Very Veggie Lasagna Casserole- And your kids will love it!

This is good stuff.  This is three helpings good.  This is healthy! But don't tell my kids.

This is my Very Veggie Lasagna Casserole.  Seriously, this stuff is loaded with yummy vegetables that my kids normally won't eat.  In fact, it has a veggie in it that I won't eat! As in, it makes me gag to think about eating it.  It took faith to add spinach to this. I hate cooked spinach. H-a-t-e! Would rather do laundry kind of hate. I had two helpings of this, my boys had three each.  And my little princess, who won't eat anything?  Oh, she happily scarfed it down.  Even the baby liked her ground up portion.  The husband had two helpings.  I'm telling you, it's good!

Guess what's in it?  Never mind.  I'll tell you.  :)  I'm generous like that.

Spinach, carrots, zucchini! Can you believe that?  My family ate zucchini and loved it!  I'm seriously doing the happy dance.

So you may remember an earlier post where I told you how to sneak carrots into your ground beef.  If not, you can find that here. That is how I got the carrots in.  The rest- easy peasy.  But no peas.  They wouldn't work in this one.  :)

Very Veggie Lasagna Casserole
1/2 of the meat mixture (found here)
OR
1 lb meat (shred 2 carrots into the meat while it cooks and add 1/2 large onion) cooked and drained.
2 cups of your favorite marinara, spaghetti sauce or even pizza sauce.
        (I used left over home made pizza sauce)
2 cups water with 2 beef bouillon cubes, or 2 cups beef stock
1/2 of a 13.25 oz box of whole wheat penne pasta (I used Barilla)
6 oz Cream Cheese
3/4 C. Cottage Cheese
1 10oz pkg of frozen spinach
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
1 slice swiss cheese (this is how I keep the amount of cheese down. - strong flavor but very little)
1 C. low fat mozzarella cheese divided

 Put the first 4 ingredients in a 4 quart stock pot.  Bring to a boil and turn down the heat to medium low.  While doing that warm up your cream cheese in the microwave so it's very soft.  Stir it until it is very creamy.  I added some basil and oregano to the cream cheese along with some chili powder because my homemade sauce was too bland for my tastes.  But if you are using a commercial spaghetti or marinara sauce, you don't need to do that. Add the cream cheese to the pot along with the cottage cheese and zucchini.  Cover for 5 min.  Now I recommend that you thaw the spinach first, but I didn't remember, so I ran a little hot water over it to remove any ice crystals and tossed it in the pot.  Cook for another 10 min stirring occasionally.  Just before serving add your slice of Swiss and 3/4 C. of mozzarella cheese. Stir in, allowing to melt.  When everything looks creamy pour into your serving dish and top with the remaining 1/4 cup cheese.  Serve.  YUM!

Sneaking in the Veggies

I am making tacos for dinner tonight.  I bet you are wondering why I'm showing a photo of carrots.  Well, I have a secret. When I brown ground beef, I add carrots.  I sneak them in so that my kiddos eat them without knowing it, and I don't have to hear them whine.  I sneak them in so that I can reduce the amount of meat that we eat without anyone missing it.  I sneak them in, because they really enhance the flavor of the meat.  I sneak them in because they are healthy!  Let me show you how.
(I'll post a recipe for lasagna casserole that uses this trick later this week.)

I have this little unit for small chop jobs.

It chops my carrots pretty fine.

I add the carrots and onions to my meat and cook all together.

Yummy ground beef and barely noticeable carrots.

I use:

2 lb. Beef
1 onion
3 extra large carrots
salt and pepper to taste (I actually don't add any. Whatever I am using the meat in will have enough salt)

Finely chop your carrots and chop your onions medium fine.  Combine and cook as you would normally cook your meat.  This is enough meat for 3 meals for my family of 6!

Use for tacos, spaghetti, casserole, hamburger stroganoff, . . . the  possibilities are endless.  Use this same trick for meat loaf and hamburger patties. 

Roasted Corn and Veggie Chowder

Every once in a while I like to play a game called 'how many veggies will fit in one dish?'  This is a game that gets mixed reviews at my house. As long as the family can't see anything offensive they will probably eat it.  If however, the zucchini is distinguishable, I'm in trouble.

In the past, I have not peeled the zucchini before putting it in the brownies.  The family was very suspicious of the green flecks.  When my boys were little they accused me of "feeding them worms" when I tried to use spaghetti squash in place of noodles.  They have warily eyed the "orange" french fries, and they have questioned me in depth over why carrots were in the spaghetti sauce.  Apparently I am not very sneaky.

This time, happily, they didn't ask, and they ate, and ate, and ate.  It was fabulous! So enjoy this chowder, and feel good knowing that your family members are getting their vegetables. :)

This is going to make a very very large amount of soup.  This will feed a crowd.  I had 7 people at dinner, mostly adults. Everyone had seconds and I still had at least 1/2 of the soup left.  I did this on purpose so I could freeze some for a future meal.  However, you can halve or even quarter this recipe and it will be just fine.

If you make this and put it in a slow cooker on warm you could feed the tailgating crowd at the next game.  Serve it with some yummy soft pretzels, and you are tailgate ready.  And if you make your pretzels with whole wheat flour, you have two healthy options, that your friends and family will love.

All of this is going onto the grill

This will be going directly into the broth to boil

just set the veggies right on the grill

yup- 4 slices of bacon. 

4 cups water plus 4 chicken bouillon cubes or 4 cans chicken stock
3-4 cups water
3 cups milk
4 corn cobs (cooked in boiling water and patted dry)
2 large baking potatoes peeled (you can use 3-4, but I try to avoid too much starch)
4-5 large carrots peeled- 3 will be grilled, but chop 2 and set aside- put in the soup pot when you add  the grilled veggies
1 large zucchini peeled, and seeded
1 head of cauliflower chopped
2-3 cups broccoli chopped
2 large stalks of celery chopped
4 slices of bacon (you will think it's not enough.  It really is and you don't need to add more for flavor, so why have the extra fat?)
1 large or 2 small white or yellow onions
1 whole clove garlic
(I didn't end up using the peppers- so they look pretty, but don't really end up in the soup)
4 slices low fat swiss cheese
2 cups cheddar cheese grated
1 8oz package cream cheese
3 teaspoons Old Bay
2-3 bay leaves
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste (I also like to add some white pepper, but it's not strictly necessary.)

Heat your grill to medium low, and place the corn, onions, zucchini, potatoes,carrots, and the garlic on.  I also cooked the bacon on the grill, because the fat drips away, and it's less clean up.  Put the celery, water, bouillon, cauliflower, broccoli and 2 cups of the extra water in a large stock pot and turn it on to simmer.

Once simmering, add the cream cheese and whisk it in so its smooth.  It will look milky in the water.  If it starts to look like it's cooking down too much, add another cup of water.

Once your veggies have nice char marks, remove from grill. Cool for a few minutes so you can handle them, then chop the potatoes, carrots, onions, and zucchini.  Peel and smash the garlic and cut the corn off the cob.  Add all of this along with the carrot slices that you set aside, to the stock pot.  Add your spices and the bay leaves and bring everything to a simmer.  At this point you may need to add 1-2 cups of water.

Let simmer for about 10 minutes, then add your milk and your cheeses.  It's going to start to thicken.  If it doesn't thicken enough, you can add some potato flakes.  You can also use flour or cornstarch, but I figure, since you already have potato starch in the soup, it makes sense to stick with it.

There you are.