vegetarian version, if you do not count the eggs :) I liked the combination this time, and it was with a bit of a mix of tortilla and lithuanian omlet.

With the given amounts you get a big one!

Ingredients

Filling
9 eggs
half glass of semolina (manai, or mannagryn)
half glass of milk
2 big potatoes
1 big onion
1 big carrot
a couple handfuls of frozen snap-beans (sparagines pupleles, or asparagus boenner; if you are lucky to have fresh, use those)
a hanful of olives
A bit of parmezanno for topping (optional).
Salt, pepper, parsley, dills

Crust
Half glass of hot water
2 spoons of butter or olive oil (with oil, it does not crust like with butter, but butter is bad:))
flower to make it hard

Preparation

Mix the base ingredients together until it is even, hard, and not-sticky. Roll dough into thin layer and cover a baking dish with it. Another variation of the base is to use an egg instead of hot water.

Scramble the eggs well, soak semolina in milk, and mix together (if you have time, scramble egg yellow and white with salt separatelly). Add spices to eggs. Lightly fry or saute very thin-sliced potatoes, onions, and cubbed carrots. Put them, olives, and beans to the baking dish. Pour the egg mix on top. Put to pre-heated oven, and bake for at least 40 min (depends how thick it is). Before the end, top it with grated parmezanno.

Experiences

The original version is with cream and bacon, just, I don't like these. I used to add milk instead of cream, but the omlet becomes too soft. My mam does omlet with semolina, and it worked for me. I've tried this thing with various vegetables. I think, olives go really well in it, as well as snap-beans. And, it is good to have lots of colours. Dills fit with eggs very well. Although, basilikum and other grasses are also good for a change.