A Locavore...Classic Recipes Part 2

Lasagna

I am finally getting to appreciate my slow cooker.  It took me a while to get over having a heated appliance going in my house when I’m not there, but since my stepson moved in and comes and goes a lot, and I usually go home for lunch in the middle of my work day, I figure it’s fairly safe.  I use it on our island with the granite countertop, and the outlet one foot away with a CGI receptacle, and make sure there is nothing even remotely close to it.  Still, caution is advised, and the best possible use of a slow cooker is when you’re close by, but want to be doing something else, like cleaning, wrestling with the kids, reading a book, or giving yourself a manicure (without nail clippings in the food, please.  Eww).

So, my second “classic” recipe, now with added slow cooking bonus points, is lasagna.  I have to say, I was terrified that this would come out mushy or soupy, but I was pleasantly surprised by the effect, and now actually prefer the slow cooker lasagna.  The noodles soak up the moisture nicely, and there are no crunchy uncooked pasta bits on the edges (like there are with my oven lasagna).  There are several steps to lasagna, of course, so I did prep for this on a Sunday afternoon, and put everything together on Tuesday to enjoy Tuesday night.

First step:  sauce.  My gosh, there are a TON of recipes for marinara out there.  And then, there’s the already prepared sauce from the grocery.  I am always overwhelmed by the amount of choice, and figure it takes very little time and effort to make a decent sauce on my own.  My second hurdle is how much to make.  I’m always scared of not having enough, so I decided to make a lot, then always have some left over for a quick pizza or spaghetti, if necessary.  For the veggie version, I had exactly the right amount for my size slow cooker. 

If you feel the need for meat, start with browning it, add in the garlic afterwards, and leave out the oil.  We are in a meat-buying club, and our local Italian bulk sausage would have been fabulous in this recipe.  I was in the mood for vegetarian, though, so I started with a healthy splash of olive oil and about 5 cloves of minced garlic.  I am not averse to the jarred organic minced garlic to save time, but it does change the flavor.  After the olive oil has warmed up the garlic (not burnt it!), I add a can of tomato paste and brown it just a little bit.  I then blend in a can (15-oz.) of tomato sauce, and a small (15-oz.) and a large (28-oz.) can of diced tomatoes.  My standby brand is Muir Glen organic, but there are lots of choices out there.  If I had my own garden, I’m sure I would have loads of frozen romas to thaw, chop up and throw in.

Canned tomatoes can be quite acidic, of course, so the pinch (in this case, a pretty healthy pinch) of sugar is important.  Mine seemed a bit thick at this point, so I poured in about 1/3 cup of some Malbec that had been opened a couple of days before and needed to go.  Any dry red wine would do.  I also add about two tablespoons each of dried oregano and dried basil.  I add a quick sprinkle of cinnamon, which I found also combats the acidity.  Don’t worry, it won’t taste like apple pie!  I put a lid on it and let it simmer for about an hour.

I recently read about simmering.  I had always assumed that simmering involved little bubbles, and was basically boiling, albeit softly.  Actually, I found out that simmering is what your slow cooker does on low, and shouldn’t be bubbling.  It’s sort of the temperature where steam is coming out, and you can smell the thing, but you aren’t cooking out all of the flavor.  Simmering tomato sauce means that you shouldn’t have to shield your white blouse from the lid when you lift it up to check on the sauce.  Sure, the bubbles will “pop” a little bit, but it shouldn’t look like a tomato geyser.

So….while my marinara was simmering, I cleaned some lovely, giant spinach leaves from our local organic farm, Blue Moon, that I had bought at our co-op.  I don’t know how much, but it did fill my salad spinner.  I removed the large stems and chopped the spinach coarsely.  I used my sad-excuse-for-a-food-processor to blend a low-fat organic cottage cheese into a smooth ricotta substitute.  Organic low-fat cottage cheese is much easier to find than organic low-fat ricotta, and I frankly haven’t found much difference in taste after adding about 1 c. of shredded organic Italian blend cheeses to the mix.  Finally, before my food processor gave up the ghost entirely, I threw in the spinach and blended it so that I could see little bits of spinach in the white cheese.  I put the cottage cheese mixture and the cooled marinara into containers and into the fridge.  I totally forgot about the eggs that were supposed to go into the cheese mixture, but I’m not really sure what they’re for, anyway.  Maybe I’ll throw them in next time and see what the difference is.

On Tuesday, I assembled the lasagna over my lunch hour.  I divided the marinara into fourths, and the cottage cheese mixture in half.  I put one quarter of the chunky marinara on the bottom. The noodles were uncooked regular (not no-boil) organic ones, and I broke them up a bit to fit the shape of my oval 6-quart slow cooker.  Then I added half of the cottage cheese/spinach/cheese mixture and spread it carefully around with a wooden spatula.  One third of the remaining Italian blend cheese (about 1/3 of a cup), then another layer of marinara.  Noodles.  Cottage cheese.  Cheese.  Marinara.  Noodles.  Marinara.  Lid.  Hopefully you have a programmable slow cooker that you can set for five hours on low, then it will switch to warm.

I got home after work, put the final 1/3 c. shredded cheese on top, and placed the lid back on. I changed my clothes, tossed a salad, made a quick vinaigrette, and by that time, the cheese was melted.  Dinner was ready!  If you can divide an oval into eight parts, then by my calculation, one part will be about 340 calories.  Not bad for lasagna!