Reduced Fat Vegetarian Whole Wheat Lasagne

Hi All,

First, I want to let you know that I have lost 10 pounds since I started my diet.  It is coming off slowly, but at least it is coming off.  This week I decided to try my hand at making a podcast.  I demonstrate how to put a reduced fat lasagne together.  Don’t worry if you miss anything, because I am including everything you need in the actual blog. Just click on the youtube link below and watch.   Also, be kind.  It’s my first podcast, and they will get better each time—I hope. 

Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjBRzMHA8Jg 

            Reduced Fat Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

4 cloves of garlic

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Olive oil Pam

3 cans (28 oz size) whole tomatoes, crushed by hand

1 can tomato paste

½ cup chopped fresh basil

Salt

2 teaspoons of baking soda

Spray pot with Pam.  Sauté whole garlic cloves slowly in olive oil over medium heat until golden brown.  Remove from heat and let cool.  In a bowl crush the whole tomatoes with your hands.  Put pot back on medium heat and add tomatoes slowly to the oil.  Cook for 10 minutes or until bubbling.  Add basil, salt, and baking soda.  The baking soda is used to blunt the acidity of the tomatoes.  Add paste and 3 cups of water.  Simmer for about an hour. 

Reduced Fat Vegetarian Whole Wheat Lasagne

Ingredients

8 cups of Marinara Sauce

1 large bag of frozen chopped spinach (thawed with all water squeezed out)

1 pound of whole wheat lasagne

1 pound of skim ricotta

1 medium skim mozzarella, grated

1 egg

1 cup grated Reduced Fat Parmigiano Cheese

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

Olive Oil Pam

salt and pepper to taste

Sauté garlic in olive oil in an Olive Oil Pam sprayed pan until slightly browned.  Add spinach and continue to sauté until spinach is cooked, about ten minutes.  Remove the two cloves of garlic and discard.    

Have Marinara Sauce already prepared and warm.  Mix ricotta with ½ cup of sauce, salt, pepper, ½ cup of the grated Parmigiano, and egg.  Cook lasagne in salted boiling water for 15 minutes or until tender.  (Spray Olive Oil Pam in water to prevent sticking.)  Drain and spread lasagne on a serving platter, spraying with Pam.  Pour ½ cup of sauce on the bottom of a lasagne pan or dish sprayed with Olive Oil Pam.  Put in a layer of lasagne, spread ricotta mixture over lasagne, add a thin layer of the sautéed spinach and a layer of mozzarella.  Sprinkle with grated Parmigiano.  Repeat layers until all ingredients are used, ending with a layer of lasagne covered with sauce.  Bake in moderate oven (375 degrees) for 10 minutes or until lasagne is thoroughly heated.  Serves 6.

 

Giambotta

Hi All,

Quick update:  I have lost ten pounds since I started my new way of living—small portions, exercise, and, let’s not forget, “Reducing the Fat-Never the Flavor.”  Plug, plug, plug.  The book is also going well.  Most of the touching and funny stories in the book deal with my weight problem, being gay, and, of course, my family here in Jersey.  I don’t talk about it much in the book, but there was a time when I lived in LA.  I used to spend six months out of the year there for pilot season.  It was a blast.  I loved it and made some great friends.  The only time I really got homesick was on Sundays.  I knew my whole family would be at my mom’s having these wonderful Sunday dinners that my grandmother would prepare, so I decided to have my own Sunday dinners.  It started with just having a couple of friends over for dinner.   Well, it turned out that a lot of people were missing their family dinners at home; so from a couple of people, we ended up being twelve or more.  Everyone would take turns cooking a Sunday dinner.  On my Sunday I usually made everyone’s favorite, my grandmother’s Giambotta.  It’s great.  She made it with chicken, sausage, peppers, potatoes, etc.  I retooled it by using turkey sausage, sweet potatoes, and, of course, less fat.  Oh, please excuse the picture of it.  Christine, who takes all those wonderful pictures of the food, had to shoot a wedding the day I made the Giambotta; so the picture was taken by me with a little pocket camera—but  have no fear, she will be back for the next shoot.

Enjoy

Giambotta

Ingredients

2 pounds of boneless chicken breasts cut in 2 inch pieces

1 ½ pounds of turkey (or veal) sausage cut in 1 inch pieces

4 bell peppers cut in 2 inch pieces (I use different colors—green, red, yellow, orange)

3 peeled sweet potatoes, parboiled then cut in 2 inch pieces

10 medium size mushrooms, quartered

1 onion sliced

1 large clove of elephant garlic chopped

Olive Oil Pam spray

2 tablespoons of Olive Oil

1 package of Good Seasons Salad Dressing

½ cup of white wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Spray a large (6 quarts) pot with the Olive Oil Pam Spray, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and sauté the garlic and onions for about five minutes over a low heat or until translucent (not browned).  Turn the heat up to medium and add the chicken pieces to brown, stirring constantly to avoid sticking.  Add the sausage and continue to sauté for an additional 6 to 8 minutes, again stirring constantly to avoid sticking.  Add the colored peppers, the mushrooms, the sweet potatoes, the white wine, and the Good Seasons Salad Dressing, stirring to mix all the ingredients well.  Cover and simmer over low heat until chicken and sausage are cooked and the vegetables are tender.  This should take about 15 or 20 minutes.