Category: Fighting Dharma

Mushroom Spinach Lasagna

On Saturday I made a low calorie vegetarian lasagna, and it turned out very well – tasty and filling. I took the recipe from the Canadian Living 2005 Crockpot Cooking special issue, and I adapted it.

It has to be made in a larger oval crock. It uses 12 no-cook or oven-ready noodles; the noodles need to be snapped at the ends to fit in the pot. After making the sauces, it cooks in about 3 hours. Give yourself an hour and half to chop and process vegetables, grate cheeses, and to cook or mix the 2 sauces. It makes 8 servings. The recipe notes say it would be about 370 calories per serving. I added some cheese so lets say 400 grams per serving. It uses whole containers of ingredients which is convenient. No half cans of stuff sitting around, nothing wasted. There is a cold cheese sauce, a hot tomato mushroom sauce, and a topping.

The cold cheese sauce is made by mixing these ingredients in a bowl:

  • 1 500 gram tub of low fat cottage cheese (The recipe suggested 2% but 1% should work. However 1% isn’t that much lighter than 2%).
  • 1/4 cup (50-60 ml) grated parmesan cheese.
  • 1/2 cup to 1 cup (125 t0 250 ml) grated mozzarella cheese.
  • 1 egg, beaten.
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (grated.
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper (or more to taste).
  • (The recipe also says 1/4 teaspoon salt but I skipped the salt as I always do).
  • 1 package (10 oz or 300 grams) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained.

The hot tomato mushroom sauce is made with a large onion or a couple of medium onions, 5 or 6 cloves of garlic, a carrot, 4 cups of sliced mushrooms, some dried spices, and one 700 ml jar of any basic off-the-shelf pasta sauce. The onion should be chopped. The carrot should be finely diced. The garlic should be minced. The mushrooms should be washed and sliced. The next step involves a saucepan big enough to hold the vegetables and the sauce. Heat some vegetable oil in the saucepan and sauté the onion, garlic, carrots and mushrooms with dried spices over medium heat until the onions mushrooms cook down. They give up their water at first, and the water steams off. This should take 8-10 minutes.

The main spice is 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning. (Italian seasoning is a mixture of Marjoram, Thyme, Rosemary, Savory, Sage, Oregano, and Basil. I don’t know the proportions. If I didn’t have Italian seasoning on the shelf I would use 1/2 tsp Marjoram, 1/2 tsp Thyme, and 1/4 tsp each of Rosemary, Savory, Sage, Oregano, and Basil). The other spices are 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, ground, and a pinch of hot pepper flakes. The recipe said a pinch but I used a healthy pinch. more like a quarter teaspoon.

When the vegetables have cooked down, add the pasta sauce and 1 and 1/2 cups (375 ml) of water. Stir to mix, then heat until the mixture boils.
Fill the crockpot in layers, from the bottom up:

  • One cup of tomato sauce – fill the bottom of the pot.
  • Three noodles.
  • A layer of spinach-cheese mix – half of the bowl.
  • Three noodles.
  • A layer of tomato sauce – half of what’s left in the pan.
  • Three noodles.
  • A layer of spinach-cheese – the rest of the bowl.
  • One last layer of 3 noodles.
  • The rest of the tomato sauce on top.

Then sprinkle a cup or a cup and a half of grated mozzarella (the printed recipe also suggests provolone) cheese on top, cover, and cook for three hours on low. The cheese will melt but it won’t bake. You can tell it’s done if you can poke a knife or fork down into the noodles and they are nicely soft.

Palm Sunday, 2005, Skiing

After a two week break, I skied last Sunday (March 13), and I got out again on Thursday, and today. The spring sunshine is melting the snow even though the temperatures are still mainly below the freezing point. The ski season may be ending, although a cold spell and a few millimeters of new powder (or klister) could extend it.

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March Begins

The weather turned ugly today. It had been warm on Saturday, with some good melting. The forecast for today had held the potential for skiing – cooler temperatures and fresh snow. The warm temperatures persisted until midday when sleet and freezing rain started. I decided to stay home. It might have been ok in the woods but the wind and snow were making the roads treacherous. On a positive note, I got upper body workouts yesterday and today with my long-handled ice chisel. I chopped back some of the ice and snow behind my garage, opened some drainage for my neighbours’ parking pad (they moved from Victoria and still haven’t figured out what hit them, opened the sewer grate at the end of the back lane, and opened the grate in the curb in front of my neighbours’ Jim and Sharon’s house. I should shoot some digital pictures of the great rows of snow on the boulevard before they melt further.

Canned Drinks

After Steve’s comments on my last entry (Portion Advice) about Weightwatcher points, I looked at the labels on a few 355 ml (12 oz) beverage cans. The Safeway house brand root beer and regular cola have 162 and 161 calories per can, respectively. Diet Coke has 2 calories per can. Schweppe’s diet ginger ale, 0 calories. Schweppes Tonic Water – 130 calories. Canada Dry Tonic – not marked. Presidents Choice Brew (0.5 percent beer) is 65 calories per can. I have some regular beer in the house, but beer labels don’t have nutritional data. I dug up some information.

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Portions Advice

Yesterday I wrote about portion sizes, complaining that good nutritional information tends to be published alongside luxuriously unhealthy recipes and other consumption-oriented material. On Wednesday the Free Press basically turns its Life and Entertaiment section into a Food section, with articles about cooking, recipes and a wine column. Today, I found an article out of the Canadian Press covering the start of Nutrition Month – March is Nutrition month for the Dieticians of Canada. This year they are emphasizing portion size.

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