Zucchini Lasagna

A friend gave us these monsters from her garden and I knew instantly I would have to make zucchini lasagna, these babies were a little longer than lasagna noodles.

The only difference between this and regular lasagna is that zucchini are veryyyyyyyyy moist vegetables so after slicing them you have to either grill them on both sides or salt them to get out that excess moisture.  After that you use them just like lasagna noodles. I usually use chicken sausage or ground turkey or no meat at all I'm my lasagna and have all kinds of veggies but I had a carnivore to please and two chicken breasts on hand so I figured why not try something new. 

First thing I did was cut 1/4" slices lengthwise.  I laid them out on paper towels and salted them them. I let them sit for 15 mins, wiped the moisture that was drawn out, flipped them and did the same for the other side.

While that was going on I cooked 2 chicken breasts and also began sautéing my peppers, onions and garlic.  Once my chicken was cooked I shredded it and added it to my onion mix. Seasoned it with salt, pepper, crushed red peppers, garlic powder, parsley, basil and oregano.  I then added the sauce and let it simmer for 5 minutes. 

Put a little sauce in the bottom of the baking dish then begin layering zucchini, meat and cheese. 

We're heading out of town so I wanted to use up the stuff we had in the fridge and luckily that included fresh mozzarella. 

 

Final layer or zucchini and cheese 

Since I won't be here for dinner time I wrapped it in foil with instructions and put it in the fridge for my love. 

Hopefully I can get a decent picture of it before he destroys it. Happy, healthy eating. 

Poblano tacos

When I tell my parents I'm going to come over and cook for them the reaction is always the same, "is it gonna be that healthy crap?"   And I always then follow it with a lecture about how they should want to be around for their grandchildren and blah blah blah. Keeping with the tradition I allowed them to complain about healthy food while I dragged then around the store collecting ingredients because I know this story always ends the same; they complain, I cook, they eat it, they love it. This meal was only different in the sense that I allowed them to suggest what they wanted to eat and I made them a slightly modified health-IER version to show them little changes they can make.  They wanted tacos and I knew they'd put up a big fight if I pulled out the lettuce tacos so instead I grabbed some poblano peppers which for some reason are called "pasilla peppers" at the grocery store. They were only 89 cents a pound which came out even cheaper than lettuce, nice.

I kept it simple with the ingredients but made them all from scratch to show them how easy it could be (no recipes for these):

>>Poblanos

>>Mexican Rice

>>Refried Beans

>>Pico de gallo

1. Cut triangle openings out of the peppers 

2. Filled each pepper (except mine which was all veggie) with 2tbs. Each of beans, rice and meat

3. Put them in a baking dish, drizzled with some olive oil and a sprinkle of h.s. salt.  In order to get the the peppers a little softer faster I put about half a cup of water in the bottom of the dish, covered it in foil at 375 for about 15 minutes to steam the pepper. I then uncovered it and broiled until it has a nice char but it can be cooked uncovered at 375 without water for about half an hour and come out great.

4. Throw some pico, cotija or crema on top and go to town. My parents loved it, soon they'll stop fighting me.

"Woasted poblano peppuhs"